Slashdot Mirror
US Military Orders Less Dependence On Fossil Fuel
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that it can cost hundreds of dollars to get each gallon of traditional fuel to forward base camps in Afghanistan, so with enemy fighters increasingly attacking American fuel supply convoys crossing the Khyber Pass from Pakistan, the military is pushing aggressively to develop, test and deploy renewable energy to decrease its need to transport fossil fuels. 'Fossil fuel is the No. 1 thing we import to Afghanistan,' says Ray Mabus, the Navy secretary, 'and guarding that fuel is keeping the troops from doing what they were sent there to do, to fight or engage local people.' The 150 Marines of Company I, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, will be the first to take renewable technology into a battle zone, bringing portable solar panels that fold up into boxes; energy-conserving lights; solar tent shields that provide shade and electricity; solar chargers for computers and communications equipment replacing diesel and kerosene-based fuels that would ordinarily generate power to run their encampment."
Nothing spurs innovation like trying to kill the other guy.
Living With a Nerd
Nothing spurs innovation like trying to kill the other guy.
What about trying to stop the other guy from killing you? I think the US military has the luxury of being the hunters that occasionally succumb to attrition. You can still lose that way (Vietnam) but we're not afraid of every single person in America being killed or captured. I'd argue you saw more innovation come out of World War II when we actually faced a threat of every person coming under the rule of a handful of tyrants (and really one very bad tyrant). Sure, Hitler's V1 and V2 Schneider Programs were innovative but look at what the work of the Polish and, later, British at Bletchley Park did to start us into the computer age. When you're striving to solve a problem and the fate of your entire country rests on it ... I think you forgo sleeping, eating, playing video games, etc. The guys 'innovating' in Afghanistan still go to sleep at night. The guys calling the shots probably don't live any differently than you or I and that is quite comfortably.
My work here is dung.
I fought in WWII, and mainland America never faced the "threat of every person coming under the rule of a handful of tyrants".
Right, I'm sure that once Germany had taken all of Europe and Russia they'd have just sat on their hands contented. They wouldn't have used those extensive resources to make a push to conquer the world. Tell me, since they fought everyone around them to the bitter end, where would have Germany and Japan halted? What borders could have possibly satiated their thirst for power and resources?
I guess my understanding is 'blatantly wrong' and my opinions are 'bullshit each and every way' but I do know that there were divided opinions in America at the time. The isolationists who thought that all Hitler wanted was to conquer a few surrounding countries and the other people who thought that Hitler would stop at nothing until he controlled the world. After reading Winston Churchill's account of the Second World War, I'm in the latter camp. It appears you're confident Hitler would have stopped had he won the Battle for Britain and overrun the Eastern front. He sure didn't stop after the Invasion of Poland and the Battle of France. The German war machine excelled at turning conquered territories into another cog in the war machine. Hitler didn't shut down all the factories producing munitions and arms once he overtook a country.
I appreciate all you did for your country and I'm sorry you are dismally appalled at my attempts to learn and understand the part of history you influenced. I'd be happy to listen to another point of view from anyone who fought in World War II but it would take a great deal of startling revelations to change my opinion on America's risk had the Allies lost.
As time goes on, each generation of youth born after 1950 adds their own layer of "understanding" to history, and usually this "understanding" is blatantly wrong. You're no exception.
And you wonder why your children and grandchildren never visit you ...
My work here is dung.
Staying "hidden" isn't the issue. Protecting high-value targets IS. If your primary power source is a large, shiny, fragile (relatively speaking) object that CANNOT be disguised or hidden in any way because that would impact it's ability to function, then you have a logistical and tactical nightmare.
FOB's in Afghanistan of often involved in heavy firefights. Bullets, even small caliber ones, are VERY BAD for solar panels. And YES, they do use camo netting, sandbags, and other methods of obfuscation to make it non-obvious to the Taliban where the soft targets are in the base.
Frankly, this request sounds like it came down from some desk-jockey paper-star type who's never even gotten his boots dirty, much less had to draw his service weapon for anything other than a cleaning and shining. Nice sounding on the surface, but utterly impossible and idiotic in practice.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Political-correctness be damned, it's just a GOOD IDEA. It's an old saying that 'amateurs discuss tactics; professional soldiers talk about logistics'.
The vulnerability of our fighting forces (or any modern military) to attacks on their fuel/supply trains is staggering, and was proven in Iraq. If the opposition in Iraq or Afghanistan was anything close to a peer-level opponent, it would have been catastrophic.
The ability to thin the supply lines also multiplies the effectiveness of the logistics assets you have, as well.
This is a great idea, and the fact that the military is addressing is extremely encouraging for our society. Not that the DoD is magical, but due to their requirements and hard field-testing, their solutions to things tend to be far more pragmatic and practical than the "political" solutions of politicians. Take "integration" as an example - the politicians talked themselves blue in the face about it for decades, but AFAIK there is no more color-blind, racially neutral employer today than the US military.
I'd argue that what the military develops in terms of robust, practical methods of reducing energy consumption will translate into civilian systems relatively quickly.
-Styopa
you could add gobs more armour too (in a tank, adding 50 tons of extra weight means bigger engines/more fuel, if you already have that power anyway out of your little reactor, why not use it?
Hell, you could build a tank twice the size of an abrams with a dual heavy bore gun turret, weighing 200 tons or so
What happens when you need to drive your 200 ton tank across bridges that are only rated for half that weight or less? Weight isn't a zero sum game with AFV design. Even if you have the power to move that much weight around it still comes with drawbacks.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I agree. Too many rich warhawks believe wars should be fought by someone else's son.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Before oil became an important resource to the Western World, we didn't give two shits about anyone in the Middle East.
I think everyone can agree that oil became important as it displaced coal as the primary energy source for vehicles, navies, and all the new military tech that depended on it. So let's set the change date at 1900.
British military interventions in the Middle East before 1900:
First Anglo-Afghan War (1839)
Anglo-Persian War (1856)
Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878)
These were part of the "Great Game" of trying to control central Asia so Britain could protect India from Russia. Before 1900, the United States had never had troops in the Middle East, excepting a few skirmishes mostly involving the protection of our commercial fleet. Most US colonial activity was directed at the rest of the mainland (wars with Mexico), Florida, Hawaii, Central and South America, and imperialism in Japan, Hawaii, China, the Philippines and other parts of the Pacific.
WWI established the West as the colonial owner of the Middle East, and the US and Britain have had troops stationed there ever since. Western powers also established political lines in the Middle East that still haunt us today, as the spoils of war from defeating the Ottoman Empire. The first deployment after the Ottoman Empire entered the war was to protect the Anglo-Persian oil pipeline - later to become Anglo-Iranian and finally British Petroleum in 1953.
Here's a snippet from a BBC piece:
So, no, we didn't give a shit about that particular region of the world until they had something we wanted. Unless you have resources that we want, or you present a security threat by proximity, we don't care what happens to you. Just ask any citizen of Africa.