“Water is a huge problem, as you all know, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Tajikistan has one of the greatest water potentials in the world. . . we have got a water resources task force now set up in the Department to examine how we can additionally help the countries of the area, and particularly Pakistan with the water issue.”
Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, Briefing on his Recent Trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, Georgia and Germany, March 2, 2010.
As another leg of my trip to NREL and NORTHCOM a few weeks ago with colleagues Commander Herb Carmen and Will Rogers, we swung by the Air Force Academy to check out their energy work. My biggest take-away may be that they have the largest, best-equipped S&T labs I’ve ever seen at a university. It definitely plucked my nerd heartstrings.
But to get to the real point, here is the Academy’s energy vision (pdf):
The 2008 United States Air Force Academy Energy Strategic Plan details a vision to improve our stewardship of fiscal and natural resources, by becoming a leader in the world of renewable energy and involving the 8,200 cadets, faculty and employees of USAFA. The vision is to be a “Net-Zero” electricity installation by 2015 and a carbon-neutral installation by 2025. These challenging and lofty goals raise the bar for the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense and the nation.
Love the linking of energy and climate goals. Notably, they have several key enablers of success at work here: leadership instruction; some motivated individuals; a good partner in their local utility; and funding from the stimulus package. These ingredients have to date added up to their thorough mapping of their alternative energy potential, lots of ongoing research and a solar installation on its way.
The DOD Energy Blogger, himself an Academy grad, described another important aspect of this location back in December thusly:
…tons of potential for cadet learning and culture change. All of which should impact the AF more broadly as the grads move out into leadership positions in the "Real Air Force."
Cheers to that, and while I don’t undermine its importance, I’m thinking that lessons learned they might share from working with a willing utility partner may be even more important for fellow Air Force and DOD installations better meeting energy requirements – something I studied up on about a year back but haven’t been paying as much attention to as of late. If anyone knows of any good research on how different types (or regions) of utilities are or are not integrating renewable, let us know. In the meantime, thumbs up and thanks to the Air Force Academy.
Photo: A 200-milliJoule pulse laser at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. The laser is used for a variety of experiments, including tests to determine how "pushing" sulfur into a silicon-based solar cell increases the cell's efficiency. Courtesy of Rachel Boettcher and the U.S. Air Force.
A recent article in the February 20, 2010 National Journal, “The Bottled-Water Problem,” (subscription required) explores the logistical challenges that the U.S. military and NATO troops are experiencing with water, food and fuel supplies in Afghanistan. In particular, the author, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., focuses on the military’s reliance on importing supplies of bottled-water due, in part, to concerns that contaminated water from indigenous sources is making military personnel sick.
“When we drink local water – just stuff that a normal Iraqi wouldn’t think twice about or an Afghan wouldn’t think twice about drinking, because their [immune] system is used to dealing with all that bacteria and the germs – our systems aren’t used to that,” the author quotes Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, as saying.
Freedberg explores the question of purifying indigenous sources of water and indeed points out that the U.S. military and NATO are working towards buying local water with potential investments in water purification and bottling plants. But purifying water locally might not be the most cost-effective approach to solving the military’s water supply issue in Afghanistan, at least so suggests a Dutch Air Force officer who coordinates logistics for the International Stability Assistance Force.
The “bottled water we import is cheaper than when we get it here,” the Dutch officer told Freedberg. And that might be true if one were calculating the cost of water using the initial purchase value of water by volume compared to what it would cost to get water locally through investments in water purification and bottling plants. But when it comes to military supplies that are shipped to and within a combat theatre, the value of those supplies is much greater than the price the military originally purchases it for.
The Small Wars Manual (SWM), released in 1940 by the United States Marine Corps, in response to the growing engagements in guerilla style wars in Central America and Caribbean, states:
The ‘big three’ of supply are Ammunition, Food, and Water. Combat troops can operate in the field for a very limited time in actual combat with only AMMUNITION, but their continued existence requires the other two, FOOD and WATER. Therefore, in order to conduct the advance inland, one of the first considerations in such a movement must be the means of supply.
I found it interesting that fuel was not one of the “big three,” or that there is not a “big four” as no items in the supply trinity readily lends themselves to substitution. In fact, in the 492-page document, the term “fuel” is mentioned only nine times (one of those times merely in reference to the “fuel tank” being one of the pieces of a river boat).
One has to assume that the United States understood the vital role that fuel played in war and other engagements based upon its oil sanctions against Japan in July 1940 and its complete embargo of oil exports to Japan in November 1941. Additionally, the U.S. War Department's FM 27-10: Rules of Land Warefare, issued that same year as the Small Wars Manual, hold the concealment of fuel as an act of treason, on par with espionage. Furthermore, the only permissible non-combat destruction of occupied terrirories named is "to furnish fuel if imperitively needed for the army."
In the post-Pearl Harbor world, however, fuel took on a greater presence in the U.S. field manual cacophony that erupted after Roosevelt’s declaration of war.
Over the last several months, Dr. Jay Gulledge and I have been exploring the gap between climate science and security policy through our Lost in Translation project. The central tenet of our project and forthcoming report is that there are fundamental ways in which the climate science and policy communities operate that make it very difficult to get the right information they need from each other in order for the two communities to work together in a mutually supportive effort. And though the scope of our project focuses more narrowly on climate scientists and the decision makers who are increasingly using climate science to guide policy decisions, what we have come to notice through our exploration of the relationship between science and policy writ large is that, generally speaking, the foundation of our argument rings true for the broader science and policy communities. Indeed, there are specific aspects of climate science that make it unique compared to the broader gap between science and policy, but that scientists and policy makers tend to have difficulty working together is not an unfamiliar claim.
With that said, over the last several weeks we have met with folks who actually confound this paradigm and facilitate collaboration between the two communities. I wrote last week on the blog that we were on travel in Colorado where we visited with officials at U.S. Northern Command and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. During our visit we met with folks who have demonstrated that there are indeed strong relationships between scientists and decision makers at these places, relationships that cross this gap between the science and policy communities, in support of addressing serious national security challenges.
There is a common refrain (maybe more common in D.C. than elsewhere) that there is a chicken and egg problem with some alternative energy varieties and their infrastructure. This is often cited in reference to the slow emergence of hydrogen and electric vehicles and more widespread use of biofuels, along with their requisite fueling stations. If you build it they will come, so the argument goes.
Fueling stations are of course a necessary prerequisite, but progress will also involve confronting logistical challenges beyond the availability of infrastructure. We’re not just talking fueling stations or pumps here, but also various aspects of production and blending, the time it takes to offload fuel from trains when transported by those means, and storage capacity, among other factors. We had the luck to speak with an expert who worked on this (pdf) report, “Status and Issues for Ethanol (E85) in the United States,” at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) last week in Colorado. It offers a good overview of where things are happening, what is not happening, what the technical and policy issues are and why tackling these issues can be challenging.
For example, it turns out that fueling stations offering E85 have more than doubled in about the past three years. But numbers are still low, and the stars must still be aligned for distributing, storing (when possible) and pumping biofuel in order to allow any major increase in biofuel use in this country. The distribution of vehicles also needs to align roughly with availability of the fuel. The report notes that today most E85 fueling stations are in the Midwest, in proximity to production facilities: “E85 station locations tend to be close to ethanol supply areas, instead of being driven by demand (where FFVs [flexible fuel vehicles] are located).”
Last week, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu undertook what I would characterize as an energy diplomacy tour of the Middle East, spending the first two days of his four day trip in Saudi Arabia, followed by a visit to Abu Dhabi in the UAE, and finally Qatar. While it was certainly exciting to me the trip as a whole didn't get too much coverage, so to save you the hassle of rifling through the annals of Google, I've provided you with a short recap of each day.
Day One (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia):
Secretary Chu kept a tight schedule, meeting with multiple officials. The day began with a discussion with King Abdullah and Saudi Petroleum and Resource Minister Ali Al Naimi. Topics of their talk included climate change, energy security, and the future role of alternative resources. Chu brought these topics together for the public during a speech at the International Energy Forum Secretariat, which hit on some solid natural security points. Chu also outlined the added stress that climate change could add to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, by increasing levels of water scarcity – a problem already endemic in areas such as Yemen, whose instability has already been a thorn in the Kingdom's side.
A war machine, like any mechanism, needs fuel in order to run. When that war machine is operating in an environment where the necessary fuels are sparse, a person has two options: 1) Get it there somehow, or 2) Give up. The current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, as their architects have elected to go with option one, are fed by often-long convoys transporting supplies (fuel and water) for both man and machine.
Convoy, released by C.W. McCall in 1975, follows the journey of truck driver Rubber Duck, within an ever growing convoy on the way to its destination. Due to the high value of its cargo, the convoy is convinced that “Ain't nothin' gonna get in our way,” despite the fact that they come under fire from, “armored cars, and tanks, and jeeps, and rigs of every size. . . And choppers filled the skies.”
Unlike at the finale of this country classic, however, sometimes the most protected convoy can end in ambushed disaster, resulting in astronomical costs for the operation (in time, dollars and blood). The Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) states that resupply casualties historically account for 10-12 percent of total Army casualties, the majority being water and fuel related, making this, quite literally, a deadly issue.
Yesterday I made the journey over to the Hill to check out an interesting hearing for the House Armed Services Committee Readiness Subcommittee over energy management and initiatives on military installations. The hearing, overseen by Chairman Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), heard the testimony of four Defense Department officials: Dr. Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment; Mr. L. Jerry Hansen, Army Senior Energy Executive; Mr. Roger M. Natsuhara, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations and Environment; and Mrs. Debra K. Tune, Performing the Duties of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics. 
The opening testimonies from the four defense representatives can be accessed here: DOD; Army; Navy and Air Force. The hearing can be viewed here.
Rep. Ortiz started on two colossal renewable energy projects that the military services have undertaken, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada and Fort Irwin, California. Despite his evident pride in renewable projects such as this, the initial concern of the hearing was how these and other energy initiatives have the potential to affect DOD operations and readiness negatively. Specifically, he cited the potential for wind farms and solar arrays to disrupt military training and radar, weakening both in-theater and homeland effectiveness. Each witness named this as a potential concern in their respective testimonies, which prompted Ortiz to inquire as to any established basis of information or study to support these concerns. Dr. Robyn noted that, to her knowledge, no projects have gone forward that have created any such problems. Natsuhara followed later with a reasonable statement what concerns them most is what is not known about the effects of most projects, but none of the panelists were able to offer any data supporting, or disproving, the concern for radar disruption.
Whether it’s to save money at the gas pump, reduce the impact on the environment, or get the solo ticket in the HOV lane inside the Beltway, people today are buying a lot of hybrid vehicles.
If you knew you would spend billions of dollars on fuel each year, saving money with hybrid vehicles would have an even bigger impact on the bottom line. That’s one reason why the Navy is investing in hybrid power plants for its ships.
For more reasons that just fuel savings, the Navy has a long-term goal of building completely integrated electric drives for new ships. But for ships in service today, the Navy is looking to hybrid-electric power plants on ships to save fuel costs. The USS Makin Island is the first Navy surface ship to be equipped with such a system.
Makin Island uses gas turbine engines and an auxiliary propulsion system (APS). The APS uses induction-type electric motors to power the ship’s shaft and drive the ship for roughly 75 percent of the time underway.
The demonstration does not stop with just one ship. Last summer, the Navy signed a contract with General Atomics and DRS Technologies to demonstrate the use of hybrid propulsion in the DDG-51 class destroyer in FY 2011. The Navy estimates it will cost $10 million to retrofit this system into each ship. Installing the hybrid electric drive system onto a DDG-51 class destroyer may reduce steaming costs by an estimated 16 percent and save approximately $2.5 million per year.
Makin Island is already saving us money. When she made her trip from Mississippi around South America to San Diego last fall, she consumed 900,000 less gallons of fuel than what another ship of her class would have consumed on the same journey. That translated into about $2 million saved just in the transit to homeport.
The benefits of hybrid drive propulsion on board Navy ships extend beyond the business case for saving money on fuel. It’s also about the mission. The operational impact of using less fuel at sea translates into more steaming days between underway replenishment. The added endurance allows ships to sail independently for longer periods of time and adds greater flexibility to expeditionary operations.
President Obama announced more than $8 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants this week, sparking much news and debate this week over the wisdom of using nuclear as a major source of clean power. This is sure to be the theme for our weekly wrapup next Monday, so stay tuned. Read a complete transcript of his remarks before the Electrical Workers Union Local 26 here.
