The military sees security — and saving lives — in going green

"We've realized that the best barrel of oil is the one we don't use." — Tom Hicks, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy

(LP NOTE: The U.S. military realizes that much of our defense spending is to protect America's dependence on foreign oil. Further, this foreign oil addiction has cost thousands of military lives and ruined thousands more for those still living. Then what's more prudent — and patriotic — than to wean the military itself from petroleum?)

Blood and Oil

The U.S. military is embracing alternative energy — but not because of climate change. Up to half of the yearly American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have been incurred guarding fuel convoys, and the Pentagon will no longer tolerate oil's "burden in blood."

By Edward Humes
Sierra

THE MARINES OF INDIA COMPANY harbored grave doubts about the experimental solar-power gear they were ordered to tote from their beachside base at Camp Pendleton to the grimmest, toughest war zone of Afghanistan. They arrived far more interested in armor to protect them while they patrolled the "Fish Tank," a booby trap-laden settlement next to their base, than in thin-film photovoltaics that might protect the planet from their carbon bootprint. India Company had encountered up to 15 roadside bombs a day, and individual platoon casualty rates had run as high as 25 percent killed or wounded. Tree hugging didn't seem like much of a survival skill in a place where a single false step could cost your legs—or worse.

"I was a skeptic," Gunnery Sergeant Willy Carrion says, in comments passed on from Afghanistan by military officials. "As Marines, we do not always like change. I expected [the solar gear] to be a burden."

But then they put it to the test. The portable solar generators and battery packs that powered the Marines' lights, radios, and computers day and night ran quietly, coolly, and cleanly, unlike the loud, cranky, jet-fuel-sucking generators they normally used. Camp Jackson, India Company's forward operating base, went from a noisy, easy target for insurgents roaming the night to a silent, stealthy, safer outpost. The 20 to 25 gallons of fuel it previously took to power a platoon each day suddenly lasted more than a week—which meant fewer fuel convoys, with their notoriously high casualty rates; fewer collisions with roadside improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and fewer Marines assigned to convoy duty instead of their primary mission.

Portable solar chargers allowed Marine patrols to spend weeks away from their Camp Jackson stronghold in the Taliban-infested Sangin district of Helmand Province without needing to lug extra batteries for their radios and other devices. This is no small matter: A modern infantry soldier may have to carry five pounds of batteries a day in the field. The heavy load displaces ammunition and demands regular replenishment missions that are as dangerous as fuel convoys. Fold-up solar chargers eliminated all that, according to First Lieutenant Josef Patterson, an India Company platoon commander. One set of batteries for each device lasted three weeks. "If I do not have a radio, I'm lost," Patterson explains. "So that was huge. I'm completely sold."

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