The Pentagon's Operational Energy Strategy

The U.S. Department of Defense released its first first energy plan last week.  Key points - -

• The plan is about saving lives and saving money.  How the military uses energy on the battlefield will be an increasing concern in the era of energy constraints.
• The goals - - more energy efficient weapons and demanding more energy conscious behavior.
• Energy dependence has led to soaring fuel bills for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a reliance on vulnerable fuel convoys to bring fuel supplies to the field.
• Less energy = more operational resilient.
• The DOD is the biggest single energy consumer in the U.S. - - roughly $15 billion last year.
• About 80% of the convoys in Afghanistan are devoted to carrying fuel - - one service member is killed or wounded for every 24 convoys.
• The new strategy's focus is on operations, including training, deployment and support of military forces in the field.  Those activities account for about 75% of the Pentagon's energy use.  Only 25% of the energy is consumed on bases.
• Trends are the concern in an energy constrained world - - a soldier in WW II consumed an average of a gallon of fuel a day.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers consume about 20 gallons apiece per day, with 50% of that going to electricity generations (Two points - - (1) When outputs go up in modern organizations, see how much of that output is associated with the input of cheap energy, and (2) Our converged and networked world of large quantities of bits and bytes takes a huge amount of energy to operate and maintain.  I recently read that the NSA is getting into the business of building power plants just to support their energy needs.
• The cost of energy is going to be a critical part of DOD planning.
• Diversification is important - - less oil and more renewables are a strategic goal.