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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."
I've often wondered why we have compact portable atomic bombs, but no compact portable atomic generators. Perhaps now some will finally be developed! Besides, I can't imagine that solar panels would be a good idea at an FOB. I mean, big square shiny targets? Not good. And they really work poorly when disguised with that camo netting stuff.
No, I'm thinking that some portable nuke plants are in order here. Even something that has to be mounted on a semi flatbed is going to be more useful than a solar panel. At least the flatbed could be rolled into a large trench and covered with camo netting and guarded by dirt and sandbag berms.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
It might be that less dependence on fossil fuels would mean less dependence on war.
I realize this is going to be a minority opinion in this all-male, all-tech geek environment, but still...
I wonder how quickly the taste for war would fade in this population if there was a draft? And if you couldn't get out of it by being too fat.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
You misunderstand how these bases work. We aren't trying to hide; this isn't a conventional war. We want people to be able to come to the FOBs and report incidents, sell wares, in some cases even go to work (we often work with locals for everything from translators to building contracts, at least we did in Iraq). The FOBS are well guarded of course, you can't just walk in, but they aren't the traditional camp under camo nets. Indeed all the camo nets I ever saw setup were there to provide shade in places like motor pools, not hide anything. Your point would be valid for special ops units and such, but not for the vast majority of troops, at least not in these wars.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Please. I spent a year in Iraq. The largest FOBs are the size of cities, you don't "hide" anything. You're right that this wouldn't be ideal for a platoon or company sized base camp, but for division or even brigade HQ it's perfectly reasonable. Even with the current focus on small units doing "on the ground" patrols, the majority of troops live and work inside the large super-FOBs. Nothing of importance is kept near enough to the walls to allow small arms fire to get close to it, and in the (unlikely, thankfully these guys are universally awful at indirect fire) event of a mortar strike, a few broken solar panels are the least of your worries. You could have stuck a *solar farm* in the middle of Camp Victory, and probably saved a fortune over the noisy and annoying (but I must admit reliable) static generators.
By the way... the noisy and annoying generators we did have? Just as vulnerable as solar panels to small arms or indirect fire, just as shiny (they were commercial jobs and most of them were bright white), and several times noisier (to better give away their positions)... I never even heard of one getting hit. We aren't talking about the little 15KW tactical generators when we're talking about power to middle and large sized FOBs. We're talking about commercial jobs the size of a room.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
"FOB" is a generic term for all of our bases "over there". The largest base in Iraq, Camp Victory, is the size of a midsized American city and is divided into a few "FOBs". They're essentially just areas owned by a specific command, you can drive from one end of Victory to the other without across all the FOBs in perfect safety (beyond a highly unlikely indirect fire attack). There are smaller, company or battalion controlled, FOBs but most of our people are in the larger ones.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.