Pentagon Prioritizes Pursuit of Alternative Fuel Sources
by: Steve Vogel
The Washington Post

For the Defense Department, the largest consumer of energy
in the United States, addiction to fuel has greater costs
than the roughly $18 billion the agency spent on it last
year.

By some estimates, about half of the U.S. military
casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are related to attacks
with improvised explosive devices on convoys, many of which
are carrying fuel. As of March 20, 3,426 service members
had been killed by hostile fire in Iraq, 1,823 of them
victims of IEDs.

“Every time you bring a gallon of fuel forward, you have
to send a convoy,” said Alan R. Shaffer, director of
defense research and engineering at the Pentagon. “That
puts people’s lives at risk.”

Spurred by this grim reality, the Pentagon, which
traditionally has not made saving energy much of a
priority, has launched initiatives to find alternative
fuel sources. The goals include saving money, preserving
dwindling natural resources and lessening U.S. dependence
on foreign sources.

“The honest-to-God truth, the most compelling reason to
do it is it saves lives,” said Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson,
director of operations and logistics for the Army. “It
takes drivers off the road.”

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Other than fueling jet engines, the largest drain on U.S.
military fuel supplies comes from running generators at
forward operating bases. The Pentagon says that the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq have required more fuel on a daily
basis than any other war in history. Since the conflicts
in Afghanistan and Iraq began in 2001 and 2003,
respectively, the amount of oil consumption at forward
bases has increased from 50 million gallons to 500 million
gallons a year.

To help reduce consumption, the Pentagon is using
$300 million of the $7.4 billion it received from the
economic stimulus package to accelerate existing programs
for developing alternative fuels and saving energy.

“In the overall scheme of the stimulus, it sounds small,”
Shaffer said. But he added that the relatively modest sum
is being strategically targeted to make the most of it.
“For $300 million, we have a lot of things that could be
found.”

Garbage, for example, is a commodity never in short supply
when the Army goes to the field. A battalion-size forward
operating base generates a ton of trash a day. The Pentagon
is developing mobile units – small enough to fit on a five-
ton flatbed trailer – that use an anaerobic microbial
process to convert garbage into oil.

Two prototypes – known as the Tactical Garbage to Energy
Refinery – were deployed to Iraq in the summer and were
initially successful, converting field waste – paper,
plastic, cardboard and food slop – into biofuel to power
a 60-kilowatt generator. “We were able to get oil out of
trash,” Shaffer said.

But the units were not particularly hardy and soon broke
down. The stimulus money includes $7.5 million to develop
a more rugged model.

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The Pentagon is also investing $15 million of the stimulus
money into developing lightweight, flexible photovoltaic
mats that could be rolled up like a rug and used at forward
bases to draw solar power for operating equipment.

“We think $15 million will let us build, develop and test
one of these roll-out mats,” Shaffer said.

About $6 million is aimed at improving a program run by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to convert
algae into jet propulsion fuel 8, or JP-8, that could
power Navy and Air Force aircraft.

Other initiatives include $27 million to develop a hybrid
engine the Army could use in tactical vehicles and
$2 million to develop highly efficient portable fuel
cells that could reduce the battery load carried by
infantry soldiers.

The Pentagon is also testing the use of solar and
geothermal energy to provide power at installations.
The Army, for example, is partnering with a private
firm to build an enormous, 500-megawatt solar farm at
Fort Irwin, Calif. The farm would supply the 30 to 35
megawatts needed to operate the installation, with the
remaining available for sale to the California electrical
grid.

Fort Irwin’s desert location is particularly well suited
for solar energy, but the concept of using buffer land
for energy production could be applied at many
installations, said Keith Eastin, assistant secretary of
the Army for installations and environment.

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“This buffer land could be used for solar farms, wind
farms, whatever,” Eastin said. “This would require almost
no investment by the Army. This is a new way of thinking
in the Army, to take advantage of the assets we have.”

For all the emphasis on new technologies at the Pentagon,
one of the most successful initiatives involves decades-old
technology: insulating thousands of tents in Iraq and
Afghanistan with a two-inch layer of foam. The foam is
sprayed like shaving cream from 55-gallon drums and hardens
in about 20 minutes.

A $95 million program to spray-foam tents in Iraq has
dramatically reduced the amount of fuel needed for heating
and cooling, saving $2 million in energy costs per day,
Anderson said. It is also reducing the Army’s logistical
footprint, which includes roughly 900 trucks per day moving
in and out of Iraq, he said.

“We’ve already taken 12 trucks off a day,” said Anderson,
who previously served as deputy chief of staff for
resources and sustainment for the multinational force
in Iraq. “That may not seem like a lot, but it adds up
pretty… quickly. Those are some of the most dangerous
roads in the world. I’m confident it has saved lives.”

A $29 million contract has been signed to insulate tents
in Afghanistan, where vulnerable land supply routes pose
serious challenges as the United States attempts to build
up its forces.

“If we’re going to be in Afghanistan for a while, it
behooves us to foam as many structures as we can,” Anderson
said.

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