Big Green

This U.S. military aircraft flies on 50% biofuels

The U.S. military is huge--it's annual budget is larger than all other discretionary spending put together.  So when the U.S. military does anything, it does it big.  And when the U.S. military changes anything, it is apt to have big effects.

  As a recent Sierra Club Magazine article noted, its energy use is huge, especially petroleum: "The Department of Defense uses more petroleum (and energy) than any other organization on the planet—$13 billion to $18 billion worth a year, depending on who does the math. That accounts for more than 80 percent of the federal government's energy tab."

But there are problems, apart from expense. Petroleum is heavy and must be transported over long distances.  That a particular problem in combat zones.  Here's a fact I'll bet you didn't know: half the U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffered while guarding fuel convoys.

The majority of that fuel moreover isn't used for vehicles but for electrical power: for generators that are usually very noisy, and attract unwanted attention in the field.

So slowly but surely, the U.S. military--including the Air Force and the Navy--are going green, with lighter and quieter solar power, and with airplanes flying on biofuels and hybrid ships.

  In 2007, one out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to a military fatality, according to an Army study examining the link between casualties and energy. The 6,000 fuel convoys that year imposed such a huge cost in lives, manpower, and money that the Pentagon could no longer ignore it, Browning says. "We call them convoys, but we might as well call them targets," says James Valdes, an Army scientific adviser and designer of a prototype trash-to-energy system for combat zones. Adds Paul Skalny, director of the Army's National Automotive Center in Detroit, "This is the number that matters: For every 1 percent of fuel we don't have to burn, 6,444 fewer soldiers have to be involved in convoy operations. And those are sons and daughters and husbands and wives who get to go home to their families someday."  

In addition to mortality statistics are some grim budgetary realities. Getting fuel to combat troops in Afghanistan costs between $25 and $50 a gallon, and sometimes as much as $400. Even at the most peaceful outpost, it's never lower than $14 a gallon. Says Tom Hicks, the Navy's first deputy assistant secretary for energy (a post that didn't exist until last year): "We've realized that the best barrel of oil is the one we don't use."

So the Navy is embarked on building a "great green fleet."  These and other efforts sparked the suspicions of the Senator from Oil and consequent Climate Crisis denier, James Inhofe.  Apart from the Pentagon not having the luxury of denying reality (and so they take the Climate Crisis seriously), here's how Sierra explained the response:

 Just as President Barack Obama pushed renewables while avoiding the word "climate" in this year's State of the Union address, Mabus and other defense leaders downplay any connection between a sustainably powered military and fighting climate change. Sharon Burke, the new director of defense operational energy plans and programs—the closest thing to an energy czar that the Pentagon has ever had—used this strategy when confronted during her confirmation hearings last fall by climate-change doubter-in-chief Senator James Inhofe. Burke shrugged off his suggestion that she was making carbon reduction her priority, saying that her charge was to "improve the military's energy security" and make sure that the Pentagon factors in the true cost of energy for its equipment, purchases, and operations. But she acknowledged, "They are linked together. . . . If we do it right, that will be one of the results, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But that's not the role of this job."

What makes this a really significant story is the consequence of that first fact:  the U.S. military is really big.  Their growing commitment to green energy means a lot of money flowing into the clean energy economy, especially in research and development.  New biofuels, more efficient solar power transmission--the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Though it's hard to stomach, the truth is that historically, technological innovation and scientific discoveries have very, very often resulted from military funding, or the promise of it.  It goes back at least to Leonardo, and probably back a lot further than that.  So as odd as it might seem, this is one of the more hopeful stories of the year.