Military Sets Its Sights on Sustainability

Air Force, Business News/Analysis, Defense, Federal Agency, Navy

May 31, 2011

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by Richard Baillie (Renewable Energy World) A host of renewable technologies are now winning the hearts and minds of military planners.
…But the military’s adoption of new technology had its greatest and most enduring impact in 1912 when Winston Churchill, then the UK’s First Lord of the Admirality, ordered the British Royal Navy to switch its fuel source from coal to oil in its new battleships. This was not only a defining moment in the history of warfare but it also led to the development of the oilfields of the Persian Gulf and the growth of the Anglo-Persain oil company, an antecedent of the modern-day BP, and put the world on a path towards growing oil dependency that has defined energy economics in recent decades.
Fast-forward 100 years and the military is again looking to switch energy sources in a shift away from hydrocarbon dependence and with a nod on renewables playing an increasingly important role. And, as with Churchill’s decision, the move is likely to have repercussions well beyond the battlefield.
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But while cost is a key factor, an even greater imperative is the fact that the US military’s insatiable need for hydrocarbons is having a negative impact on its ability to fight. Fuel supplies severely restrict battlefield mobility and fuel convoys themselves make relatively easy targets for insurgents, while tying up the key front-line troops that are necessary to protect them.
The problem was seen as so serious that in 2006, the top US military commander in western Iraq, Major General Richard Zilmer, urgently requested the Pentagon to send more renewable energy systems to the country to make use of solar and wind power to produce power for bases and outposts.
Zilmer’s decision was seen as the opening shot in the push for a greater role of renewables in the military.
…Moreover, the cost of providing energy in war zones is often calculated as a ‘fully burdened’ cost, which means not just the initial cost of buying fuel, but also the cost of transporting it to where it is needed. Per gallon estimates range anywhere from $20 to $1000.
Then there is the human cost. General Steve Anderson, a senior logistician in Iraq for the US military, estimates that more than 1000 Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a direct result of transporting fuel to power tents and buildings. READ MORE

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