I always wonder why I never see them at the antiwar protests....
"Pentagon looking to conserve fuel; Says carrying oil by convoy puts lives at risk" by Steve Vogel, Washington Post | April 14, 2009
WASHINGTON - 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.
So START THERE with your PROTESTS, fart-misters!!
SHUT DOWN the WAR MACHINE and watch "global-warming" go away!
By some estimates, about half of the US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are related to attacks with improvised explosive devices on convoys, many of which are carrying fuel.
Boom!
As of March 20, 3,426 service members had been killed by hostile fire in Iraq, and 1,823 of them were victims of IEDs.
I thought over 4,000 were dead? WTF?
"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."
Then LET'S LEAVE!!!!
Spurred by this 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 US dependence on foreign sources.
While we are over there occupying over that very reason (among others)!
Can you SMELL the FART MIST, readers?
"The honest-to-God truth, the most compelling reason to do it, is it saves lives," said Brigadier General Steven Anderson, director of operations and logistics for the Army. "It takes drivers off the road."
I know another way to do that... home!!!
Other than fueling jet engines, the largest drain on US 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.
No wonder the price of gas is so expensive.
It could be even lower, folks, with NO WARS!
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.
(Blog editor just shaking his head)
"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."
Not to me!
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 waste - 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.
There are your GREEN JOBS!!
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.
Can I have a couple for the house, gummint?
"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.
Money for everything, and the loots for free!
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.
Oh, what joy; you'll be buying power from the U.S. military!
Sig Heil!!!!
--more--"
