Military Going Green... But Chugging Oil

The Wall Street Journal takes a tour today of the Pentagon's clean energy plans. It's a fair and balanced piece -- in the old, pre-Murdoch sense of the term. And it throws some needed cold water on a (slightly over-) enthusiastic essay I wrote for the current issue of Good magazine. In it, I get all rosy-glasses, counting off the military's alt-power projects:

In September 2005, the federal government decreed that 7.5 percent of its power should come from renewable sources by 2013. The Pentagon is already there [and is headed towards 25 percent renewables by 2025]... In sunny San Diego, California, Naval Base Coronado's solar power is saving the annual equivalent of 6,000 barrels of oil. Wind turbines help Warren Air Force Base in gusty Wyoming, keeping 4,866 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from escaping into the atmosphere per year. Then there are the nine military bases that are powered geothermally, by the heat of the earth. California's Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake kicks off 270 megawatts of electricity, keeping lights turned on as far away as Los Angeles.

True, true. But while clean power is nice, the Journal notes, it's small potatoes compared to the oil, gas, and jet fuel the Defense Department guzles:

In the past 20 years, [the military] has cut energy use at facilities 28%. Still, oil accounts for roughly 75% of total energy use. The military's focus has been on saving power -- also a laudable goal, critics say, but not an answer to dependence on oil...

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have increased military fuel use by as much as 56,000 barrels a day. In addition, the military's improved ability to deploy troops to battlefields comes at the cost of increased fuel use: today, more than half of the fuel consumed in combat theaters is used not by front-line soldiers but by supply convoy... The military uses fuel at twice the rate it did in the first Persian Gulf War and four times the rate it did in the Second World War.

Bottom line: It ain't easy, getting to green.

UPDATE 5:10 PM: "The Air Force last month successfully demonstrated how hydrogen fuel cells could one day be used for generating power at forward operating bases and remote locations to help reduce the dependence of U.S. forces on local energy sources and foreign oil," Inside Defense reports.

During the Dec. 14 test, officials from the service’s Advanced Power Technology Office studied how well a newly developed hydrogen fuel cell called the “Multipurpose Electric Power System” could provide electricity to halogen lights, comparing the results to the performance of a diesel generator now used in theater...

The demonstration was the latest in a series of tests under the office’s “tent city” initiative, which examines new alternative energy technologies that may one day help U.S. forces in theater power equipment more efficiently.

UPDATE 01/10/07 11:38 AM: Last week, Defense News had an even deeper look at the military's alt-fuel and alt-power conundrum.

With fuel prices escalating, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., is urging the Navy to go all-nuclear.

For now, only submarines and aircraft carriers are propelled by nuclear power. That’s about 80 of the Navy’s 286 ships. But Bartlett, who chaired the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee, says it’s time for the nuclear Navy to grow. “The line has already been crossed for big-deck amphibious ships,” Bartlett said.

When oil hit $60 a barrel, it became more expensive to operate amphibs on oil than it would be on nuclear power, he said.

“And we will shortly cross the line for cruisers,” Bartlett said.
The Navy calculates that nuclear power becomes economical for cruisers after oil costs $80 a barrel, and for destroyers when oil costs about $205 a barrel.

But...cost is a major roadblock for nuclear-powered ships... Nuclear propulsion systems would add “several hundred million dollars” to each ship. The timing is not good. Congress is already distressed about escalating shipbuilding costs. “Once they see the numbers, it will be very hard to convince them” to go all-nuclear, he said...

[In the meantime,] the Navy also taking [smaller] steps to reduce energy consumption. It has installed bulbous bows and stern flaps on some of its ships. Each of these increases fuel efficiency by a few percentage points, according to John Young, the Pentagon’s director of research and engineering.

The Navy also is considering applying coatings to ship propellers to “potentially get 4 or 5 percent savings in fuel efficiency and possibly some reductions in maintenance,” Young told the House Armed Services Committee in September. “It looks like it pays for itself in no more than about a year.”

No Blood for... Solar Power?

Last Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reported on an unusual memo from the staff of Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the highest-ranking Marine officer in Iraq’s troubled Anbar Province. According to the Monitor, and to more comprehensive treatments in Inside Defense and Defense Industry Daily, Zilmer asked the Pentagon to find a way to get "solar panels and wind turbines" into the hands of his troops. Without access to renewable energy solutions, Zilmer expects to see "continued casualty accumulation [which] exhibits potential to jeopardize mission success."

Say what?

The article in the Monitor suggests two different ways in which solar- and wind-powered generators for isolated outposts would reduce U.S. casualties. The first is that "despite desert temperatures, the hot 'thermal signature' of a diesel generator can call enemy attention to U.S. outposts." How, exactly, an array of solar panels and wind turbines would make U.S. troops less conspicuous in a country bristling with diesel generators is left unclear.

The second argument holds more water. As hard as it is to believe, diesel and other refined petroleum products are actually imported into Iraq by truck, largely from Turkey. And fuel convoys – not to mention the U.S. troops riding in them – are some of the most tempting targets to insurgents: in August 2005, for example, the Army 1st Corps Support Command alone was reporting 30 IED attacks a week.

All that fuel convoyin' costs not only lives, but money, too. Military estimates for the cost of one gallon of generator fuel delivered to a unit at a forward position range from $100 to $400. This is a problem.

(If you’re curious to know how they get those types of numbers for a single gallon of fuel, take a gander at this LMI presentation, from 2004, which cranks out an estimate of $3 per kilowatt-frickin'-hour – or about $120 per gallon of fuel consumed – on the battlefield, compared to $0.40/kWh ($16/gallon) to run those same generators stateside. If this stateside number seems high, too, remember that the number represents all costs associated with turning that gallon of fuel into useful energy, including personnel costs, equipment depreciation, and so on.)

So, what can be done?

Right now, there’s no easy answer. Arlington, Va.-based SkyBuilt Power offers a containerized, deployable solar-/wind-powered generating station which has gotten a lot of press, but the system, which produces "0.5 kW to 150 kW or more," is reported by the Monitor to go for a neat $100,000.

Still, that price tag looks a lot less scary when you keep in mind the absurd cost of running a diesel generator on the battlefield. According to the Monitor, Zilmer’s memo estimated that a system like SkyBuilt’s would pay for itself in three to five years.

That, of course, is probably why In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s own venture-cap firm, is one of SkyBuilt’s big backers.

Part of the logistics crunch which is feeding those convoy casualty rates has more to do with inept planning than with a lack of available technology. In February 2006, the engineering journal IEEE Spectrum published a must-read article describing how diesel fuel is trucked in from Turkey to power Baghdad’s main power station, even while the natural gas which could power the same turbines, if the appropriate equipment were installed, is flared off as waste at an oilfield across the street.

Obviously, renewable energy isn't going to solve problems on the scale of Iraq's FUBARed power grid, nor will it solve problems that are really about planning, and not technology. And just as obviously, there's no mature technology out there ready to take the place of every diesel generator and internal combustion engine in the U.S. armory.

But as I wrote almost a year ago, the Department of Defense can't afford to sit around and wait for someone else to mature those technologies: "the mature renewable-energy and fuel-efficient technology of the future may never appear in reality until it appears among DARPA's 'Areas of Interest.'"

Since I wrote those words, I'm glad to say that there's been all sorts of movement on this front. And the publicity garnered by Zilmer’s memo can only help matters along.

So next time you hear about a company that’s developing better solar cells, or more efficient wind turbines, pay attention. They’re not just Mother Nature’s best friends – they may well be a jarhead's best friend.

-- Haninah Levine

Military Hybrids Stall

For a long time, now, the Pentagon has been looking to land diesel-electric hybrid vehicles to improve fuel economy, reduce logistics and allow power export. But after a decade of research and development, military hybrids are still years away from production, as I describe in detail in the current National Defense Magazine:

“Right now, we do not have a current hybrid program that targets fielding,” says Gus Khalil, team leader of hybrid-electric research at the Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, or TARDEC.

TARDEC, a division of the Research, Development and Engineering Command, in Warren, Mich., is the military’s main research center for vehicle technologies.

Khalil and other TARDEC engineers have been developing hybrid-electric engines and testing vehicle demonstrators since 1992.

Across the Defense Department, there are around 30 hybrid-electric demonstrator vehicles in some form of testing. These demonstrators range from hybrid models of existing vehicles, such as Humvees, M-113 armored personnel carriers and M-2 Bradley infantry fighting systems, to new designs such as the Marine Corps’ reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting vehicle, or RST-V.

Some of these demonstrators are more promising than others. Some even offer new niche capabilities. But all have failed to achieve the combination of performance, toughness, price and utility that the military demands of its vehicles.

Motor Trend explains:

Though hybrid technology has been around for several years in passenger vehicles, adapting it for larger vehicles isn't as easy, [Oshkosh VP Gary] Schmiedel said. Military vehicles must often carry thousands of pounds of cargo -- 13 tons for the HEMTT -- and endure hills, little pavement and angles that few standard vehicles can handle. That all means engines and axles must be configured just so.

Even more daunting is the battery problem. National Defense editor Sandra Erwin reported on this as far back as 2001:

The Achilles heel of hybrid systems today, however, is the battery, [engineer William] Haris added. “You need to have a source of energy to propel the electric motors. Traditionally that has been batteries.” The most commonly used batteries today are lead-acid, which are the least expensive. But they also are heavier and less efficient than more advanced chemistry batteries.

A more desirable alternative would be nickel-metal-hydride batteries, which have twice the energy density of lead-acid. Energy density is the amount of energy that can be stored per pound of material. In the long-term, experts are looking at lithium-ion batteries, which have four times the energy density of lead-acid.

Where there's a will, there's a way -- technical challenges notwithstanding. “There are challenges, and there are issues, but they don’t seem insurmountable,” Khalil told me. “If someone from a program office told us they wanted something in production in two years, we would have it into production.”

But despite the promise of a reduced logistics burdened resulting from great fuel efficiency, the military's enthusiasm for hybrids is cool. If not for their power export capability, the military might not be interested at all.

The bottom line is ... the tech isn't ready, and the military isn't ready to make the tech ready. So be skeptical when some hack reports that military hybrids are just around the corner.

-- David Axe

Pentagon Wants Jet Fuel Substitute

The Defense Department buys more jet fuel than any other organization in the world. So the Pentagon's higher-ups are just as sick as the rest of us -- more so -- about sky-high fuel prices. Small wonder that the brass is asking for proposals to supply 200 million gallons of synthetic jet fuel, as part of big-league field tests in 2008 and 2009.

The request, notes Inside Green Business, comes from the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which oversees the Pentagon’s fuel purchases. It's part of a larger military investigation into an eighty year-old process for converting coal or natural gas into liquid fuel called Fischer-Tropsch. It's what helped the German Army make 124,000 barrels of fuel per day during World War II.

The possible purchase would send 100 million gallons each to the Air Force and Navy for testing on ships, airplanes and other operational units, according to a DESC source. The alternative fuels would likely be blended with existing DOD fuel types, such as the Air Force’s JP-8 and the Navy’s F-76, in a 50/50 mixture or similar ratio, according to the source. “There won’t be enough alternative fuels to do a one hundred percent [alternative] blend for at least a decade,” the source says, “but even reducing petroleum fifty percent in this country is huge. What DESC is saying is we don’t want [carbon dioxide] greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.”

The source says each of the military services wants to maintain its current single-fuel policy, under which all vehicles are run with as similar a fuel type as possible. DOD officials want to use 50/50 blends “widely” for the service tests at first, with an eye to potentially retooling the ratio for optimum efficiency later on...

There may... be problems finding a supplier, or even a combination of suppliers, that can satisfy the request for alternative fuels. “No domestic infrastructure can [currently] handle that much” demand, says the DESC source, adding that the purchase would likely be from a combination of coal-based Fischer-Tropsch fuel and fuel derived from tar sands and oil shale, which have been eyed by government and industry planners as potential sources of synthetic petroleum. There currently is no widespread market in the U.S. for such petroleum alternatives, although the source says “hopefully this will be an impetus for private industry to use synthetic fuels as well. Because the private sector doesn’t have the research and development budget we do, they’re waiting to see how our projects go so they can adopt whatever we develop.”

Army Engineers' Green Agenda

Not that long ago, the idea of the Sierra Club and the Army Corps of Engineers working on the same side of an issue might've seemed silly. But these days, the Army sees dependence on foreign oil as a major national security risk. And so the engineers are calling on DC to make a bunch of changes straight out of the environmentalists' playbook -- like mandating better gas mileage and giving out tax credits for green energy. (Although the bit about "open[ing] up Federal lands for oil and natural gas" might not exactly be met with huzzahs at Sierra HQ.)

To sustain its mission and ensure its capability to project and support the forces, the Army must insulate itself from the economic and logistical energy-related problems coming in the near to mid future. This requires a transition to modern, secure, and efficient energy systems, and to building technologies that are safe and environmental friendly…

Many of the issues in the energy arena are outside the control of the Army. Several actions are in the purview of the national government to foster the ability of all groups, including the Army, to optimize their natural resource management. The Army needs to present its perspective to higher authorities and be prepared to proceed regardless of the national measures that are taken. The following steps by the national government would help the Army with its energy challenges:

• Increase supplies…
- Pull renewable technology markets to produce more cost effective solutions with tax incentives and large Federal applications.
- Provide incentives for green power production through continued and expanded tax credits.
- Open up Federal lands for oil and natural gas harvesting where environmentally appropriate.
- Encourage the development of LNG terminals and infrastructure by streamlining approvals and assisting with local approvals.

• Modernize infrastructure.
- Support modernizing and expanding the electricity grid.
- Support the construction of a natural gas pipeline from AK and Canada.
- Enhance the expansion of LNG terminals and natural gas infrastructure.

• Diversify sources.
- Invest in research and development (R&D) in clean coal technologies, renewable technologies, carbon sequestration, breeder reactor nuclear power.
- Invest in R&D in energy efficiency in the built environment.

• Optimize end-use.
- Significantly increase Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards and expand to all classes of motor vehicles.
- Expand rebate programs for hybrid vehicles.
- Expand appliance and equipment efficiency standards as many states are doing.

UPDATE 12:15 PM: This newsletter from the U.S. Army Environmental Center gives a good round-up of some of the service's green projects -- from Ethanol pumps at Ft. Benning to sustainable construction at Ft. Lewis.

(Big ups: RC)

Stop Funding America's Enemies

Imagine if, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government and its people gave Hitler billions of dollars, to train troops and build new weapons. Sounds impossible, right? But that's more or less the situation we find ourselves in today, former CIA director Jim Woolsey recently told the Naval Postgraduate School.

The U.S. is in the opening stages of a "Long War" with Islamic extremists. And these adversaries -- whether they're found in madrassas in Riyadh or the government in Tehran -- are funded, in so small part, by oil revenue. Petrodollars go, more or less directly, to training radicals. Petrodollars get funneled to those who make and plant bombs.

"Except for our own Civil War," Woolsey notes, "this is the only war that we have fought where we are paying for both sides. We pay Saudi Arabia $160 billion for its oil, and $3 or $4 billion of that goes to the Wahhabis, who teach children to hate. We are paying for these terrorists with our SUVs."

And we are paying for them with our tanks, our Bradleys, and our fighter jets, observes Defense Technology International, which has a special issue out on "The Military and the End of Oil." In 2004, the U.S. military gobbled up 400,000 barrel of fuel a day, at cost of $6.7 billion. A year later, those costs had climbed to $8.8 billion. In 2006, the price tag is expect to total $10 billion.

"Meanwhile, advanced green technologies like hybrid drive vehicles [despite their limitations] offer both fuel economy and stealth benefits in combat, a significant plus in the urban warfare scenarios that appear to be such a big part of future wars," writes Joe Katzman, who's been all over this issue.

The truth is that the military can't live without fuel, but every gallon of it is both a logistics burden and a financial burden... Now add the fact that diversified "green infrastructure" lowers vulnerability to the kind of "system disruption" attacks one sees in Iraq, and the military/security benefits become compelling.

It sure does. Throughout the military today, there are lots and lots of individual R&D efforts underway to find alternatives to funding our enemies. But a collection of engineering projects is not enough. If we're serious about fighting this Long War, breaking the military's addiction to oil has to become a top priority.

Hybrid reality check

Despite 15 years development that has produced more than 30 different demonstrators and despite a lot of hype lately, military diesel-electric hybrids are no closer to mass production than they were five years ago. "Right now we don't have a hybrid-electric vehicle targeting fielding," says Gus Khalil, director of the Army's hybrid research.

The reasons are many. Despite advantages including modest fuel savings, power export capability, design scalability and flexible internal layout, hybrids are simply too expensive, too heavy and too fragile for military service. Batteries -- or, alternately, capacitors -- are particularly problematic: they're unstable, finnicky in extreme weather and present enormous safety and logistical challenges.

In recent weeks, I've talked to hybrid programs managers at all the major U.S. military vehicle manufacturers. They all maintain the same line: hybrids are very promising, they say, but more work is needed.

Khalil says that the first mass-produced military hybrids will most likely be vehicles in the Future Combat Systems family, which should enter production around 2010. In the meantime, expect demonstrators like the HEMTT A3, RST-V (pictured) and hybrid Humvee to remain just that -- demonstrators.

--David Axe

P.S. Publishers Weekly just reviewed my graphic novel War Fix!

UPDATE 8:58 AM: Noah here. I've been told by a high-level Army general who worked the hybrid problem for years that the problems which Axe details above can be overcome. But there's an even bigger barrier to the new vehicles: Detroit. American auto- and truck-makers still aren't committed to mass-producing hybrids on the level that the Army needs, the General said. (Look at their reluctance to make commercial hybrids.) Without their buy-in, the Army won't have hybrids for a long, long time.

Hybrids got the juice

A proper command post needs a lot of juice. You're talking radios, radars, computers, network terminals, a mini fridge for your frappuccinos ... the demand for power is constantly growing. These days at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq or Afghanistan, you can spot a command post among hundreds of identical tents by looking for the tent surrounded by greasy, thrumming generators. All those generators have to be hauled, fueled and maintained. But what if you could just hook your command post equipment up to the same vehicle you transported it in?

That's the idea behind an emerging requirement across the U.S. military's slate of diesel-electric hybrid demonstration programs. One of the major advantages of hybrid vehicles is their ability, with proper modification, to export electricity. With the right interface, you can just plug your gizmos into your truck, keep it idling and voila! You've cut your logistics burden significantly by dumping all those bulky, finnicky generator trailers.

AM General's hybrid Humvee demonstrator powered a command post years ago. (See pic.) Oshkosh has made power export a central capability of its hybrid Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) A3. And General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) is moving forward with a new model of its Marine Corps Reconaissance, Surveillance and Targeting Vehicle (RST-V) demonstrator that exports juice, too. RST-V is a small hybrid intended for internal carriage in the V-22.

"The Marine Corps requested this," says GDLS' Director for Advanced Programs Bill Riker. "Essentially what you end up having with RST-V is a ... generator set. The Marines have asked us to focus on 30 kilowatt [power]. We've done that at 60 Hertz and 400 Hertz at 3-phase [Alternating Current]. The RST-V provides a huge amount of power with the flip of a switch."

Besides building RST-V, GDLS is also a major partner in the manned ground component of the tracked Future Combat Systems (FCS). Expect to see serious power export capability written into FCS requirements.

The potential applications of this capability are huge. Consider just the FCS Medical Evacuation Vehicle (MEV). With today's M-113- or Humvee-based ambulances, medics can do little more than haul casualties. But the FCS MEV might power a wide range of equipment that could enable medics to treat patients en route to the Forward Surgical Teams. In addition to easing logistics, power export could save lives.

Hybrid Truck's Katrina Duty

Diesel-electric hybrids vehicles are all the rage at the U.S. Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Michigan. Rising fuel prices and attacks on fuel convoys in Iraq have inspired a number of programs to develop more fuel-efficient trucks. The idea, according to industry, is to cut the Army truck fleet's fuel consumption by 20 percent by 2010.

But there are other advantages to hybrids, according to Gary Schmiedel at Oshkosh in Wisconsin, which builds the Army's Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. HEMTTs are tough mothers. During the January elections in Iraq, I talked to HEMTT crews who barreled through AK fire to pick up ballots (see photo for the result). Schmiedel says a new breed of HEMTT, the A3 model, will retain all the ruggedness and combat utility of its predecessor, but with the added capability to export up to 100kW of 3-phase AC power, thanks to its new capacitor-based hybrid engine.

To test the A3, and as a public service, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Oshkosh sent a prototype to New Orleans to serve as a mobile generator. Since it uses the same standard of electricity as our public grid, exporting power is as simple as firing up the HEMTT and plugging in your appliance. The New Orleans-deployed A3 enabled workers to pump out the flooded basement of a hospital.

Hybrids are more expensive than their conventional counterparts. But they promise overall savings over their lifetimes thanks to reduced fuel consumption. And they offer many benefits besides, including those demonstrated by Oshkosh's HEMTT A3 after Katrina. These days I'm on the hybrid beat for National Defense, so expect more on the subject in coming weeks.

-- David Axe

HYDROGEN CAR IN ARMY TEST

If you believe the hype out of Detroit, we'll all be driving ultra-clean cars running on hydrogen fuel cells one day, instead of today's gas-chuggers. The latest comes from General Motors, who "reported Monday it has made a breakthrough that brings hydrogen-powered vehicles a bit closer to reality," according to the Red Herring.

The Army's National Automotive Center is taking a peek into that future now, testing out its first hydrogen-powered car.

The 66-inch wide, 13.5 horsepower Aggressor Alternative Mobility Vehicle goes from 0 to 40 mph in four seconds, and tops out at 80 mph, according to its makers, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide.

But speed isn't really the selling point of the Aggressor. Stealth is. The vehicle has a "virtually silent operating mode with reduced thermal signature," making it harder for evil-doers to spot the car.

The Quantum Aggressor runs on compressed hydrogen utilizing... carbon fiber storage tanks. A 10 kW fuel cell is coupled with an energy storage module in a parallel hybrid configuration, which provides power on demand to a high-torque electric motor driving the rear-wheels...The Quantum Aggressor can be driven to the intended destination and then be used as a silent power generator to produce high quality electricity for telecommunications, surveillance, targeting, and other battlefield equipment.

But not to worry, greenies. Quantum says that the Aggressor is eco-friendly, too -- no matter what the operating mode, "the vehicle does not produce any emissions."

ARMY PULLS PLUG ON HYBRID HUMMERS

It seemed like a green dream, ready to come true: the Army replacing its gas-chugging Humvees with clean, enviro-friendly electric hybrids. But, for now, it'll have to stay a wish unfulfilled. The Army has decided to stop funding the development of the hybrid Hummers, National Defense magazine reports.

During the past decade, the Army has supported a number of development programs to equip military vehicles with hybrid-electric engines, but none has transitioned yet to full production. The hybrid Humvee was viewed as one of the more promising efforts, with at least six prototypes in the works.

Although the Army continues to struggle with the enormous logistics burdens of transporting millions of gallons of fuel to combat zones, it has not yet been convinced that hybrid-electric engines are the way to go. Hybrid systems, though more fuel efficient, have proved to be more expensive and less rugged than advocates had hoped.

“We have to prove that it works as touted,” said Claude Bolton, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics. “It has yet to be seen” whether hybrid vehicles will ever be accepted in the Army’s truck fleets, he told an industry conference.

Another hybrid prototype now in development is the Army’s wrecker, the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. The manufacturer of the HEMTT, Oshkosh Truck Corp., equipped the vehicle with a hybrid system similar to one now in use in civilian trucks, such as fire engines.

But the Army is not yet persuaded that the HEMTT should be hybrid, said Lt. Col. Lisa Kirkpatrick, program manager for Army heavy trucks.

“We need to test it against conventional power train,” she said. “I have told Oshkosh to be prepared to go back to conventional power train if hybrid electric doesn’t work. … I don’t know if hybrid electric will deliver what it promises.”