department of defense

The Department of Defense and Energy Innovation:Can The Military Lead the Way to Smarter Energy? The U.S. military has deep resources, incentives to innovate, and a history of developing groundbreaking technologies that have spilled over into market-changing private sector applications. What can be learned from the Department of Defense...[read more]

At this week's Army/Air Force Energy Forum, the military signaled a higher priority on renewable energy and energy efficiency.[read more]

The U.S. military uses more energy than any single organization in the world, at a cost of $15 billion a year for operations across the globe, with almost all those dollars going to fuel costs. But that dependence has a human cost. More than 3,000 U.S. soldiers or contractors have been killed or wounded in fuel convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan – 60 percent of all combat deaths in the two wars. energyNOW! correspondent Lee Patrick Sullivan explored how the Department of Defense is working to cut fossil-fuel dependency and improve energy efficiency while maintaining its tactical edge to save American lives on the battlefield.[read more]

Washington policy wonks scoffed when the Obama Administration announced last year that the Department of Energy and Pentagon were going to collaborate in developing new clean energy technologies. They thought such a shot-gun marriage was impractical and  impossible to even get off the ground. Instead, it is proving to be model for...[read more]

A confluence of recent events, both tragic and inspiring, have once again reminded us that America’s national security is inextricably linked to its energy posture. As a result, a new consensus is emerging within government and the private sector: the U.S. military can make the nation and its soldiers safer while simultaneously aiding in an economic transformation to a less carbon intensive economy.[read more]

Photo Credit: US ArmyAs Tom Friedman points out in his column yesterday, "the U.S. military loses one person, killed or wounded, for every 24 fuel convoys it runs in Afghanistan." Soldiers and others are put in harm's way as part of convoys, hundreds and hundreds of them, needed to transport fuel to run air conditioners and diesel...[read more]

By Margaret Harding Export Control Reform When I was a young engineer, I spent some time developing software for use by other engineers. One old geezer (probably in his 40s back then) told me that whatever I did, I should avoid “spaghetti code” in my work. What in the world is that? It is the tendency by some software developers to...[read more]

A good deal has been written about the military’s recent efforts to “go green,” but Fred Kaplan’s piece for Slate last week is unique in its exploration of the potential civilian benefits of such an initiative. Kaplan does well to delineate the military’s history as a robust market for innovative...[read more]

[From News from Natural Logic, Oct 2010] You may not have seen this study from the German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. You should. According to Spiegel OnlineThe study... uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It...[read more]

Yesterday (March 23), the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on pending nominees to senior positions within the Department of Defense.  Sharon Burke was nominated for the position of Director of Operations Energy Plans and Programs.  Sharon is currently the Vice President at the Center...[read more]

Spy satellite image of Arctic ice, 2007 But, then, Congress lacks the Intel Community’s secret weapons: Leon Panetta (CIA director) and Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense). These men, along with Al Gore, have revived a program that gives a limited number of environmental scientists access to classified data that could shed light...[read more]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has hired two companies to build a 500 megawatt solar project at Fort Irwin, in California’s Mojave Desert. If built, it would easily by the Department of Defense’s biggest solar facility, dwarfing the 14 megawatt solar plant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. According to Jerry Hansen, the Corps...[read more]

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is making sure they're fighting for our nation's cause the right way...by going green. DoD's Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) recently awarded algal-based biofuel developer Solazyme and camelina-based biofuel manufacturer Sustainable Oils contracts for R&D and manufacture of their products....[read more]