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Navy Bomb Squads Get a Solar Power Upgrade

Posted by Soulskill on from the let's-hope-nobody-plants-bombs-at-night dept.

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from TPM's Idea Lab: "The U.S. Navy's bomb squads have a weight problem. To keep their field gear powered up, the typical explosive ordnance disposal unit has to haul fifty pounds of specialized chargers and related devices around, creating an unwieldy and potentially dangerous drag on the operation. Now help is coming from an unexpected source: the sun. The Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training and Evaluation Unit 2 in Virginia has been testing five prototype lightweight field power kits that include solar cells as a key component. The kits replace fifty pounds of equipment with a compact system that weighs only about nine pounds."

11 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. But... by pudding7 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've been told repeatedly that alternative energy is just a Liberal tree-hugging pipe dream that destroys jobs and wastes money! Now you're telling me that we can wage more effective war by using solar energy? Well, consider my mind blown. Vote Republican! 'Cause anything else is treason!

    1. Re:But... by roc97007 · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's because most alternate energy schemes are just a Liberal tree-hugging pipe dream that destroys jobs and wastes money. That doesn't mean that there's no alternate energy scheme that ever works. It does mean that you tend to need big bucks and an overriding reason to make it work. Oh, like the military.

      An outbuilding on my property is a candidate for solar because there's no legal way to get city power to it (for reasons unimportant to this discussion) and -- oh yeah -- the neighbors wouldn't permit the noise of a wind farm. My power needs in that particular building are modest enough that I can consider solar without being buried in panels and deep-cycle batteries, else I wouldn't consider it. The initial cost will be about three times the cost of trenching and running a conduit would have cost (had it been permitted) and I now have to factor in maintenance costs, but I don't have a lot of choices. I guess I should go hug a tree now.

      Near my work is a skyscraper with five tiny wind turbines on the roof. I read in the local paper that they provide 4% of the building's power on windy days. But they are pretty, and people can point to them and say "See? Wind power!!!" I guess the CEO should go hug a branch. Or a leaf.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:But... by TWX · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, it's Opportunity Cost. Long established economics concept used to weigh the various costs for various competing possible installations or concepts for achieving similar, compatible results.

      The beef that many of us have with this is not in the raw idea, which is generally sound, but in manipulation of markets that modify opportunity cost by pushing costs off on to others.

      There are two fossil-fuel costs one can consider as being pushed off. One is pollution or ecological damage pushed on to society and environment, which some will argue isn't a cost, and the other is subsidy granted to industry by government, which is itself a function of society, which ultimately pays for it.

      If subsidies for fossil fuel power sources ended and if the cost to obtain mineral rights both protected the surface owner and required payment to repair the ecological damage caused by exploration and extraction then obviously producing oil or coal would cost a LOT more than they do now. That's not even factoring other pollution generated by the refining or use. Granted, any power source requiring raw materials would incur some of these costs, like raw materials for the manufacture of solar panels or wind turbines, but the costs would be amortized across the years and years that the generating method were in place.

      Limited benefits like you discuss, like solar panels in places where achieving grid connectivity is hard, or adding limited wind generation can help, but fixing the markets to reduce subsidy could dramatically skew the numbers in favor of non-fossil-fuel means. There doesn't seem to the be the political will to actually do it though.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. Re:So now by somersault · · Score: 2

    I'm just amazed that the sun can be used as a potential energy source here on Earth. That part was completely unexpected. Who knew?

    --
    which is totally what she said
  3. "Specialized chargers and related devices" by BenihanaX · · Score: 2

    TFA isn't any more specific on what "specialized chargers and related devices" are, that would weigh the difference of 40 pounds. Were they hauling ABS's or car batteries around? I could fill a shopping bag with chargers and it still wouldn't weigh more than a few pounds.

  4. Re:So now by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 2

    If you knew how to read you'd know that the kits also run on fuel cells if necessary. Both are an improvement over lugging diesel generators on your backs.

  5. Re:What kind of panels? by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 2

    Except a US Navy unit has nothing to do with Army marketing.

  6. Re:For those who use sane units... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's just for the devices. Add in the weight of their body armor, their weapon(s) and the rest of their gear and you see why it's a big deal.

  7. Re:What kind of panels? by themaneatingcow · · Score: 2

    A bong squad is going to need a lot more energy than what these solar panels will provide for their equipment.

    I don't think the bong squad is going to care too much about whatever is going on around them... And those aren't generators they are "firing up."

  8. Re:So now by leftover · · Score: 2

    No, now they recharge batteries during the day. Remember that each disposable battery they deplete is at the end of an extremely long and dangerous supply tail. Remember also that each unit of fuel to run generators is brought by the same long tail, plus it is in a fuel tank truck -- aka 'Juicy Target'.
    Several years ago the military realized they needed a better option. These reports of new systems are the results from multiple efforts to make devices that suit the military environment and needs.

    --
    Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
  9. Adapters were scrapped, solar cells only optional by tp1024 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Guys, you're missing the point.

    The weight savings result from doing away with a mess of redundant equipment/chargers etc. that were designed by moronic, egoistic engineers whose idea of standardization is that they are happy to follow any standard, so long as it's theirs.

    They were instead replaced by one small and much more lightweight unit that weighs 9lbs instead of 50lbs and is still able to plug into all their gadgets and charge their batteries. (Maybe one day we can do that with laptops and cellphones too ...) This unit can accept power from a lot of different kinds of sources (conventional grid AC, but also DC etc.), they plan to also distribute a set solar cells and buffer batteries, that can (naturally) also plug into this unit - but will almost double the weight of the equipment to about 17lbs. (Still a lot less than 50 lbs, but the usual caveats of solar power apply, so they are quite likely to end up using other sources a lot as well.)