Aggressive new efforts are underway to end the U.S. military’s reliance on oil by catalyzing clean energy technology innovation and adoption. That is exactly the right approach to enhance the strategic and tactical capabilities of the armed forces, buttress national security, and help repower the economy, according to a recent report published by an elite group of more than a dozen retired generals and flag officers hailing from all branches of the U.S. military.

“Continued over-reliance on fossil fuels will increase the risks to America’s future economic prosperity and will thereby diminish the military’s ability to meet the security challenges of the rapidly changing global strategic environment,” according to “Powering America’s Economy: Energy Innovation at the Crossroads of National Security Challenges,” a July report published by the CNA Military Advisory Board.

To read Jesse Jenkins exclusive in-depth interview on The Energy Collective with Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (Retired), a decorated 35-year Navy veteran now working as the President of the CNA Institute of Public Policy Research click here.

America’s “energy business as usual is not a viable option,” the board concluded with blunt honesty befitting the group’s combined military experience.

“The United States government should take bold and aggressive action to support clean energy technology innovation and rapidly decrease the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels,” the report recommends, and DoD should lead the clean energy charge.

The CNA report recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) utilize its vast procurement budgets to accelerating the testing and evaluation of clean energy alternatives while working more closely and effectively with the U.S. Department of Energy and private sector innovators.

The new CNA report echoes the findings of the 2010 DoD Quadrennial Defense Review. The comprehensive review of national defense priorities and threats was the first to put the spotlight on energy and the strategic opportunities presented by the aggressive pursuit of new, efficient technologies and cleaner, alternative energy sources to power the nation’s armed forces.

After prolonged conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in which insurgent assaults on fuel and logistics convoys have been a daily threat to U.S. military operations and the lives of American servicemen and women, it is no surprise that the DoD review identifies measures to reduce the consumption of conventional fuels as a key “force multiplier.”

Enhanced energy efficiency “increases the range and endurance of forces in the field and can reduce the number of combat forces diverted to protect energy supply lines, which are vulnerable to both asymmetric and conventional attacks and disruptions,” the DoD report explains.

Beyond mitigating direct battlefield threats, the DoD has another powerful motive to reduce the military’s reliance on oil to fuel operations both at home and abroad, explains Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (Ret.), a former Inspector General of the Department of the Navy and current President of the CNA Institute of Public Policy Research.

The U.S. armed forces spent roughly $20 billion on energy in 2008, says Vice Admiral Gunn, and “every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil costs the Department $1.3 billion.”

“That money comes at a direct and serious cost to other war fighting readiness priorities,” says the retired admiral, a former Inspector General of the Department of the Navy with 35 years of decorated military service to his name. “The battlefield logistics burden due largely to the delivery of fuel supplies reduces combat effectiveness and creates acute tactical vulnerabilities,” warns Vice Admiral Gunn.

Click Here to read a full interview with Vice Admiral Gunn, exclusively at theEnergyCollective.com

Developing cleaner alternatives to oil and other conventional energy sources and new ways to use fuel more efficiently present a key opportunity to enhance America’s national and economic security and strengthen the operational capabilities of the U.S. military, says Vice Admiral Gunn, and the Department of Defense is “uniquely positioned to spur clean energy innovation.”

“The Department of Defense is the largest single energy consumer in the nation and one of the largest landholders,” Gunn explains.

“DoD-administered lands cover every region and climate zone and DoD installations are microcosms of American cities and towns,” which Gunn argues offers “effective demonstration evaluation and testing platforms for clean energy technologies.”

“DoD wields enormous buying power, and influences the directions taken by industry when setting defense acquisition specifications. No other agency or private sector entity operates at this scale,” says Gunn.

While clean energy may be a relatively new foray for the Department of Defense, the U.S. military has a long history as an effective catalyst of cutting-edge technologies that have often gone on to have widespread benefits to the nation and the American economy.

From radios and microchips to jet engines, GPS, and the Internet, DoD has time and time again catalyzed private sector innovation and entrepreneurialism by acting as both the initial funder and the first demanding customer of new innovations and technologies.

The same could clearly be true for clean and efficient energy technologies, which present solutions to both pressing, strategic military needs, and opportunities for widespread commercial use throughout the economy.

As the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) states, “Solving military challenges—through such innovations as more efficient generators, better batteries, lighter materials, and tactically deployed energy sources—has the potential to yield spin-off technologies that benefit the civilian community as well.”

As such, both the QDR and the new CNA report urge DoD to accelerate the research, development, testing, and evaluation of new clean and efficient energy technologies and partner more aggressively with other federal agencies (particularly the Department of Energy), academia, and private sector innovators to help catalyze a clean energy technology revolution.

Already, new clean efforts are underway across the branches of the armed forces.

According to the QDR, the Air Force is spurring demand for new biofuel alternatives to power combat aircraft that could pave the way for the commercial aviation sector. The Army is purchasing thousands of hybrid and electric vehicles to reduce fossil energy consumption in its fleet of 70,000 non-tactical vehicles and experimenting with renewable energy production at bases across the country. The Navy has commissioned the first electric-drive combat vessel, the amphibious assault vehicle USS Makin Island, and tested an F/A-18 fighter jet running on a camelina-based biofuel blend, two steps in an aggressive effort to field an entire carrier battle group powered entirely by biofuels and nuclear power by 2016.

These efforts may be just the vanguard of broader changes to come across the armed forces.

“Within 10 years, the United States Navy will get one half of all its energy needs, both afloat and onshore, from non-fossil fuel sources,” Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told an audience at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club earlier this month, according to reporting from Todd Woody of the NYTimes (and a frequent Energy Collective contributor).

“Right now there’s two hurdles to alternative energy — one is cost of that energy and the other is infrastructure for it and the military can create a market for both of those,” Mr. Mabus said.

“We use in the Navy and Marine Corps almost one percent of the energy that America uses,” said Mabus. “If we can get energy from different places and from different sources, you can flip the line from ‘Field of Dreams’ — ‘If the Navy comes, they will build it.’ If we provide the market, then I think you’ll begin to see the infrastructure being built.”

Echoing the findings and recommendations of the CNA Military Advisory Board and the Quadrennial Defense Review, Mr. Mabus told the crowd, “This change in power and the sources of power and the uses of power makes us better war fighters.”

Click Here to read a full interview with Vice Admiral Gunn, exclusively at theEnergyCollective.com