Sohbet Karbuz

Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel

2009-12-12T00:14:00.004+02:00

Source: DiPetto 2008 (slides 7-9 merged)

When an article with a title $400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan appeared in the Hill in October 2009 it created a lot of noise. “The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan,” the article said.

Dr. Kevin T. Geiss, program director for energy security in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment, gives an even higher figure: in some places, analysts have estimated the fully burdened cost of fuel might even be as high as $1,000 per gallon.

The estimate for $400 per gallon figure you see all around comes from General Kern. In fact General Kern was throwing out a wide range as an answer to the question of What is the cost of a gallon of fuel? in his presentation at the 2002 Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference (January 27-29, 2002 Monterey, California). His answer was Cost with Delivery (1 - 400 US Dollars). But most people picked up the upper estimate.

Estimates of the fully burdened cost of fuel vary by scenario depending on how the fuel is delivered. Here are Some estimates: “Fuel Costs $13/Gal—Well to Tank—In Peacetime at Home,” Army Research Lab brief to Defense Science Board, October 1999; “$25 at FEBA+100 km,” Defense Science Board, 2001, p. 16; “Hundreds of Dollars [by air] . . . [600 km] Deep in the Battlespace,” or “At least $40–50 If Overland,” Defense Science Board, 2001, Executive Summary and p. 20; “$100–$600 In Theater Depending on ‘Front Line’ to ‘Back Line’ Separation in Distance, Terrain, Defense, Etc.,” JASON, Reducing DoD Fossil-Fuel Dependence, 2006, p. 30; “$26 By Inflight Tanker,” Defense Science Board, 2001. The fully burdened cost of a gallon of fuel delivered to an aircraft in flight is estimated to be around $20 per gallon.10/1[1]1 The complexity of measuring fuel use and costs is one of the many challenges DOD is facing.

Of these, Defense Science Board report in 2001[2] is very informative but rather outdated. The report estimated that it cost about $13 to deliver a gallon of fuel to the forward edge of a battle area, and the price escalated rapidly to hundreds of dollars per gallon as you move beyond the forward edge. Fuel delivered by helicopter can cost hundreds of dollars per gallon. In-flight tanker refueling costs about $26 a gallon to deliver fuel from an aerial refueling tanker if you assume the tankers are free. If you include the cost of recapitalizing the tankers, the cost is about $42 a gallon.

Source: DiPetto 2008

These estimates attracted much attention simply because the cost of a gallon of fuel generally ranges between $2 and $3 per gallon. The confusion arises from the use or not use of the term “fully burdened cost of fuel.” Here I will try to give some explanations based on information provided in official sources.

How energy is to be considered by the military, both in its use and in the acquisition of new systems.

What is fully burdened cost of fuel? In simplest way the fully burdened cost of fuel is the total ownership cost of buying, moving, and protecting fuel in systems during combat. But this is only one side of the story.

The earliest comprehensive DOD study on fuel use, conducted by the Defense Science Board in 2001, focused on the fuel efficiency of weapon systems and was the first to suggest that the true cost of fuel – the fully burdened cost – was not sufficiently understood by decision-makers.

Back on 10 April 2007 a USD(AT&L) memo stated that “Effectively immediately, it is DoD policy to include the fully burdened cost of delivered energy in trade-off analyses conducted for all tactical systems with end items that create a demand for energy and to improve the energy efficiency of those systems, consistent with mission requirements and cost effectiveness.”

The memo identified three major defense acquisition programs as pilot implementation to incorporate the fully burdened cost of energy into acquisition decisions: Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, CG(X) - Maritime Air and Missile Defense of Joint Forces alternative ship concepts, and Next Generation Long-Range Strike. Incorporating the “fully burdened cost of fuel” into acquisition analyses is a good step forward since energy efficiency starts with the Acquisition process.

A more realistic assessment of FBCF would consider the costs attributable to oil in protecting sea lanes, operating certain military bases and maintaining high levels of forward presence. Buying oil is expensive, but the cost of using it in the battlespace is far higher.

In November 2008, the DoD acquisition directive (5000.2) directed energy costs be included in calculations for total ownership costs, to include the fully burdened cost of fuel – the cost to deliver fuel the last “tactical mile”. The Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics is finalizing guidance on the methodology and requirements new acquisition programs should follow to calculate, report and glean insights from the fully burdened cost of fuel.

DUNCAN HUNTER NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 (signed into law by President Bush on October 14, 2008) defines the term ‘‘fully burdened cost of fuel’’ as the commodity price for fuel plus the total cost of all personnel and assets required to move and, when necessary, protect the fuel from the point at which the fuel is received from the commercial supplier to the point of use.

Note that SEC32 of the Act mandates the use of the fully burdened cost of fuel in analysis and evaluation of technology in the acquisition process: “The Secretary of Defense shall require that the life-cycle cost analysis for new capabilities include the fully burdened cost of fuel during analysis of alternatives and evaluation of alternatives and acquisition program design trades.”

The Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAG) defines a methodology for computing the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel (FBCF) for acquisition purposes. In DAG Chapter 3 TOC FBCF - FINAL as of 5-22-09.doc the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel is defined as the cost of the fuel itself (typically the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) standard price) plus the apportioned cost of all of the fuel delivery logistics and related force protection required beyond the DESC point of sale to ensure refueling of this system. Estimates that include these logistics and protection costs may add from less than a dollar to over one hundred dollars to the per-gallon cost of the fuel. see also Fully Burdened Cost of Delivered Energy—Methodological Guidance for Analyses of Alternatives and Acquisition Tradespace Analysis. The DoD Directive 5000 describes how the FBCF is to be included in Total Lifecycle Cost estimates. These lay the foundation for how and when energy is integrated into the DoD requirements and acquisition processes.

In summary FBCF is an analytic construct for including both the commodity price of the fuel a system is expected to use in its projected missions, as well as the portion of the cost of the logistics "tail" (equipment, personnel and related expenses) that new platform will need for those missions to deliver the fuel to this platform or system in operations and training. The purpose is to more accurately reflect the true financial, operational and force structure implications of fuel demand of new systems within the acquisition tradespace.

The Army Environmental Policy Institute published a 2008 Sustain the Mission Project report (July 2008) providing a decision support tool methodology for calculating the fully burdened costs of fuel and water for missions in theaters of operation and training bases. This was a pilot project launched in an effort to give the management assistance in making decisions based on better energy and water efficiency.

For an example of Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel assessing Department of the Navy Major Defense Acquisition Programs see Masters thesis of Lieutenant Commander Robert M. Corley entitled EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF THE FULLY BURDENED COST OF FUEL in September 2009.

[1] Matthews, William, “DOD Seeks New Energy Sources.” Defense News, Vol. 22, No. 1, January 1, 2007.

11 Amory Lovins estimated in 2001 that the cost of a gallon of fuel delivered to a tank on the battlefield can reach $400 to $600 per gallon. See Amory B. Lovins, “Battling Fuel Waste in the Military” available on line at [http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid939.php].
[2] “More Fight—Less Fuel.” Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on DoD Energy Strategy. February 2008.

US Causalities and Fuel Use in Afghanistan

2009-11-21T02:07:00.006+02:00

On November 2009 Deloitte released a report called Energy Security – America’s Best Defense; A study of increasing dependence on fossil fuels in wartime, and its contribution to ever higher casualty rates, by General Charles F. Wald (USAF Ret) and Tom Captain (Deloitte Vice Chair).

Deloitte is a very reputable and serious company, and the authors are highly respected people. But I am extremely disappointed with the authors and with the quality of the report. I also do not agree with Andy at DOD Energy Blog concerning his opinion about that report. Andy says “It's all good, and the FBCF part is particularly compelling. Recommend you give it a look.” I try to be politically correct but unfortunately in my opinion this 31-page long Deloitte study is somewhere between bad and crap, due mainly to its “findings” based on “least squares regression forecasting methodology.”

There are too many mistakes, wrong statements and errors in the report but I will focus on its main “findings” which are equally misleading and unjustified,… Based on those “findings”, Reuters run a news piece on 10 November 2009 entitled “Pentagon could save lives by cutting fuel use-study.” One of the three subtitles was: Casualties in Afghan war could more than double. Well, well.

Here are some quotes from the study:

“this study demonstrates that the development and use of alternative energy can be a direct cause for reductions in wartime causalities…”

“The study found that there is a high correlation between the gallons of fuel consumed per US soldier per day from WWII, to the Korean conflict, to Vietnam, the Gulf War, to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and OIF.” (p.3)

How did they come to those conclusions? “using a least squares regression forecasting methodology”!

(Figure source: Deloitte Energy Security study)

What does this chart mean? Amount of fuel consumed (in terms of gallons per soldier per day) is a linear function of time. The equation is: Y = 0.3091X – 600.51 R2=0.9517

Put 2017 in place of X in that equation, you will get 22.95. Put 2027 and you will get 26.04.
This trend fitting to 5 points takes maximum 5 minutes in Excel, if you are slow. If you select polynomial curve you could even get an R2 more than 0.97. And it does not mean anything. I will comment on this methodology more below.

On Page 18, the authors “correlate the number of total US causalities in Afghanistan –killed in action and wounded- from 2002 through the present, to the increasing consumption of fuel by US forces. This demonstrates that the number of convoys required to transport an ever increasing requirement for fossil fuels is itself a root cause of causalities, both wounded and killed in action.” NO WAY!

First, correlation is no proof of causation. Second, this correlation doesn’t demonstrate anything. At best it is spurious correlation. Third, it is completely wrong to call this superior correlation as a root cause. I wrote about this issue when I criticized Thomas Friedman “Over some years a person's age might be perfectly correlated with the price of oil, but nobody would say one is the cause of the other. You may find that an increase in the local birth rate was correlated with the annual migration of storks over the town. Does that mean that the storks brought the babies? Or that the babies brought the storks ? Most people die in bed. So, should we conclude that bed is the most dangerous place to be?”

Now, even worse is the following. “The Deloitte study found that absent game-changing shifts, the current Afghan conflict may result in a 124% (17.5% annually) increase in U.S. casualties through 2014, should the war be prosecuted with a similar profile to Operation Iraqi Freedom.” (p. 1) See also page 28 to understand how they came up with that conclusion.

Figure: From Deloitte Energy Security Study

The equation they came up with is Y = 50.502 X – 105.21 R2=0.8966

This equation means that US total causalities in Afghanistan (Y) is a linear function of average monthly fuel consumed in Afghanistan by US forces (X). You have 8 points. Again, it takes maximum 5 minutes to produce that chart and equation. The more you consume fuel the more causality you get. BUT if you do not consume at all (zero consumption, X=0), then causality would be -105. For instance, if you use this kind of logic and do a similar exercise for Iraq you will have increasing causalities through 2017 and further even though the Status of Forces Agreement signed by the governments of Iraq and the US in Nov 2008 states that all US troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by December 31, 2011. Lesson: be aware of negative intercept (constant) in econometrics equations. I may not be a military expert but I (used to be) an expert on econometrics professionally.

Why fuel consumption would increase the total number of soldiers killed and wounded in Afghanistan. There are many more important factors than fuel that affect the increase in causalities. A serious analysis indeed would look into relationship between fuel consumption and causality rate due to convoy protection.

If you are looking for a serious report on the causalities related to fuel use in Afghanistan, then you must read carefully the Final Technical Report of the Army Environmental Policy Institute called Sustain the Mission Project: Casualty Factors for Fuel and Water Resupply Convoys, dated 17 September 2009. This 13 page report is to me at least 10 times more informative and valuable than the Deloitte study.

The study develops a methodology for calculating casualty factors for fuel (and water) resupply convoys in theater operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Casualties calculated include Army soldiers and civilians killed or wounded while transporting fuel to consuming units and forward operating bases in theater. Casualty factor for fuel resupply in Afghanistan is 0.042; that is 0.042 casualties for every fuel-related resupply convoy or nearly one casualty for every 24 fuel resupply convoys in Afghanistan.

The report’s origin goes back to General Zilmer’s request that Department of Defense measure the cost of fuel in blood, not dollars.

It first tries to determine the proportion of resupply casualties related to fuel resupply. They estimate that an average annual load allocation for convoys in theater (for OIF and OEF) is about: 50% fuel; 20% water; and 30% other in terms of volume for FY2008. The average number of fuel-related casualties per convoy is calculated by dividing the fuel related resupply casualties by the total number of fuel-related convoys.

And Now, compare these causality numbers from the figures below (from AEPI Report) with the Deloitte chart. You will understand how unsound Deloitte study’s findings are.The report provides the following important statistics;

In Afghanistan:
Fuel Transported in Theater in FY 2007: 87,731,302 gallons or 2.1 million barrels
Average Capacity of 16 Supply Truck Convoy: 97,818 gallons
Number of Full-up Fuel Convoys Required per Year: 897

In Iraq:
Fuel Transported in Theater in FY2007: 502,110,368 gallons
Average Capacity of 16 Supply Truck Convoy: 97,818 gallons
Number of Full-up Fuel Convoys Required per Year (502,110,368/97,818 =5,133)

In fact it would have been a much better metric if they had used causality factor per amount of fuel consumed. They would find that each 55,702 barrel fuel burned in Afghanistan by the US military forces corresponded one causality.

The report goes beyond casualty factors (human costs of resupplying Army units with fuel and drinking water in theaters of operation). Energy and water technologies (as well as increased use of energy efficiency, renewable energy and on-site water production in theaters of operations) can substantively reduce the need for resupply convoys in theater; and therefore potentially reduce casualties without sacrificing operational effectiveness. The report calculates that a 10 percent reduction in fuel consumption by 20 SBCT equivalents over a five year period could lead to a reduction of 35 fuel-related resupply casualties. (A weak point of the report is the assumed linear relationship as implied on page 9, as well as constant capacity of fuel trucks but this not so important here).

An important message in the report is the fact that a lighter system usually means a more fuel efficient system, which means greater range and less fuel convoys. “Greater range contributes to operational mission effectiveness and logistics sustainability; fewer fuel convoys reduce vulnerability, while providing cost and fuel savings, and free-up military resources for other missions. Conversely, a heavier weapon or support system usually means increased armor protection and less vulnerability improving operational mission effectiveness while saving lives at the front lines. The case of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle—the MRAP is a heavier, more formidable system, but fuel inefficient requiring more fuel convoys— is a good example of the issue of tradeoff between vulnerability and fuel efficiency. High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs), which are particularly susceptible to improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, have been replaced by MRAPs in many cases. In the short term this is an excellent force protection solution to the IED problem; however, the MRAP consumes significantly more fuel than the traditional (and up-armored) HMMWV and therefore requires more fuel resupply convoys.”

This brings me a recent GAO Report on MRAP. It says that “As of July 2008, about 75 percent of casualties in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were attributed to improvised explosive devices. To mitigate the threat from these weapons, the DOD initiated the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) program in February 2007, which used a tailored acquisition approach to rapidly acquire and field the vehicles.” As of July 2009, about $22.7 billion has been appropriated for the procurement of 16,204 MRAP vehicles, and 13,848 vehicles fielded in two theaters of operation. Total MRAP production funding was about $22.7 billion, mostly through supplemental appropriations.

Navy's Great Green Fleet

2009-11-04T20:11:00.005+02:00

Oil was first tested in the U.S. Navy on small ships. USS Palos, a tug in Boston Navy Yard, was the first U.S. Navy ship to test this type of fuel. As a coal burner, Palos did eight knots but when converted to oil it did over 14. This successful test led to the testing of oil on larger ships. In January 1909 the USS Cheyenne (formally USS Wyoming) became the first large ship to use oil. Another Navy site says that the first oil-burning American destroyer, USS Paulding was commissioned in September 1910, and by 1911 the USS Nevada-class battleship was planned for solely oil as fuel.

In 1912 the Navy's first two oil-burning battleships USS Nevada (BB-36) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37) were laid down, and were commissioned in 1916. A decade later, USS Cheyenne (Wyoming) was modernized (in 1927), exchanging her coal-fired boilers for new oil-burning types, i.e., Converted from a coal burner to an oil burner. (can anyone help me on the true order in this story?)

Oil meant tactical advantage. As Secretary of Navy says it allowed ships to stay at sea longer, replenish themselves underway from oilers rather than import from coal bunkers, and oil reduced the need for ships to maintain huge divisions of stokers.

Now, from 1909 let me fast forward to 2009. The USA Navy still runs on oil, consuming over 1.3 billion gallons (or about 85,000 barrels per day), and I don’t see any escape from using it. But top US military officials have a different opinion. They think (or maybe even believe) that the so-called Great Green Fleet can become a reality by 2016. Yes, by 2016!

Before documenting the concept let us have a look at The Road to a Greener Navy: 10 Facts on the Navy’s Quest for Alternative Fuels:

1. The Department of Navy consumes 1.3 billion gallons of fuel per year and is the second largest consumer of fuel in the Department of the Defense (US Air Force is 1st, Army is 3rd).

2. Every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil increases Navy fuel costs by almost $300 million.

3. The Navy has set aggressive goals to reduce its reliance on oil, including a 10% annual increase in alternative fuels use by base support vehicles and equipment.

4. Over 3,000 Electric and Natural Gas vehicles are currently in use on Navy bases. Electric and Natural Gas vehicles might be the most efficient land-based alternative energy solution since they require no conversion from the form in which they are produced or mined and are naturally transportable.

5. Alternatives to petroleum-based fuel are endless. Pond scum (algae), non-food crops, biomass, wastes and CO2 are among the many energy sources currently under study.

6. Algae fields can produce 6,000 gallons of oil per acre. A land area of 500 square miles (or 2 times the size of Washington, D.C.) could yield enough oil to meet all of the Navy’s annual fuel needs. In comparison, US oilfields currently occupy 40,000 square miles.

7. Biofuels derived from algae and the oilseeds of the Camelina sativa plant will be used in the Navy’s “Green” Hornet and “Green” Ship initiatives.

8. More than 200,000 gallons of algae- and camelina-based fuel will be delivered to the Navy for test and evaluation. These sources will be the first liquid alternatives to petroleum to be certified for future use.

9. The first Navy aircraft engine to run on bio-fuel was successfully tested in October 2009 at the Naval Air Warfare Center Patuxent River, Md.

10. First flight of the Navy’s F/A-18 “Green” Hornet will take flight in the spring of 2010. The camelina-based biofuel will be blended in a 50-50 mix with standard, petroleum-based JP-5 jet fuel

Like all the other US military services, Department of Navy is also very much fascinated with the word “green”. There are many ongoing initiatives and research. (see my previous post Navy Incentives to save fuel). Some are well grounded, some are good examples and some are interesting. For instance in this year’s Secretary of Navy Awards (SECNAV Awards Recognize Energy, Water Efficiency) we learn that Naval Base Kitsap (Bremerton, Wash.) maintains an energy waste hotline, and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (San Diego, Calif.) was selected as the pilot location under the DoD/Department of Energy Joint Venture Toward Net Zero Energy Installations.

Now let me focus on the Remarks by the Navy Secretary Ray Mabus at the Navy Energy Forum on 14 October 2009 in McLean, Va. (see also other presentation) in which he announced five energy targets the Navy will meet over the course of the next decade. His bold, aggressive and ambitious Green Goals given below are aimed at enhancing the strategic, tactical and operational capabilities of the Navy and Marine Corps along with enhancing environmental stewardship.

Here are the Green Goals of Mabus, followed by my comments in parentheses:

“First: we are going to change the way the Navy and Marine Corps awards contracts. The lifetime energy cost of a building or a system, and the fully burdened cost of fuel in powering those, will be a mandatory evaluation factor used when awarding contracts. We are going to hold industry contractually accountable for meeting energy targets and system efficiency requirements. And we’re going to do more. We will also use the overall energy efficiency and the energy footprint of a competing company as an additional factor in acquisition decisions. We want industry to partner with us and take steps not just to provide us with more energy efficient products, but to produce those products in energy efficient ways. “

(SK: Reshaping the Navy’s approach to awarding shipbuilding and weapons contracts by adding a mandatory evaluation factor for lifetime energy consumption costs and the fully burdened cost of energy is a very good initiative. In fact this is not new. Congress had already asked for it. What new is contractors’ carbon footprint. Let be realistic. Imagine that extra criteria in USAF KC-X acquisition hole without a bottom)

“Second: The Navy will demonstrate in local operations by 2012 a Green Strike Group composed of nuclear vessels and ships powered by biofuel. And by 2016, we will sail that Strike Group as aOil was first tested in the U.S. Navy on small ships. USS Palos, a tug in Boston Navy Yard, was the first U.S. Navy ship to test this type of fuel. As a coal burner, Palos did eight knots but when converted to oil it did over 14. This successful test led to the testing of oil on larger ships. In January 1909 the USS Cheyenne (formally USS Wyoming) became the first large ship to use oil. Another Navy site says that the first oil-burning American destroyer, USS Paulding was commissioned in September 1910, and by 1911 the USS Nevada-class battleship was planned for solely oil as fuel.

(SK: Amen! Mabus acknowledged that biofuel prices are high, but he believes that the prices will go down as biofuel production increases and that the military’s shift to greater biofuel use will incentivize more biofuel production. To fill the 450,000 gallon fuel tank on the Navy’s DDG-51 destroyer today costs $643,000. Last summer it cost $1.8 million to fill the destroyer’s tanks when oil prices soared above $100 per barrel. Imagine to fill it with expensive biofuels. And also imagine extra space a destroyer will need for storage. Note that 1 gallon of biofuel has less heat content that one gallon of traditional oil.)

“Third: the Department of the Navy will by 2015 reduce petroleum use in our 50,000 strong commercial fleet in half - by 50 percent. We’ll do this by replacing our current fleet, as they go out of service, with a new composite fleet of flex fuel vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and neighborhood electric vehicles. Moving to biofuels and electric vehicles will benefit the local communities where our bases are located and will spur adoption of similar vehicles in those neighborhoods.” (SK: No way) [1]

“Fourth: the Department of the Navy will by 2020 produce at least half of our shore-based energy requirements on our installations from alternative sources. We will boost our usage of renewable energy and in some cases we will supply power to the grid from solar, wind, ocean, or geothermal sources generated by the base. We’re already doing this at China Lake, where our on-base systems generate 20 times the load of the base.”

(SK: To achieve this target is somewhere between very difficult and impossible. This target is achievable if the words “at least” are replaced by “at most”, and the word “CONUS” is added somewhere, and if the word “energy” is replaced by “power”. The word energy as he uses includes natural gas and oil)

“Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I am asking all of us to meet a very ambitious goal. Today, about 17 percent of our total energy consumption comes from alternative sources. By 2020, half of our total energy consumption for ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and shore installations will come from alternative sources. Right now I’m told 40 percent is a more realistic goal and even that remains difficult because of the cost and logistics.” (SK: my comment above applies here too)

Mabus adds that the Navy is “placing hybrid electric systems like that on Makin Island on 12 DDGs, and we’re going to save almost $1 million per ship per year….. [the new anti-fouling coating that’s being tested in the fleet] will save up to $180,000 per year per ship in fuel costs due to reduced drag from barnacles and marine growth. Once implemented fleet-wide, in combination with other measures like installation of stern flaps on our amphibious ships that increase fuel efficiency, an aggressive energy conservation program with strong incentives and the use of new voyage planning tools, for an additional investment of only $550 million, we’ll get about $400 million savings per year……. All told, we have the opportunity to improve our energy generation ashore over the next ten years by almost 370 MW, enough energy to power 250,000 homes – or all the households in a city the size of Boston.”

Now let me look at the Green Hornet issue.

In October 2009 Navy engineers at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. conducted the initial tests on an F404 F/A-18 jet engine to determine if it could run on JP-5 derived from a renewable resource. (Initial test proves Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet can fly on ‘green fuel’) The aim is to come up with a biofuel powered jet engine for a new F/A-18, so-called “Green Hornet”. The fuel used in the tests was created from the camelina plant, which is in the same family of plants as the mustard seed and rapeseed. It needs little water or nitrogen to flourish and can be grown on marginal agricultural soil. Why camelina? Because it does not compete with food crops.

More tests will occur in the December-January timeframe on the F414, the engine for the Super Hornet. The first actual flight fueled with a renewable fuel blended with the current JP-5 is expected next spring.

According to Secretary Manus, improvements to the traditionally fueled F/A-18 engines will increase the fuel efficiency of each aircraft by three percent, allowing the planes to fly further on the same tank of fuel and potentially save 127,000 barrels of fuel per plane per year. (Navy Launches Green Hornet)

According to Mabus Green Hornet “is going to fly within 3 years. And although the cost of the fuel used in that engine is high right now – it is still cheaper than putting gas into a generator on the battlefield in Afghanistan. And that cost will fall as the scale of production is increased. At the same time, improvements to F/A-18 engines that will be in service by 2015 will improve the efficiency of the aircraft by 3 percent. The improvements will not only allow the aircraft to fly longer, faster, or farther on the same tank, but could save us 127,000 barrels of fuel per year, amounting to $15 million for the Fleet per year at today's fuel prices.”

The F/A-18 Strike Fighter Program Office at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has already been working on the development of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in order to make the original Hornets environmentally friendly. Super Hornet entered the fleet in 1999. They were also dubbing it Green Hornet. But the word “Green” meant less nitrogen oxides emissions, carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, and fuel consumption without compromising engine performance attributes such as thrust, weight, and cost. (see Currents, Spring 2007 issue). The Mabus’ Green is adding biofuels into it.
In sum, Green Goals of Mabus are certainly extremely ambitious. In fact, many are on the border of wishful thinking. Easier said than done. What would be the total cost to of the Great Green Fleet? What is the replacement cost of conventional vehicles with hybrids. Right, technology might save us. But not in 6 years time.

Mr. Mabus says he is not asking the impossible. If his goals are not impossible I really wonder what impossible is. He further adds that “I am asking you to make the future a more secure and better place.” What all his goals have to do with more secure and better place? And for whom?

If the military wants to go green it should really mean it by reducing waste, all kind. Otherwise, the word "green" will continue to be understood as the color of the greenback.

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[1] A news piece from Navytimes on 16 October 2009 (SecNav: Cut half of oil use by 2020) reported that the so-called green fleet’s carrier and submarines would be nuclear powered. Its surface escorts would either have hybrid power plants or use alternative bio-fuel in their original engine rooms. And the aircraft in the strike group, including fighter jets and helicopters, would burn only alternative fuel.

Navy Incentives to save fuel

2009-11-01T20:56:00.003+02:00

I realized that I didn't pay enough attention to the US Navy’s innovative solutions to fuel consumption challenges. That is why I decided to compile some information on that issue. Here is my preliminary report.

Navy's Energy Conservation (ENCON) efforts seeking cost savings or avoidance have been in place for some time now. There are two major programs.

(1) Naval Sea Systems Command's (NAVSEA's) Incentivized Energy Conservation (i-ENCON) Program.
(2) Fleet Readiness, Research and Development Program (FRR & DP).

The Navy i-ENCON program

The Navy i-ENCON program is a hands-on "meet the fleet" initiative that routinely meets with ship operators to review specific fuel-saving operational procedures. It's committed to reducing ships' energy consumption by 10 percent each year by providing ships' commanding officers and masters and ships' chief engineers energy-saving strategies and techniques and operations modifications. The strategies include "smart steaming," obtaining maximum fuel efficiency without impairing mission objectives. Techniques revolve around operating only the systems needed to support the mission, proper placement of ships' cargo and ballast to achieve balanced weight distribution, and more. Program sponsors recommend quarterly awards for ships with the most fuel-efficient operations.

One of the ways i-ENCON measures fuel and cost avoidance is through underburn, the reported fuel rate for the quarter that's below the ship class' average burn rate.

The motto is simple: Saving fuel and finding ways to cut back on fuel consumption through incentives saves money.

Ship Crews Find Fuel Conservation A Rewarding Experience. i-ENCON program is an effort where ships are recognized for submitting fuel conservation ideas that show results. Every year ships submit Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Energy Conservation Award write-ups, These write-ups include how they save fuel, how much they save fuel and what actions they took. The i-ENCON team evaluates them. The best ideas from the top eight ships, four ships from each hull configuration, are selected and recommended for the SECNAV's award.

The SECNAV ENCON awards are made annually to ships in two categories:
Large Hull - Crew of 400 or more and significant energy efficiency
Small Hull - Crew of less than 400 and significant energy efficiency

To encourage surface ships to reduce the fuel they use, the Navy is offering serious cash to ships for implementing cost avoidance measures. i-ENCON rewards leading fuel conservers among underway surface ships with special recognition and cash incentives. The top prize is $67,000, which commanding officers can use any way they want. Any ship that spends at least 96 hours underway per quarter is eligible for the prizes. Award winners are authorized to fly the SECNAV Energy Flag for a period of one year.

In fiscal 2008, the Navy saved $136 million in energy costs. According to i-ENCON Program Manager Hasan Pehlivan, the program helped Navy ships save more than 1 million barrels of oil in fiscal year 2008, (1.1 million barrels of fuel) enough to fill the 12-gallon gas tanks of more than 3.5 million cars resulting in a record cost avoidance of more than $136 million. In FY 2008, 148 ships received incentive cash awards, a total of $2 million. Award money is routed to each commanding officer's discretionary funds, which are often used to buy items like damage control gear or to augment the ship's welfare and recreation programs.

Naval Sea Systems Command announced 18 February 2009 (i-ENCON Program Realizes Record $48M Fuel Savings) that Navy ships realized a record of more than $48 million in fuel cost avoidance during the first quarter of fiscal year 2009.

Among the ideas Pehlivan shares are: shutting off the main propulsion system at night when ships are waiting for the next day's mission. By keeping the electric plant operating for what he calls "hotel loads," showers, lights, etc., a ship can see fuel savings of upward of 70 percent. "It's amazing savings. That's number one," Pehlivan noted. On ships with gas turbine and diesel engines with twin screws, they have the option of using only one scew--one shaft, one propeller, for driving the ship, Pehlivan said. That effort can result in a 50 percent fuel savings.

The destroyer Porter, based in Norfolk, Va., received $34,000. Porter spent as much time as possible underway last year using only one propeller, Feyedelem said, or running both screws with just two of its four gas turbines. The ship got to the point that even when it was going in and out of port, the crew would wait until the last possible moment to power up all four turbines, then power down the extras as soon as it was safe. The only other time it always kept all four turbines running was during underway replenishments, so it could break away from the other ship even if an engine failed. (source)

Cleaning the hull and propeller can result in a significant cost avoidance. A clean hull gives you a 12 percent cost avoidance. A clean propeller gives you 6 percent cost avoidance,according to Pehlivan. Maintaining machinery also results in fuel savings for ships.

Navy ships account for roughly 40 percent of logistics fuel consumption, that is fuel used to move something. To make ships more efficient at sea, Navy has focused on two major areas: better hull coatings and better hull forms, and hybrid electric drive to provide greater operational capabilities by allowing ships to operate longer without refueling.

Navy ships typically run two generators simultaneously to provide shipboard power requirements, with one acting as an emergency back-up for possible power loss. The uninterruptable power supply would allow ships to routinely run one generator. Only running one generator at 70 percent load versus two generators at 35 percent load saves about 10 percent of the fuel, somewhere on the order of six to seven thousand barrels of fuel a year. (Navy Innovation Reduces Fuel Consumption at Sea)

Fleet Readiness, Research and Development Program

This program aims at helping Navy ships, including MSC ships, to conserve fuel now and to find long-term fuel reduction solutions that enable us to meet mission requirements even when fuel prices go through the roof.

One of the initiatives is stern flaps for dock landing ships and multi-purpose assault ships that could yield annual cost avoidance of around $6.3 million. Stern flaps, projecting parallel to the water from the ships' transoms, would make the ships more hydrodynamic, which would reduce the energy needed for propulsion.

An article of Office of Naval Research Corporate Strategic Communications in June 2009 stated that new hull coatings being developed by the Office of Naval Research are showing promise in reducing the build-up of marine crustaceans – namely barnacles – on ships' hulls, optimizing vessel performance and dramatically reducing fuel costs. Marine growth adds weight and increases drag reducing a vessel's fuel efficiency. The practical problem for ships is simply that biofilm can add up to 20 percent drag and barnacles more than 60 percent. This increases fuel consumption and green house gas emissions. ONR-sponsored biofouling prevention coatings provide an environmentally safe alternative for protecting naval ship hulls, which could also benefit the commercial shipping industry.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center at Carderock estimates that biofouling reduces vessel speed by up to 10 percent. Vessels can require as much as a 40 percent increase in fuel consumption to counter the added drag. High-performance naval warships and submarines rely on critical design factors such as top speed, acceleration and hydroacoustic stealth. Previous biofouling prevention methods used toxic coatings, or biocides, to clear barnacle colonies from the ship exteriors. Although effective in the short-term, biocides exact a heavy environmental burden.

The question was why some marine animals, such as whales, harbor barnacles and others, such as sharks, stay relatively clean. Brennan discovered that the unique pattern of shark skin contributed to its ability to fend-off microorganisms.

Navy Stern Flap Installations Project to Save Millions in Fuel Costs

The U.S. Navy began installing stern flaps in April 2009 on amphibious ships in an effort make ships more fuel efficient and save up to $450,000 in fuel costs per ship annually. USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) was the first dock landing ship to receive stern flaps.

According to Petter Kristiansen (FRR&DP program manager) "A stern flap, located on the aft end of a ship, makes the ship more hydrodynamic, reducing drag and the energy required to propel them through the water. Previous installations on other Navy ships generated annual fuel savings of $365,000 to $450,000 per ship."

Once installed fleetwide on both LSDs and LHDs, the initiative is expected to yield an annual cost avoidance of approximately $6.3 million, based on fuel oil costing $96 per barrel.

FRR&DP's Underwater Hull Coatings initiative

The marine fouling such as barnacles that accumulate on ships is a typical problem which causes hydrodynamic drag and reduces fuel efficiency. Colonized barnacles and biofilms on the hull of a Navy ship translate into roughly 500 million dollars annually in extra maintenance and fuel costs that are required to keep ships free of barnacles, oysters, algae and other marine life. But cleaning and recoating ship hulls is expensive and time-consuming, and recoating can only be done while a ship is in dry dock. The Naval Surface Warfare Center at Carderock estimates that biofouling reduces vessel speed by up to 10 percent. Vessels can require as much as a 40 percent increase in fuel consumption to counter the added drag.

New underwater hull coatings applied in to the guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) are projected to save more than $180,000 in fuel costs per year. (USS Cole (DDG 67) Sports New Fuel-Saving Hull Coating). The new coatings will help reduce marine bio-fouling, build-ups of tubeworms, mussels, barnacles and other shell organisms on the ship's hull, according to Petter Kristiansen, program manager of the Fleet Readiness Research & Development Program (FRR&DP).

The new process is reported to use a fouling-release coating system. It is a silicone-based, non-toxic technology that provides a very smooth, slick, low friction surface. Settling marine organisms like barnacles, tunicates and algae can't attach themselves firmly to the slick surface.

In September 2009 the new underwater hull coating was applied to USS Port Royal (CG 73). Testing will assess fuel cost savings for the ship while underway.(First Cruiser Sails with New Fuel-Saving Hull Coating). The process uses a fouling-release coating system.

The initiative aims to apply new anti-fouling hull coatings on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers. Once fully implemented on the 70-plus active ships across the two classes, the program could potentially deliver fuel consumption cost avoidances of more than $12.6 million per year, based on fuel oil prices of $100 per barrel.

Autonomous Underwater Robot Maintains Naval Commitment to Environment

The Naval Materials Division of ONR´s Sea Warfare and Weapons Department is sponsoring the research on environmentally safe antifouling solutions which is developing this innovation -- an autonomous underwater hull grooming robot. ONR recently conducted tests with a developmental ship hull grooming robot, called the Robotic Hull Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming tool or Hull BUG. The tests showed that this little groomer — similar in concept to a autonomous robotic home vacuum cleaner or lawn mower — has a lot of promise.

The robot incorporates the use of a biofilm detector that utilizes modified fluorometer technology to enable the robot to detect the difference between the clean and unclean surfaces on the hull of a ship. Used to groom ships in port, the Hull BUG removes the marine biofilm and other marine organisms before they get solidly attached. This is especially important because Navy ships spend more than 50 percent of their service life in port, giving barnacles and marine life ample time to become settled and, if allowed, to further colonize and grow on the ship´s hull. While originally focused on reducing the use of toxic antifouling hull paints, these investments have also yielded technology breakthroughs that reduce the use of fossil fuels. Partners in ONR´s development of the Hull BUG include NSWCCD, SeaRobotics and the Florida Institute of Technology.

Military Sealift Command conservation efforts[1]

Fuel economy within the MSC fleet is impacted by two major factors — operational requirements and engineering plant operations.

Operational efficiencies

“MSC's Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force is being driven hard to supply Navy combatants spread out all over the globe. Operational commanders typically require NFAF ships to deliver across great distances quickly. The mission may require the replenishment ship to use 7,000 barrels of fuel to deliver 18,000 barrels to the customer. That's not very efficient, but the mission has to come first. When operations permit, we automatically shift to most economical hull speeds. We've issued a table that lists those speeds to all our ships. The values in the table are based on years of data collection, operational trend analysis and best shipboard practices. For instance, the most economical speed for fleet replenishment oilers, ammunition ships, dry cargo/ammunition ships and combat stores ships is 14 knots. For tugs it's 13 knots when not towing anything. Rescue and salvage ships, when not towing, do best at 12 knots. Fast combat support ships, on the other hand, do their best at 16 knots, while hospital ships are most economical at 7 knots. Other underway techniques include bottom and propeller polishing and use of the newer, super-slick bottom paints that reduce drag.”

Power plant efficiencies

“Efficient engineering plant operations depend primarily on proper maintenance. Keeping heat exchangers, air and fuel filters, and after coolers clean leads to better thermal transfer, more efficient fuel burning, and less wear and tear on the cylinder liners. In the Prepositioning Program, most of the fuel we use is for power generation. Much of the time, our Prepositioning ships are anchored or in port, waiting for tasking orders. However, while not sailing, they do still have to maintain the combat equipment they carry at the temperatures and humidity levels specified by our customers. That requires air conditioning, which takes a great deal of power from the ships' generators.

Studies have proven that operating one diesel generator at 80 percent load is much more efficient than operating two at 40 percent. It's the way diesels are designed. Our prepositioning ship masters routinely run only those generators needed to meet power needs while operating at about 80 percent load. Of course, when at anchor, there aren't any propulsion needs, but when sailing, if one engine can be shut down and the second engine can run at 80 percent load without affecting the mission, then more savings are generated.”

USMC Energy Summit on 13 August 2009

Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James T. Conway along with Raymond E. Mabus, Secretary of the Navy, hosted and headlined a one-day USMC Energy Summit on 13 August 2009. The purpose was to raise awareness and understanding of what the Marine Corps is doing to lessen energy consumption and dependence on fossil fuels and inform people what the Corps’ is experimenting with, and what the greatest challenges will be.

A Marines news piece on August 14, (Marine Corps sets vision to conserve energy) reported the followings;

“The Marine Corps is doing a two-tier approach,” Conway said. “We talk about net zero – wanting our installations to produce as much energy as we use.” Conway said two Marine Corps installations, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, already have programs in place to help reduce the use of energy while producing their own through solar power and obtain “net zero” status.

Mabus said it’s important for the military not to depend on oil, and the military spends too much time using oil to get oil. “Only 10 percent of our energy is used by combat vehicles,” Mabus said. “A good portion of the other 90 percent is used is to get the combat vehicles their supplies. We simply have to have a better source of energy for our military than what we have today. We must move away from oil.”

**************
[1] Robert D. Reilly Jr., Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, Commander, Military Sealift Command, Rising fuel costs mean fuel conservation challenges, Sealift Magazine, August 2008.

US Military Fuel Use for Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

2009-10-17T19:08:00.002+03:00

In my two previous posts (Fuel Logistics Pain in Afghanistan and Fuel Logistics Pain in Iraq) I had come to the following conclusions:

Fuel is delivered to the US military’s forward-deployed locations

In Iraq via three main routes--from Kuwait in the south, Jordan in the west, and Turkey in the north; and
In Afghanistan via two main routes--from Central Asian states in the north and from Pakistan in the east.

Total amount of fuel delivered to US Forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq in 2008 was 21 million barrels, or 57 600 barrels per day; of which
(1) In Iraq: 17.4 million barrels or 47 600 barrels per day
(2) In Afghanistan 3.64 million barrels, or 10 000 barrels per day.

GAO fives a similar figure: “In 2008, more than 68 million gallons of fuel, on average, were supplied by DOD each month to support U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan”[1]. This makes 53 000 barrels per day.

Now, let me try to calculate the total amount of fuel delivered since the beginning of operations in 2001 until the end of September 2008. My rough estimate is that approximately 170 million barrels of fuel was supplied to US military in Iraq and in Afghanistan. With an average cost of $70 per barrel of jet fuel (the best proxy for JP8) over 2001-2008 period, total delivered fuel cost comes to roughly $12 billion.

The military spent $12.6 billion on jet fuel, diesel and other fuels in 2007, with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan consuming $1.7 billion of that total. This makes $4.6 million a day. In 2008 it was $4.2 million a day (my calculation) due to drop in oil prices.

Note that this is the cost for delivered fuel, and does not include the delivery, protection etc cost. I mean it is not fully burdened cost. Unfortunately, total amount of paid and unpaid oil used by the US military in “freedom” operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and its true cost (including delivery) are still a mystery (at least to me).

Now, do you think that a total of $12 billion that is spent by The US Military for fuel in Afghanistan and Iraq until the end of 2008 (or more than $4 million a day) is a big amount? Maybe! But keep in mind that it is only a part of the total fuel expenses!

Why is that? Well, I would like to remind you that those figures are for the amount of fuel delivered to the US military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does not mean the amount of fuel consumed during the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). There is an important difference.

Because the figures I gave above do not include the fuel consumed by
· Navy ships and Navy Aircraft
· Contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq
· US Mobility Command
· Military Sealift Command
· Probably most of Aerial Refueling
· And the amount of fuel burned in transporting the fuel delivered

For instance:

(1) In 2008, DESC-Middle East issued 291 million gallons of fuel (19 000 barrels per day) to naval ships in the 27 countries within the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) area of responsibility How much of that was used for the OEF/OIF?

(2) Air Mobility Command aircraft provides airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation and air mobility supporting Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. In 2008, in support of OIF/OEF, KC-10s have flown more than 4200 missions delivering air refueling support to numerous joint and coalition receiver aircraft. During a serious recent missions, KC-10s and the 2nd Air Refueling Squadron (McGuire AFB, NJ) played a large role in providing fuel to fighter aircraft protecting ground assets involved in building the Kajaki Dam in Afghanistan.

June 8, 2009:Air Mobility Command's hub for global airlift, air refueling and aeromedical evacuation is "all in" with its commitment to support joint worldwide operations, kicking off efforts this week to airlift more than 300 Stryker vehicles to military forces in Afghanistan. Moving the Strykers, which are assigned to the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Fort Lewis, Wash., was accomplished by a combination of sealift and airlift assets. The vehicles and equipment were taken by ship for the majority of the trip around the world, and then the Air Force took over to fly the last portion of the journey into and-locked Afghanistan. Since 9/11 until 24 July 2009, 10.59 b Lbs of fuel (1.58 Gb of fuel, delivered to air refueling. Source: AMC Year in Review

(3) Military Sealift Command delivers combat equipment, vehicles, fuel, supplies and ammunition to sustain US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. All MSC ships, unlike other US Navy ships, are crewed by civilians.

(4) During fiscal year 2008, MSC ships delivered more than 4.7 million square feet of combat vehicles, rolling stock, equipment and supplies to Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy warfighters engaged in worldwide operations. At the same time, MSC delivered more than 1.8 billion gallons of fuel for ground vehicles, aircraft, ships, and power generation. USTRANSCOM 2008 Annual Coomand Report

(5) April 30, 2009: Over the past five weeks, three Pacific Air Forces C-17 Globemaster IIIs flew around-the-clock missions from Manas to Afghanistan delivering special cargo in support of the Operation Enduring Freedom surge. The unofficially named "Manas C-17 Shuttle" played an integral role in the Expeditionary Mobility Task Force triangle delivery system to move special cargo delivered from Japanvia contracted 747 cargo aircraft. In turn, the C-17 crews staged at Manas were tasked to take the cargo downrange for the buildup of temporary flight ramp areas at various locations in Afghanistan.

(6) “Ten years after the Cold War, over 70 percent of the tonnage required to position today’s U.S. Army into battle is fuel. Naval forces depend each day on millions of gallons of fuel to operate around the globe. The Air Force, largest DoD consumer, spends 84% of its fuel delivery budget to deliver 6% of its fuel.”[[2]]

In sum, we don’t know the real amount and cost of fuel consumed during the Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. What we more or less know is the amount and cost of fuel consumed in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US military forces. And my guess is that what we know is only the tip of the iceberg. It is that tip of the iceberg (fuel delivered to Iraq and Afghanistan) that we see and from which we make judgment. What we don't know is what is under (fuel consumed for the Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom).

[1] Defense Management: DOD Needs to Increase Attention on Fuel Demand Management at Forward-Deployed Locations, GAO-09-300 February 20, 2009, (see Full Report)
[[2] ]More Capable Warfighting Through Reduced Fuel Burden, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, The Defense Science Board Task Force on Improving Fuel Efficiency of Weapons Platforms, January 2001.

Fuel Logistics Pain in Iraq

2009-09-25T01:02:00.004+03:00

The US military forces in Iraq use considerable amount of fuel. For instance, at Balad Air Base alone fuel usage ranged from 3 to 3.6 million gallons in December 2006 to February 2007.

Fuel is delivered to Iraq via three routes – Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey. Fuel from those countries is trucked, under DESC contract, and delivered to one of three main hubs in Iraq, western, southern and northern hub.

Fuel from Kuwait

Originally, the Kuwait route was the only source of fuel for our forces in Iraq. The Turkey and Jordan routes were opened later to help reduce the number of fuel convoys. In February 2005, the Army asked DESC to take over the mission to distribute within Kuwait and to deliver from Kuwait[[1]] to the southern hub in Iraq. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation supplies Jet A-1, as well as diesel and gasoline. Each day in that year some 2 000 trucks left Kuwait alone for various locales in Iraq.[[2]]

According to the US Air Force Major M. Davis [[3]] the DESC-Kuwait office provided “about 60% of the fuel supporting coalition forces in Iraq. Additionally, they manage a distribution contractor that is responsible for transporting nearly 1 million gallons of fuel a day, every day.” This is confirmed by an article appeared in Fuel Line (April 2008). In that article Major Timoty Haylett states that in 2007 “majority of the fuel used to support Operation Iraqi Freedom is provided by the Kuwait Petroleum Company. KPC provided more than 359 million gallons of JP8, 52 million gallons of JP5, 95 million gallons of diesel, and 16 million gallons of gasoline.”

With the exception of JP5, all fuel is shipped daily from Kuwait by the Jassim Transport & Stevedoring Company (JTC) and delivered to Cedar II, Iraq. In October 2007, JTC reached a significant milestone - delivering more than 1 billion gallons of fuel. JTC is paid on a per-truck per-day basis. Prices range from $159 - $194 a day, depending on the size of the truck and the type of fuel being transported.[4]

When the operation tempo and fuel requirements increased in Iraq, KPC allowed DESC-ME to amend the current contract of a daily maximum for JP8 of 1 million gallons to 1.3 million gallons. KPC also granted an additional 300,000 gallons of JP8 from the Kuwait Aviation Fueling Company, located at the Kuwait International Airport.

Fuel from Jordan

DESC–Jordan “delivers more than 25% of the overall fuel entering Iraq, which equates to more than 9 million gallons of JP-8 and 50 thousand gallons of Diesel,”[[5]] per month I presume.

The International Oil Trading Company (IOTC, based in the US) provides fuel for Iraq via Jordan. In 2007, IOTC delivered more than 125 million gallons of fuel to Coalition Forces in Western Iraq. This equates to 17,500 truckloads of fuel being moved to TQ, Al Assad, and Korean Village. In order to accomplish this mission, IOTC procured Jet-1, diesel, and Mogas fuels from various refineries around the world and received the tanker vessels (from locations such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and India) at its discharge point in Aqaba, Jordan. Fuel Line April 2008). The cost of fuel charged by IOTC includes shipping into Iraq. The IOTC contract is a Freight on Board contract, thus including all transportation costs. [6]

Fuel from Turkey

In spring 2005 a new fuel supply chain in terms of long-term contracts (for aviation gasoline, diesel and motor gasoline) from Turkey to Iraq was established. This removed the Air Force’s requirement to transport fuel from Al Udeid, Qatar (which was the hub from which all fuel was transported into Iraq). Even though the fuel supply from Turkey was briefly cut in the beginning of 2006 due to unpaid bills, it was resumed later on.

The DESC-Europe, headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, manages the Northern Iraq Ground Line of Communication, or Turkey GLOC. The supply and distribution chain originates in Turkey. Four primary types of bulk fuels are provided to U.S. Army general support and direct support installations in Northern Iraq: JP8, diesel, gasoline and aviation gas. The largest commodity is JP8.

JP8 is transported through the Turkish NATO Pipeline System at Mersin (west of Adana), a facility owned and operated by the Turkish Ministry of Defense. JP8 flows through this pipeline to the Adana loading facility. A transportation tender provider currently held by SHG Kizil Group, carries the fuel from Adana and delivers it to the three general support hubs. The majority of the tender-provider drivers are independent owner/operators who comprise a small, but growing, fleet maintained under the tender. During FY2008 more than 78 million gallons of JP8 delivered through this system.

MOGAS and Diesel are loaded at the Petrol Ofisi terminal in Iskenderun. AVGAS originates from Ankara. DESC-EU’s diesel provider, Golteks Group, loads out of Mersin, Turkey under a Free-on-Board Destination contract. In fiscal year 2008, Golteks shipped 29 million gallons of diesel downrange. Gasoline provider Ram, came under contract with DESC in September 2008. Under an FOB Destination contract, loading at the Kirikkale Depot, east of Ankara, Ram had delivered 521,000 gallons of gasoline by mid-November. Previously, Tefirom (also based in Turkey) was doing the job.

For a long story of how fuel is delivered through Turkey to military installations in Northern Iraq see the article by Clancy Duncan.[7] In short, all trucks from different destinations reach Gaziantep, and then follow the same route to East of Cizre where they wait for numbering. Once trucks clear Turkish and Iraqi customs, they proceed to the U.S. controlled Movement Control Team staging yard at Habur Gate. Minimum time for delivery to the US bases is one week.

The cost of gasoline, diesel, and aviation gasoline originating from Turkey also includes shipping costs. The agreements with fuel suppliers based in Turkey are also FOB destination contracts. JP-8 originating from Turkey is supplied by truck under a separate tender agreement put in place by Intratheater Commercial Transportation Branch, European Command. [8]

Overall, in fiscal 2008, through Turkey some 113 million gallons of fuel valued at more than $360 million dollars were delivered to Northern Iraq.[9]

This task required managing more than 20,000 trucks and their drivers - if these trucks were put end to end, they would stretch from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Germany. If they were stacked vertically, they would be equivalent to 202 Eiffel Towers or 361 Washington Monuments. (source; DESC Factbook 2007).

How much fuel does the US military consumes in Iraq?

According to the DLA facts as of March 2006 (since the US invasion started in 2003) the US military oil consumption in Iraq was more than 2.8 billion gallons, which makes 67 million barrels. (DLA took out the link and this information is not anymore provided)

According to Colonel Rohrer, Director of Bulk Fuels, American forces in Iraq use more than 1.3 million gallons (31 kb/d) of fuel each day.[[10]] According to an Atlantic Monthly article, however, it is 1.7 million gallons of fuel a day (40 kb/d). Some of that fuel goes to naval vessels and aircraft, but “each of the 150,000 soldiers on the ground consumes roughly nine gallons of fuel a day. And that figure has been rising.”[[11]] A DESC presentation makes it clear that 1.3 million gallon figure, in fact, is only for JP-8.[[12]] Therefore 1.7 million gallon figure (even if it is 2005 estimate) seems more appropriate.

According to my conservative calculation in 2006, it would not be wrong to say that in total the US military consumes roughly 40 kb/d of oil in Iraq. Of this amount roughly 7 kb/d comes from Jordan, 9 kb/d from Turkey and 24 kb/d from Kuwait.

Then we have the figures provided in DESC Factbooks. In 2007 (fiscal year ending in September), over 533 million gallons of product (12.7 million barrels a year or 35 kb/d) were provided from Kuwait and Jordan in support of OIF. From Turkey (or from the Northern Ground Line of Communications, if you like DoD jargon) over 112 million gallons of fuel was delivered to US Forces in northern Iraq (2.7 million barrels per year, or 7.3 kbd). The total makes 15.4 million barrels, or 42.3 kb/d. So, from 2006 to 2007 fuel deliveries to Iraq doubled.

During Fiscal Year 2008, DESC Europe shipped over 19,900 tank trucks loads of JP-8, Diesel and MOGAS with a total quantity of 113 million gallons of fuel to locations throughout Northern Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This product was instrumental in supporting the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) Commander’s “surge” operations. Over 617 million gallons of product were provided from Kuwait and Jordan. (source; DESC Factbook 2008). The total makes 17.4 MB, or 47.6 kb/d. Yes, this is a big amount, twice as much of North Korea’s oil consumption.

Figure : Fuel Supply to the US Military Facilities in Iraq

Source: Sohbet Karbuz, based on a background slide by D. Jennings and N. Dyson at the WWEC 2006, 20 April 2006.

Do you believe that 47,600 barrels per day of oil is all what the US military consumes during Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don’t. And you should Not! I will tell in my next post why….

Note; see also Fuel Logistics Pain in Afghanistan and US Military Fuel Use for Operations in Iraq and Af...

Fuel Logistics Pain in Afghanistan

2009-09-21T23:37:00.002+03:00

It is said that the ability of US forces to operate in Afghanistan is based on logistics. I suggest the US military planners read again George Thorpe’s Pure Logistics, bible of military logistics profession. He said back in 1917 that “every strategical and every tactical problem should be solved logistically to determine what measures logistical resources will afford.” It seemed that the US military planners have been thinking otherwise.

In January 2009 issue of Fuel Lines the new director (as of 16 Nov 2008) of DLA Navy vise admiral Alan S. Thompson said that “support for our forces in Afghanistan is the most difficult logistics assignment we have faced since World War II”. (p.36). The problem is that the number of US forces have been increased (and is going to be increased further) without having a proper logistics backing.

Let me recap in this post the logistics pain of delivering fuel to military forces in Afghanistan.

A very large portion of Operation Enduring Freedom’s mission is supported by Bagram Air Base in northern Afghanistan and Kandahar Air Base in the southern area. Where does the fuel come from? Well, Afghanistan does not have any refineries; and hence all petroleum products are imported.

There are several articles an fuel delivery to Afghanistan but an article by Capt John Faust back in Spring 2007 issue of Army’s Quartermaster Journal gives a good background. I will make use part of it below.

There are three major steps of getting fuel into Afghanistan and delivering it to the FOBs. First, the Joint Petroleum Office sets the bulk petroleum storage requirements for Afghanistan. Second, DESC establishes the fuel contracts and brings fuel into Afghanistan. Finally, the hubs receive the fuel and distribute it to the FOBs. The Afghan theater provides a myriad of logistics challenges to U.S./Coalition forces. There are several challenges of course: landmines, truck drivers, distance traveled, limited road networks, mountainous terrain with inadequate or nonexistent road networks, harsh weather in the winter months, along with insurgent activity, and what else you can think of.

The fuel needs of American forces in Afghanistan are met in three ways.

(a) Refined oil products are shipped over 1600 km by rail and truck from a Turkmen refinery and by barge and railcar from Azerbaijan to American facilities in Afghanistan. The fuel takes up to 10 days to reach the Afghanistan border. After reaching the Afghanistan border, the TS1 is uploaded into “jingle” trucks,[1] and then it can take another 2-4 days to reach one of the fuel hubs. The travel time to the FOBs range from 1-12 days.

(b) Fuel is trucked from four refineries in Pakistan passing through the Khyber and Salang Passes and is delivered in a week time. On any given day, there were more than 300 trucks, carrying approximately three million gallons of fuel (71429 barrels), en route to military locations downrange.[1]

Fuel supplies in Pakistan is already having problems. As long as no reliable and secure road transport routes are found from neighboring countries, fuel supplies to Afghanistan must be delivered by air. This means that fuel costs will skyrocket. In January 2009 issue of Fuel Line (quarterly journal of DESC), Lynda Brown of Bulk Petroleum CBU reports that the Defense Energy Support Center recently added two forward operating bases (Sharana and Shank) in Afghanistan to the list of destinations it supports through fuel transportation contracts, previously administered by the Army Joint Logistics Command. In addition to transportation service contracts in the region, the CBU has administered Free-on-Board Destination supply contracts since July 2007, providing aviation, diesel, and gasoline fuels to Afghanistan from locations in Pakistan. Prior to 2007, supply contracts supporting Afghanistan paid the contractors for the fuel at the origin of the delivery chain. But, since with Free-on-Board (FOB) Destination contracts, the government doesn’t take ownership of the fuel until it is delivered, FOB Destination contractors must manage the risks of in-transit losses. This risk management position has facilitated greater efficiency in contract management.

(c) Before the US base closed an agreement with Uzbekistan[1] provided for 100,000 gallons of jet fuel[1] per day for use in Operation Enduring Freedom

DESC‑Middle East has contracts with three refineries in Pakistan and one with Red Star, who contracts with refineries in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. The refineries provide JP8 and TS1 (Russian grade jet fuel) and ground fuels such as MOGAS, DF1 and DF2 winter grade and summer grade diesel fuels.

Pakistani refineries produce JP8 and Turkmenistan and Azeri refineries produce TS1. JP8 is injected with additives at the Pakistan refineries and TS1 receives additives at Bagram or Kandahar, the fuel hubs in Afghanistan where all bulk petroleum is delivered from the refineries.

Those two hubs provide bulk petroleum support to roughly 70 forward operating bases (FOBs) throughout Afghanistan.

Fuel Line July 2007 issue had mentioned that Red Star Fuel Services Incorporation, better known as Red Star Enterprises, (a private company located in Gibraltar and operating out of London), in conjunction with DESC and the 43rd Joint Logistics Command, will build a permanent fuel storage facility outside of Bagram Air Base. “When completed, the Red Star fuel facility will have more than 3-million gallons of storage capacity. This facility will be connected to Bagram AB by pipeline. The storage facility, in conjunction with the pipeline connection, will drastically reduce the fuel truck footprint at Bagram, and decrease force protection concerns.”

Red Star/JLC pipeline became fully operational in March 2008 and has a major impact on fuel operations and support within Afghanistan. The Red Star Fuel Facility delivers unadditized TS1 jet fuel via pipeline to Bagram Air Field every day. On average, Bagram receives 250,000 gallons per day via the pipeline, although Bagram has received as much as 300,000 gallons in one day through the pipeline. One of the most important aspects of this new method of delivery is that it has allowed the base to reduce the amount of trucks that enter the base each day. Approximately 40 fuel trucks per day no longer have to wait in line outside the entry control point to be swept by security and force protection teams. By reducing the congestion at the Entry Control Point, trucks carrying additional classes of supply are able to access the base quickly, thereby improving Bagram’s ability to receive and process material for its various customers. (source; DESC FActbook 2008)

At Bagram Air Base a new TS1 storage and issue site with a capacity of 420,000 gallon was created. Now, Bagram’s fuel military construction project will increase total storage capacity there by 2.6 million gallons (62,000 barrels). Note that Red Star Fuel Services Inc (sometimes refereed as Red Star Enterprise) has a reserve storage facility adjacent to Bagram base. Well, this reserve storage facility is owned and operated by Red Star. It is now in operation and has a capacity of three million gallons (7142 barrels). In addition, Red Star constructed a six-inch pipeline between their storage facility and the base which reduced the fuel truck footprint at Bagram Air Base, and thus decreased force protection concerns.

Now, let me open a big bracket here. As is usually the case for all DoD contractors, Red Star Enterprise is making good money of course. The company entered into a contract with DESC in 2005 for a regular delivery of jet fuel to Bagram. In August 2008 the company was awarded a maximum $308,257,762 fixed price with economic price adjustment contract for jet fuel. And in December 2008 the company’s name was in Department of Army Legal Office for paid but not delivered fuel. (a summary of the story)

According to the DLA facts as of March 2006 “more than 2.2 billion gallons of fuel,” which makes 52 million barrels, was supplied to Afghanistan. Since then cumulative fuel supplies are not updated (on the DLA website).

The first issue of Fuel Line in 2006 (page 6) gives a daily consumption rate of over 270 000 gallons (6,400 barrels per day) of oil across Afghanistan by the US military.

In 2007 over 139 million gallons of product were provided in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), according to DESC FACTBOOK2007 (published in 2008). This makes 9,067 barrels per day. JP8 and ground fuels are provided from Pakistan refineries and delivered to Bagram airbase and to Kandahar Air Base (KAB) until NATO/ISAF (International Security Assistance Forces) assumed the KAB operations responsibility in July.

In 2008, over 153 million gallons of products were provided in support of OEF, According to DESC FACTBOOK2008 (published in 2009). This makes 10,000 barrels per day. Russian grade aviation fuel (TS1) and ground fuels are supplied via supplier facilities in Afghanistan, but originate in Northern Central Asia / Russia.

Something wrong here? To me, yes! Back in 2006 I wrote on my blog that “In total, the US military consumes roughly 16 kbd of oil in Afghanistan. Of this amount roughly 2.7 kbd comes from Turkmenistan, 2.4 kbd from Uzbekistan and 10.8 kb/d from Pakistan.” According to a presentation by DESC in the same year, in fact 570 000 gallons per day, or 13,600 barrels per day,(1) of bulk fuel was supplied to the US bases in Afghanistan. That estimate, however, excluded deliveries from Uzbekistan.

And now DESC says that despite the surge in troop numbers the US military consumes less fuel? Where are the missing barrels?

“In fact, the battle is fought and decided by the storeman and quartermasters before the shooting begins.” - German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Army's Electricity Pains and Pills

2009-08-08T23:12:00.003+03:00

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPA Act 2005), Executive Order 13423 (EO 13423)[1] and the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007 (EISA 2007) combined with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007 and the National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1978 require military installations to reduce energy consumption and to use increasing amounts of renewable energy for their electricity needs and also require that those electricity generating systems to be located on the military installations. All these legislative orders have been posing challenges for the Department of Defense but at the same time giving opportunities to the private sector to help advance energy security and climate change mitigation initiatives - efficiency, conservation and zero-carbon energy sources.

I have mentioned on my blog countless time that any measure towards reducing energy consumption depends on knowing how energy is being used and how accurately it is measured. And the cheapest and most effective way to reduce energy consumption is to modify energy consumption habits, including, maintaining mandated thermostat set points, removing space heaters and turning off electronic equipment and lights where not (as much) needed. To reduce oil consumption may not be that easy but there is a lot of room for saving electricity.

Chief Master Sgt. Larry O'Neil (26th Air Refueling Wing Facility Management) gives a handy summary of thoughts on energy consumption and reduction in his short article. He rightly underlines the fact that as there is little we can do about the rates we pay, there is an abundance of things we can do to reduce our usage. He provides a list to notify the changes people ‘you as Wing members will start to notice on a daily basis’. I liked the precision in the list and hence will repeat here.

Current Changes
Summer thermostat set points changed from 72 degrees to 76 degrees. (May 09)
Winter thermostat set points changed from 72 degrees to 68 degrees. (May 09)
The elimination of space heaters in work space unless authorized by the Vice Wing Commander. (May 09)
Hot water heaters from 140 degrees to 120 degrees. (July 09)
Replacement of T-12 fluorescent light bulbs with T-8 bulbs. (May 08)
Reduce exterior lighting at night time; always keeping safety and security at the forefront. (Aug 09)
Installation of next generation of HVAC monitoring systems. (Jun 09 - Dec 09)
Energy audit of facilities by an independent agency. (Dec 08)
All future appliance purchases to be made acquiring Energy Star appliances.

Future Changes
Installing motion sensors in offices for lighting.
Replace warehouse lighting with more efficient fluorescent lighting.
Installing geo-thermal system in two facilities.
Installing "Smart" metering at all facilities resulting in more accurate and minute to minute delivery.

Changes you can make at work
When departing a room for more than five minutes turn off room lights and computer monitors.
Use televisions only during breaks or for training.
At the end of the duty day turn off printers, radios, lights, fans, and all other non-essential appliances.
Draw window shades to prevent sunlight heat from over-heating a room in the summer, then raise them in the winter to allow heat to come in.
Keep overhead doors closed whenever possible.

Electrical power is probably the biggest energy pain of the Army. And it seems that Army is focusing for electricity only future. Therefore all measures listed above should be double applied to Army.

The U.S. Army will soon be the largest fleet owner of both low-speed electric vehicles and hybrid-electric vehicles. Note that Army is buying 4,000 low-speed electric vehicles. This is part of the Army's plans for energy security, which focus on surety, sufficiency, supply, sustainability and survivability. Other plans include such things as micro-grids for more efficient power distribution, reductions in consumption of energy on installations, certification of tactical vehicles for alternative fuel use, and partnerships with industry to build power-production capacity.

"All of those things are important to us for energy security," says Dr. Kevin T. Geiss, program director for energy security in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment. He modified a Marine Corps motto, "beans, bullets and bandages," to include "BTUs" or British thermal units -- a unit for measuring energy.

I agree with him that energy security is an end state. But how to reach to that end needs further clarification about the means. At all costs, unconventional ways, in selected or all platforms etc? Take energy cost for example. While fuel costs $2 a gallon to $4 a gallon in the US, the "fully burdened" cost (which includes costs of getting fuel to where it is needed) in some operating locations in Iraq and Afghanistan can have one or two extra zeros in gallon price tag.

Some of that fuel is used for producing electricity. So, one should calculate fully burdened cost of electricity generation in forward operating locations. Because for instance, energy consumed by a combat vehicle is both for mobility of the vehicle and for running the systems onboard the vehicle, including the communications equipment and the cooling systems to protect the electronics and sensors onboard. One combat vehicle operates an 800-horsepower power plant -- of which only 200 horsepower are used for mobility. The rest is to power the vehicle's subsystems.

Meanwhile, TARDEC (the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Warren, Mich) is preparing to lead the way in producing safer, more efficient and more high-powered ground vehicles in the future with the construction of the Department of Defense's Ground System Power and Energy Laboratory. Army's this next generation of power and energy initiative will investigate the ability to integrate hybrid-electric and fuel-cell technologies into advanced military vehicles.

Solar Power Dispute at Nellis Air Force Base

2009-07-12T14:42:00.005+03:00

Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada is not only home to the largest advanced air combat training mission in the world but also home to the North America’s largest solar photovoltaic power plant. Designed and built by SunPower Corporation, it intends to meet an average of 25% of the electricity requirements at the base, where 12,000 people live and work. The single-axis solar tracking system maximizes solar electrical generation by following the path of the sun. MMA Renewable Ventures, LLC, has financed this $100 million solar energy system, and will own and operate it by selling power to Nellis Air Force Base at a guaranteed rate for 20 years, as well as selling Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to Nevada Power. (see the end of this article for the technical details)

A Washington Post article on 20 June 2009 (Solar Project Meets Bigger Foe Than Cloudy Skies: The Air Force) reported that the Air Force has objected to SolarReserve, LA, to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in Nevada citing potential interference between the project’s 600-foot tower and radar used to guide flight training.

In 2007 SolarReserve proposed the construction of a $700 million solar thermal power plant with a capacity of 200 megawatts, covering two square miles, near the Nevada Air Force base. (see SolarReserve website for the explanation of their technology).

Solar tower plants use an array of mirrors to focus heat onto a single point — a tower. That heat is used to create steam to power a turbine. The company selected a site near Tonopah, about 25 miles from the testing range, because it is near power lines. Another company, BrightSource Energy wants to do a similar project near Primm and on private property at Coyote Springs.

But apparently Col. Howard D. Belote, installation commander at Nellis, is urging the government to turn it down. The company has been negotiating with the Air Force for 18 months and has already revised its plans once to move the plant away from the base, at the Air Force's suggestion. According to WP news piece Col. Belote said the solar plant would compromise classified aspects of the Air Force's training range and would interfere with radar. An Airforce Time news piece (Base: Solar project would hinder radar) adds that officials at Nellis Air Force Base are asking the Department of Interior to reject the SolarReserve Project because “the plant would be incompatible with our vital national security interests, Col. Howard Belote, commander of the 99th Air Base Wing at Nellis, wrote in a June 3 letter to Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.” On another occasion the same Col. Belote said that “Nellis AFB is a proponent of compatible renewable energy initiatives both on and off DoD lands. DoD is a stakeholder, not an approving authority, for non-DoD lands.” Also, DoD is not in the business of selling power to the grid.

This may sounds strange. This is not the first time that concerns are raised about certain types of renewable energy technologies possible interference with air and ground radar systems if they’re located too close to the range. And a tower could disrupt radar systems if installed in some places within 100 miles north and west of the site.

Mission impacts of solar and wind systems vary. For solar systems the issues are centered on height; radar; glare; noise/boom damage; heat. For wind energy the issues are height and radar. Wind farms may also have potential negative impacts to military operations - Electromagnetic Interference, Flight Obstruction, Security, Thermal Signature, Lighting, and Reflection. In Radar performance impacts wind turbines are of primary concern. The issues include target detection (degrades the radar’s ability to identify a target, ie, doppler aspect), Clutter (reduces operator’s ability to track targets), Screening (reduces radar coverage volume), Beacon false targets, Screening and beacon false targets.

US Solar Resources and DoD Ranges and Special Use Airspace (Source)

In the past, Nellis AFB had objected to tall hotel projects in nearby Las Vegas and to wind turbines. But the base sits well above the height of the tower proposed by SolarReserve. Nellis is about 200 miles from the proposed solar tower but Nellis AFB suggests SolarReserve move the plant another 200 miles southeast.

In a June 17 hearing before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on readiness and management support, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the resistance of military training ranges to alternative energy plants had a “chilling effect on renewable energy projects.”

Now both SolarReserve and Nellis AFB are doing separate research on the impact of the project on radars. The military has commissioned scientists from MIT to study this issue.

Solar power sstem at Nellis Air Force Base

Source: USAF, for more pictures see here.

On 27 May 2009, Col. Belote hosted President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who toured the solar facility. When he gave President Barack Obama a tour of Nellis’ 14 megawatt photovoltaic solar array, he said the military needed more of a voice in the administration’s solar planning.

At Nellis AFB Obama announced two new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs aimed at doubling America's capability to generate renewable energy. "Right now, we're standing near the largest solar electric plant of its kind in the entire Western Hemisphere ….It's a project that will save the U.S. Air Force, which is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government, nearly $1 million a year," President Obama said following a tour of Nellis' solar photovoltaic array.

Some of the specific provisions of the act called for promoting energy independence, with $7.2 billion dedicated to "green" projects and programs. Capitalizing on Nellis' example, the president announced the availability of Recovery Act funding for two such programs. "The first is a solar energy technologies program that will help replicate the success of the Nellis project in cities and states across America. We'll invest in the development and deployment of solar technology wherever it can thrive and we'll find the best ways to integrate solar power into our electric grid," President Obama said.

At first sight, I am a bit puzzled with this objection of Ellis AFB to new solar projects “close” to the base. As far as I know solar thermal projects are much more competitive than Solar PV projects. Therefore I wonder whether some financial issues play a role on this dog fight. How much does Nellis pay per kWh to MMA Renewable Ventures. What would be the selling price of SolarReserve per kWh? Or the issue is really purely adverse effect on military capabilities? If that is the case why DoD has not conducted any detailed study and set the clear constraints concerning solar and wind projects close to military bases?

I guess it is time for the US military to restudy the meaning of the word “strategy” before going ahead with renewable energy projects. DoD is failing with its vision. Synthetic fuels derived from coal is not happening, biofuels are still focused on non-tactical vehicles use only. Data management has not been improved. Senior DoD official on energy matters has not yet been assigned. And now, voices are raised against wind and concentrated solar power projects. What is left is energy efficiency and conservation. I hope DoD will not loosen the efforts and ambitions on those fronts. Note that more than 80% of the USAF energy consumption (in monetary terms) is for aviation and 15% is for installations. The rest is for ground equipment.

By the way, the new solar panels on rooftops at the California Air National Guard base in Fresno are a first for any air guard base in the US. In the beginning of July 2009 a solar company finished installing 3,819 solar panels at the Fresno air guard base, home to the 144th Fighter Wing. The 660-kilowatt system was built on three newly constructed carports and a rooftop at the McKinley Avenue base. The project was installed by San Francisco-based Akeena Solar, and was completed in phases, starting in 2006. It cost about $6 million and covers almost 40,000 square feet. The installation is eligible to receive an estimated $1.1 million rebate from the California Solar Initiative. Unlike some other projects in which the solar company owns the panels and leases them to the location, the air guard owns the panels.

=================================================================
Some technical details on Nellis Solar PV Power Plant:

Project surface area: 140 acres (owned by USAF)
Solar plant capacity: 14.2 megawatts (DC) peak output
Date of completion: December 2007 (constructed in 26 weeks)
Annual energy output: 30,100,000 kWh
Estimated annual Air Force savings: $1 million
Technology: SunPower T20 Tracker
Number of Trackers: 5,821
Number of solar panels: 72,416
Number of solar cells: 5,891,328
Number of watts per panel: 200
Number of transformers: 18
Number of inverters: 54
Total length of power cables: 5,550,000 ft .
(For further info click this link)

Biofuels for Military Aircraft

2009-05-31T20:58:00.001+03:00

Commercial Jet fuel has stringent requirements. Alternatives are expected to perform exactly like kerosene so that aircraft do not have to be modified. They are expected to be environmentally sustainable and cost effective. First generation biofuels derived from crop did not meet these criteria for planes. Therefore the aviation industry is looking at second generation biofuels from non-crop sources.[1] Of these, algae are considered as the best. They can be grown in polluted or salt water, deserts and other inhospitable places. They can produce up to several hundred times more oil per hectare than first generation soybeans. According to Boeing, an area of land or water equivalent to the size of Belgium devoted to algae production could produce enough energy to fuel the entire global fleet of aircraft.

There have been several demonstration flights using second generation biofuels: In February 2008 a Virgin Atlantic Beoing 747-400 plane flew between London and Amsterdam, powering one engine with an 80:20 mix of Jet-A1 and a biofuel derived from babussi oil and coconut oil. In December 2008, Air New Zealand flew a similar plane with one engineer running on a 50:50 blend of Jet-A1 and synthetic fuel derived from jatropha oil. In January 2009, a Continental Airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft undertook a test flight using a biofuel partly derived from algae. In the same month, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 flew with one of the engines powered by a mix of 50:50 mix of Jet-A1 and biofuel including camelina. IATA targets biofuels to be commercially available by 2017.[2]

But the biodiesel produced through current commercial processes isn’t yet suitable for military tactical aircraft, which requires a fuel that meets exceptionally high standards – higher energy density and a wide operating temperature range.

DoD had initially focused in creating alternative fuels from agricultural and aquacultural oil. The aim was to use a variety of natural (vegetable) oils and animal fats (greases) as feedstocks, both edible and inedible. But later on, it shifted its focus to making synthetic fuel from algae — or other biological feedstocks that do not compete with food supplies — after earlier attempts to develop coal-based synthetic fuel ran into political hurdles.[3] However, efforts on synfuel derived from natural gas still continue. Note that USAF goal is to certify every aircraft synthetic fuel blends capable by 2011.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)[4] began its pursuit of biofuels back in 2006. DARPA is now undertaking new research to enable the efficient and economical production of military-grade jet fuel (JP-8) from a variety of agricultural and aquacultural products that are oil rich but are not competitive with the food supply.

DARPA’s new BioFuels Alternative Feedstocks program aims to develop affordable alternatives to JP-8 from algae and from cellulosic biomass. Wit affordable DARPA means at a cost that is competitive with petroleum-derived fuels. More specifically, DARPA seeks to produce a surrogate JP-8 that would cost less than $3 per gallon at a production rate of 50 million gallons per year.[5]

Cellulosic program aims at 50% conversion energy efficiency (the conversion of biomass to actual fuel), by energy content, of feedstock material into JP-8. Algae program aims at production of algae triglyceride at $1 per gallon. Also, Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (in Golden, Co) currently is working with the Air Force office of scientific research on a project[6] to produce a $2 a gallon algae-based synthetic fuel that would be made locally.

All these are good news, at least the cost side. But the scale of required production still remains a problem. By the way, who will invest in biofuels production without having any purchase guarantee or government subsidies?

Notes:
[1] Algae, halophytes, babassu, switchgrass, jatropha, camelina.
[2] Paul Steele, Sustainable Transport – The Biofuel Aeroplane, The World Today, Vol 65, No.3, March 2009, pp 14-16.
[3] Under a 2007 law, the military is banned from buying alternative fuels that emit more greenhouse gases than petroleum-based fuels.
[4] DARPA was established in response to the Russian Sputnik launch, and celebrated its 50th anniversary in March 2009. Its work has built the foundations for the NASA space program, the World Wide Web, GPS, Stealth aircraft, advanced precision munitions, the Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles, and myriad other technologies.
[5] DARPA BioFuels – Alternative Feedstocks program website,
“Energy as a Tactical Asset,” speech delivered by Dr. Doug Kirkpatrick at DARPA’s 25th Systems and Technology Symposium (August 2007)
DARPA BioFuels program website
[6] This is part of a $100 million program funded by the DARPA.

Energy and Defense Policies

2009-05-10T19:46:00.002+03:00

Australian Department of Defense released its new White Paper to the horizon 2030.

Why Australia needed a new Defense Policy? Warren Snowdon, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, gave the precise answer in this Speech to the Australian Defence Magazine Congress 2009, held on 17 February 2009. He mentioned in his speech that the world has changed much since the last White Paper in the year 2000. One of the changes he mentioned was “the emerging challenges of climate and demographic change, and energy and food security.”

That’s why “The Prime Minister has called for a new approach to national security that brings together all the elements of traditional and non-traditional security capabilities that ensure Australia responds to the full breadth of the threat spectrum that will increasingly confront Australia, including:…..

Preparing for the new challenges of energy security; and
Anticipating the impact of climate change on long-term food and water security.”

Before the study was finalized a public consultation was launched. See, Looking Over the Horizon: Australians Consider Defense, December 2008, Australian Department of defense, defense White Paper Community Consultation.

In there it is stated that “Energy security featured as a recurring issue in the community consultations, including in relation to the strategic consequences of the inexorable decline of oil supplies……

Some also pointed to the vulnerability of the ADF’s force structure (and ultimately of its capability) from exposure to long supply routes of finite oil supplies and asked…..
In terms of ADF capability, some participants were concerned that the ADF was vulnerable to rising fuel costs and possibly the onset of peak oil and the consequential impact on ADF platforms, activities and preparedness……” Guess, who was mentioning Peak Oil? ASPO-Australia, of course.

Against this background I am a little bit surprised with the final report which was released on 2 May 2009. See, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, Defence White paper, Australian Department of Defence, 2009. No mention of Peak Oil. However, there is a wide range of discussion on energy, especially climate change.

Here are some quotes from the White Paper:

In answering the question “Why Do We Need a White Paper Now?” the paper stated that “In the past decade we have also become increasingly more conscious of the potential security impacts of changing climate patterns, resource and energy scarcity, and persistent patterns of poverty and poor governance in many parts of the world.”

This has changed The Global Strategic Environment which will have wide ranging implications in the future. For instance: “Regional conflicts, such as in the Middle East and Africa, will likely continue to be a risk in the international system. Clashes between and within states in these regions are likely to arise for diverse reasons, such as the breakdown of fragile states; disputes over territory; access to resources, water and energy; population movements, environmental crises or food shortages…... Changing climate patterns, combined with booming population growth, will sharpen competition for scarce food, water and energy resources in many parts of the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.”

The Paper’s backbone is The Strategic Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region.
“The Indian Ocean will have greater strategic significance in the period to 2030. It will become an increasingly important global trading thoroughfare, particularly for energy supplies between Asia and the Middle East. There are a number of significant inter-state and intra-state conflicts along its periphery that have the potential to draw in other powers. Over time, ….., the Indian Ocean is likely to host a larger military (particularly naval) presence. A number of major naval powers are likely to increasingly compete for strategic advantage in this crucial maritime region. Over the period to 2030, the Indian Ocean will join the Pacific Ocean in terms of its centrality to our maritime strategy and defence planning.

The Paper has a sub section entitled: New Security Concerns: Climate Change and Resource Security.
Under that section it is mentioned that “The Government also considered new security risks that might arise from the potential impact of climate change and resource security issues, involving future tensions over the supply of energy, food and water. …..Uncertainty about the effects of climate change and the period of time over which potential impacts may develop makes it difficult to assess its strategic consequences. Large-scale strategic consequences of climate change are not likely to be felt before 2030. The security effects of climate change are likely to be most pronounced where states have limited capacity to respond to environmental strains….

The main effort against such developments will of course need to be undertaken through coordinated international climate change mitigation and economic assistance strategies, and concerted international action to assure energy supply and distribution, which will need to be at the forefront of Australia's policy responses……”
……
“Most of Australia's reserves of oil and gas are concentrated offshore in the north-west of Australia and the Timor Sea. Many of our key resource extraction facilities are remote and would be vulnerable to interference, disruption or attack. Some of our offshore territories would also be vulnerable to harassment or attack, and their loss or occupation by an adversary would represent a major strategic setback.”

The issues mentioned in Australian Defense Policy is not far away from the ones mentioned or will be mentioned in the US Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a legislatively-mandated review of DoD strategy and priorities. Previous QDRs were conducted in 1997, 2001, and 2006. (see my remarks on Quadrennial Defense Review 2006 posted in April 2006 on my blog). The new one will be released in 2010.

According to the US Department of Defense: The QDR is “one of the principal means by which the tenets of the National Defense Strategy are translated into potential new policies, capabilities and initiatives. The purpose of the QDR is to assess the threats and challenges the nation faces, as well as to balance the department’s strategies, capabilities and forces to address today’s conflicts and tomorrow’s threats.”

The fact sheet for the new QDR says that it “The strategic environment we face is complex and the security challenges – both current and those on the horizon – are wide ranging. The global economic downturn adds to the complexity. Key security challenges include ….. climate change,…. increasing scarcity of resources …..” In Global Strategic Trends (view of the future produced by the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), UK’s Ministry of Defence, 25 January 2008), energy and climate issues are given much more space, including the section “Competition for Energy.” Militarization of energy security and climate change is a worrying trend. Even NATO is dealing with these issues (see my post in November 2007 NATO and Energy Security).

I understand and give credit to the energy part of these defense policies and views but I have difficulty in understanding their obsession with climate change. What is the role of climate change (whose effects will not be seen before the second half of this century even in the worst case anyway) in defense policies to 2030? This issue is becoming outrages. Or governments want to use climate change issue just a pretext for justifying their intended future actions?
Sometimes military community can be funny with their climate change obsessions.
Here is an example: “Every 1°C increase in air temperature typically reduces the operating height of a helicopter by 100 feet. An extreme event could wipe 1000 feet off the flight ceiling.” (mentioned in Defense in a Changing Climate, Defence Scientific Advisory Council, U.K Ministry of Defence, 2007).

Armed forces around the world, especially the ones in the so-called West, should first look in the mirror before telling other people what they should do or not do!

The US Military Energy Consumption in 2008

2009-04-06T22:51:00.002+03:00

Finally! The U.S. Department of Defense released its FY2008 Annual Energy Management Report. I don’t know why the report was delayed 3 months. What I don’t understand, in fact, why DESC still hasn’t published its Factbook for FY2008.

FY2008 Annual Energy Management Report, as usual, hides the vital information. If you want to get the big picture you have to do your own calculations. The whole report, in my opinion, is kind of attempting to validate some famous sayings about statistics, like “statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital,” and “Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say.”

Renewables, energy efficiency, how well the DoD did to reduce its energy consumption etc cover 99.9% of the report. BUT it does not give you a real fact based summary, not even in “Executive Summary.”

So, I decided to prepare three charts based on the data provided, as usual, at the end of the report.

1. The DoD site delivered energy consumption in Fiscal Year 2008 was 890 trillion Btu. In 2007, it was 865 trillion Btu. Note that the figures refer to site delivered energy consumption. A better metric is primary energy consumption. If looked from that angle DoD energy consumption indeed is 1138 trillion Btu.

2. Anyway, let me go ahead with site delivered energy consumption (which is the preferred metric by the DoD). Almost 75% of site delivered energy was consumed by tactical vehicles; 23% in buildings, and slightly over 1% in energy intensive or exempt facilities and by nontactical vehicles respectively.

3. Jet fuel is still the king. It accounted for 56% of total DoD site delivered energy consumption. Add other oil types, you get 76%. Another 11% for electricity and 8% for natural gas. Oh, I forgot, share of renewables is negligible.

4. Money, money, money: DoD hit a new record in FY2008. It spent $20 billion for energy. (79% of which for tactical vehicles, 19% for buildings, and less than 3% for the rest). Or better, over 80% for mobility, and 20% for installations.

5. Yes, $20 billion: Mostly for oil ($16.5 billion, followed by electricity, $2.5 billion)
6. DoD oil consumption in terms of barrels per day: 350,000

7. Average cost per gallon of jet fuel in FY2008: $3.12

8. Average cost of electricity: 6 US cent per kWh. Question: what is the average cost of electricity produced from renewable energy sources? Well, not indicated in the report. It is hidden behind the numbers. Or I missed.

9. Conclusion: DoD is and will remain the single largest energy consumer in the world.

a. DoD should get over with its renewable energy mania and try to look at where its biggest pains are. Just read the points above.

b. DoD should answer the following question: How much money is spent for renewable energy? How much renewable energy is used? How much conventional energy supposedly saved? What are the costs and savings per unit of energy?

10. Still open questions: How many installations, e.g. building are privatized? How many utility services have been outsourced? How many/how much transport service has been given to contractors? Why aren’t they included in DoD energy consumption?

DOD Standard Fuel Pricing

2009-03-22T01:44:00.003+02:00

Needs to be Changed

Last year in July I wrote a piece on my blog titled DOD Should Change its Fuel Pricing.

I see that nothing has changed over the past year.

I repeat part of what I wrote then.

The Defense Energy Support Center (DESC)’s customers, i.e., DoD, are charged standard prices for oil products set in advance by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), and, in most cases, are in effect for the entire fiscal year. The aim was to insulate the customer from market fluctuations.

Let us have a look what DESC says about the Standard DOD Customer Fuel Price [emphasis added].

The standard price of fuel is a tool that was created by DoDs fiscal managers to insulate the Military Services from the normal ups and downs of the fuel marketplace. It provides the Military Services and OSD with budget stability despite the commodity market swings, with gains or losses being absorbed by a revolving fund known as the Defense Working Capital Fund (DWCF). In years that the market price of fuel is higher than the standard price, the DWCF loses money. In years that the market price is lower than the standard price, it makes money. This gain or loss can be made up by adjusting future standard prices or by providing our DoD customers with a refund. This decision is typically made by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Comptroller.

The standard price of fuel is not a marketplace price. You cannot compare the standard price of fuel with the price of fuel at the service station down the block. It is not intended that the standard price of fuel be comparable with similar fuels in the commercial marketplace. The prices that you should examine for comparison with the "station down the block" are those which DESC actually paid for those fuels. They are invariably less than the price which is being offered in the commercial marketplace because of the centralized buying power of the federal government.

Fine.

Department of Defense and all DoD services complain about high oil prices but nobody questions the pricing policy of DESC! There have been several episodes back to the late 1990s when standard fuel prices were way above the commercial market price. (see the chart below)

Since September 2008 oil prices (and also commercial price of jet fuel) have been going down. But DoD standard fuel price for JP-8 has consistently remained over 60 percent of commercial jet price. In fact, in November 2008, DESC price was twice as much as that of commercial price. Only in February 2009, the discrepancy was reduced to nearly 30%.
DoD services have paid millions of dollars extra to DESC due to improperly set standard prices.

My conclusion is the same: It is time for DESC to reevaluate and reconsider its price setting mechanism. Before wining about the fuel costs and blaming on oil producers, the DoD should first look at the problems at home and fix them.

Hearing on Fuel Use in Forward Locations

2009-03-08T15:32:00.003+02:00

On March 3, 2009 the US House Armed Services Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee met to receive testimony on Department of Defense fuel demand management at forward-deployed locations and operational energy initiatives.

Chairman Solomon Ortiz’s opening statement set the ground very clearly “Today's hearing provides an opportunity to focus on management of the energy needed for military operations and ways to reduce fuel demand at forward deployed locations….delivering fuel to the battlefield imposes a heavy logistical burden……Although installations have worked for three decades to improve their energy efficiency, weapons platforms and tactical equipment historically have been given a free pass. But reducing operational fuel demand can enhance the operational effectiveness of our forces and save taxpayer dollars. “

Good thoughts. But if the Congress is really worried about taxpayer dollars then the first place to look at is indeed to get the prices DoD charges to its services right.

Let me now quote some important passages from the written statement of Alan R. Shaffer (pdf), Acting Director, Defense Research and Engineering, U.S. Department of Defense.

“the Department has maintained the overriding principal of not subjecting forces to greater risk by prematurely deploying technologies that have not been proven in field testing.….U.S. deployed forces are at risk from attacks on supply lines carrying fuel. A longer supply chain requires more fuel and increases contested lines of communications, resulting in greater risk.

the Department’s investment in Energy Security and energy related projects has grown from requests of $440 million in FY 2006 to $1.3 billion in FY 2009, not including funding in the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which provided $300 million to the Department for energy-related research and development. Embedded in this investment are a number of projects specifically focused on either reducing energy demands or increasing energy supply to operational forces, as well as in garrison.

The DoD has initiated a broad range of demonstrations and other projects to increase energy efficiency and develop assured alternatives. Among these are a number of projects to reduce energy demand—or manage energy demand, at forward locations.

One of our more effective actions to date has been to insulate deployed facilities using spray foam, which yields energy use reductions of 40 to 75 percent compared to non-insulated tents.
Renewable and other assured energy sources are important to our ability to sustain missions from our bases, since we are almost entirely dependent on the commercial grid for power.

While battlefield waste may be a viable source of energy and may offset some fuel consumption, it may not provide dramatic reductions of fuel consumption. However, it does provide some improvement with other benefits from waste reduction, like reducing military security escorts for trash removal, keeping our Soldiers out of harm's way, and improved environmental conditions.……[Recent findings indicate that] “while these technologies offer potential for both providing power and reducing base camp waste management problems, they are too immature for near-term operational/field applications [due to unpredictable waste streams in amount and composition; system efficiency, reliability, ease of operation; and size, weight, and transportability] and the requirements must be better defined.” [in Q&A session Mr. Shaffer admitted that waste to fuel converters don’t work as good as it is advertised. There were 2 test plants but didn’t worked out and were brought back. He doesn’t know whether it was R&D or engineering problem. By the way, did DoD made a cost benefit analysis for those plants? How much did it cost and how much fuel saved? ]

The Army and Navy are developing and demonstrating compact and mobile 10 kilowatt high temperature fuel cells to power critical equipment[1]. These systems provide silent, portable power and eliminate dependence on large generator or grid power for battery charging. These fuel cells are demonstrating a high efficiency (about 55 percent) and are being designed to use jet fuel.

DoD is making progress in energy security. Since 2006, we have more than doubled our energy investment, and overall energy consumption is down six percent since FY 2005. Installations energy demand is down 10 percent since FY 2003, and 12 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources…… initiated numerous demonstrations and other projects to reduce consumption and increase assured alternatives for installations, both fixed and tactical, and weapons systems, with anticipated savings from five to 25 percent.”

In sum, he reported nothing new, no real achievement, no real progress and tired to convey technology will save us message.

In his written statement of William M. Solis (pdf), Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office the following points are worth to mention:

“to reduce fuel demand at its forward-deployed locations, particularly those that are not connected to local power grids. In 2008, more than 68 million gallons of fuel, on average, were supplied by DOD each month to support U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Transporting large quantities of fuel to forward-deployed locations presents an enormous logistics burden and risk.

The fully burdened cost of fuel—that is, the total ownership cost of buying, moving, and protecting fuel in systems during combat—has been reported to be many times higher than the price of a gallon of fuel itself.

DOD has initiated efforts to reduce fuel demand at Forward-Deployed Locations but lacks an effective approach to managing demand.

Many of DOD’s efforts to reduce fuel demand at forward-deployed locations are in a research and development phase, and the extent to which they will be fielded and under what time frame is uncertain. Notable efforts by DOD components include the application of foam insulation to tent structures, the development of more fuel-efficient generators and environmental control units, and research on alternative and renewable energy sources for potential use at forward-deployed locations.

DOD has stated that it needs to reduce its dependence on petroleum-based fuel and the logistics footprint of its military forces, as well as reduce operating costs associated with high fuel usage. However, DOD faces difficulty in achieving these goals because managing fuel demand at forward-deployed locations has not been a departmental priority and its fuel reduction efforts have not been well coordinated or comprehensive. More specifically, we found that DOD lacked (1) guidance directing forward-deployed locations to address fuel demand, (2) incentives and a viable funding mechanism for locations to invest in fuel reduction initiatives, and (3) visibility and accountability within the chain of command for achieving fuel reduction.

The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 requires DOD to establish a Director of Operational Energy Plans and Programs, an operational energy strategy for DOD, and military department-level operational energy officials. DOD has not yet established a director or strategy for operational energy.

Again nothing new. However, there were really good moments in Q&A session. See, Video Webcast. Here are important parts:

Chairman asked how DOD sees the logistic challenge to be faced when we consider the fact that some 30000 more soldiers will be deployed to Afghanistan. Shaffer doesn’t know but talks about generators. He says commercial generators cannot be used because of their unintended consequences (electromagnetic interference) which would affect radio communications. He describes that “harsh reality”. (!!)

Mr. Bishop asked how DOD measures energy consumption. How it manages data issues in garrison and deployed level? These are excellent questions. The answer: we are not there yet.

Mr. Taylor asked even better questions. Who’s job is to reduce energy consumption? How to measure energy consumption broken down into components (e.g., water heating, space heating? Fuel demand per GI? I congratulate Mr. Taylor for pointing out the fact that if DoD doesn’t know where and how it consumes energy how it will possible to know that DoD is doing the right thing. Shaffer doesn’t know but says they will find that.

It seems that the DOD still hasn’t found someone to appoint as the Director of Operational Energy. The energy matters in forward bases are deployed commander’s job. Operational commanders make the final decisions. Forward locations have no guide and guidance to show them how and why to reduce fuel consumption. There are no energy reduction goals in tactical side. Only in installation side. There are no specific goals other than getting them down. By the way, DoD has no metrics to measure its energy savings, an area which needs a desperate attention..

There were several questions concerning foam insulation in tents (spray foam into entire tent and get better isolation). It was asked if foam insulation is so great why not to use them in the US installations? The answer is simple. You cannot pack these foam insulated tents and go because they are designed for fixed tents. Is the cost offset by energy saving? I don’t think so.
DoD doesn’t really know those gadget technologies which are supposed to save energy (in cost-benefit terms) really works in forward bases. They give promises but no positive results.

I also think that part of the discussion was useless. They talked a lot about long convoys carrying fuel. They require force protection and put GIs in danger. Well, don’t they know that all fuels are carried by contractors and protection of the convoy is contractor’s job.

I do not believe that much of the fuel consumed by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan is due to generators. It is a big lie! Bulk of the fuel is burnt in tactical vehicles. And it is immoral to ask any GI to drive less or pay attention to fuel he consumes. One of the first things DoD should do is to reduce the fuel consumed during supply chain. I mean from where the fuel is procured to where it is consumed.

How much money is enough to “make forward operating bases as energy independent as possible from power generation.”? How much of military energy savings is really from demand reduction and how much from efficient technology? Will $300 million be sufficient? Is it really worth it? Does the DOD spend all this money to feed military-industrial complex? In my opinion, monetary savings in an establishment should start from big items in the list, not from toilet paper.

Militaries Around the World to Cut Oil Use

2009-03-05T00:17:00.003+02:00

There were several news reports in 2008 on the burden and impacts of soaring oil prices in militaries around the world.

The Telegraph reported that (French navy cut missions due to high fuel costs) French Navy canceled three international sea missions due to soaring oil prices. The ships are preferred to refuel at ports in countries with the lowest fuel prices, such as at Nato bases in Crete and Sicily.

The International Herald Tribune (French navy cancels 3 summer missions because of soaring fuel prices) mentions the burden of high oil prices for Portuguese Air Force aircrafts.

The military oil pains in recent years are not new. I have been persistently covering this for the US military for almost 4 years now on my blog.

While oil prices have been moving to the north like a balloon many armed forces of many countries have been investigating the ways to lessen the pain.

Chinese military’s medicine was energy savings: The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has ordered Armed Forces to Cut Costs, Reduce Energy Use (Xinhua News Agency, 6 February 2007) in response to the government's call for a resource efficient and environment-friendly society. According to Liao Xilong, director of the PLA General Logistics Department, "The armed forces should be leading the drive to build a resource efficient society."

The Chinese military saved 55,000 tons of oil, 170 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, and 1.157 million tons of coal, totaling nearly $180 million in 2006 (Chinese Army Goes Green, 7 February 2007). The General Logistics Department set up energy-saving goals for barracks construction to reduce energy consumption by 20% and to build 300 ecological military camps by 2010. It's also working to establish a series of rewards and punishments to encourage energy-saving activities and to promote renewable energy sources.

Canadian Military goes green in bid to cut fuel costs (CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen, 24 February 2007). Faced with mounting fuel bills, the Canadian Forces is looking to alternative energy sources as well getting better performance from equipment that it purchases in the future.

A new office, the directorate of fuels and lubricants, has been established to become the central clearing house on energy issues. It will not only monitor military fuel consumption but set standards and procedures for the use of alternative energy such as biodiesel. Canadian Forces Base Halifax is reported to be interested in operating some of its diesel trucks on a biodiesel made from fish oil.

South Korean military also jumped into the same train to reduce oil consumption to save energy . (24 March 2008). The South Korean Defense Ministry and all military branches decided to pursue energy-saving measures aimed at saving 11 percent of oil from the annual quota.

Under the directive, the Army plans to save 180,000 barrels of oil by minimizing field operations and vehicle mobilizations. Standard temperatures in barracks and other military facilities will also be reduced to 18 degrees centigrade from the current 19 degrees centigrade. The Navy plans to regulate the maneuvers of old ships and to enforce the speed limits set for energy-saving. It also plans to limit the mobilization of vessels and vehicles in regular operations and exercises. The Air Force is set to reduce the flight hours of pilots from the current 160 hours a year to 135 hours a year, in a bid to save fuel in 2008.

Financial Times had an excellent news piece[1] (Oil prices prompt search for fuel alternatives) in February 2009 on military fuel consumption around the world. It reported that fuel costs accounted for $17bn of the combined budget for the world’s top 20 military spenders in 2008. It says that the sharp increase in the price of oil added $6bn to the bill, quoting Jane’s Industry Quarterly study in January.

In fiscal year 2007, the US spent $12.6bn (or 2 per cent of its total budget on fuel). The UK spent $1.1 bn (1.27%), Japan $1 bn (2%), France $0.7 bn (1.1%), respectively.

In the UK, where rising oil costs added £120m-£130m to its fuel bill between 2006 and 2008, the government spent $1.06bn (£740m) last year. The Ministry of Defence already set up an internal fuel forum to look at all aspects of fuel usage and studying initiatives such as expanding use of simulator-based training; optimising fuel usage during live training; improving fuel storage; installing updated waste disposal methods on ships.

The Royal navy’s two new £4bn aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, due to come into service in the next few years, will have diesel generators while current carriers are having “anti-foul coating systems” applied to their hulls to improve fuel efficiency. Portsmouth’s historic naval base, which will be the home of the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers, plans to build a waste-to-energy plant to help cut its energy bills and meet the ships’ electricity needs onshore once they come into service.

Unfortunately I do not know how armed forces around the world (other than the US) price the fuel they use. What I know is that part of the US military’s high fuel costs is due to the standard fuel price policy followed by the Defense Energy Support Service. The DESC’s mission statement “The Defense Energy Support Center's mission is to provide the Department of Defense and other government agencies with comprehensive energy solutions in the most effective and economical manner possible,” does not fit the reality.

How come standard price of a gallon of JP-8 has been over 60% more expensive than the market price (for example New York Harbor Kerosene-Type Jet Fuel Spot Price) between October 2008 and February 2009? By the way, it was more than double in November 2008!

Why DESC is relatively quick enough to adjust its standard fuel prices when the oil prices go up but very slow when oil prices go down? The DoD should first get the prices right before blaming oil producing countries for the burden they supposedly put into DOD budget!

Army’s Electric Car Imbecility

2009-02-22T15:55:00.004+02:00

The US Army is in the opinion that more high technology gadgets will deliver a solution to the energy needs of the future. They are dead wrong.

The US Army announced (Army Announces Historic Electric Vehicle Lease) in January 2009 that it plans to lease 4000 neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) until the end of 2011, which will constitute the largest acquisition of electric vehicles not only in the US but probably in the world. They will be used on Army bases for passenger transport, security patrol, and maintenance and delivery services.

Let us remember the Army Energy Campaign Plan’s five goals for 2030:

1. Eliminate energy waste in existing facilities
2. Increase energy efficiency in new construction and renovations
3. Reduce dependence on fossil fuels
4. Conserve water resources
5. Improve energy security

Electric cars fit in points 3 and 5. Great, but ridiculous.

Let me explain why.

An article by Becky Steed (Fort Leavenworth saves energy, money with electric cars) in the current issue of Public Works Digest[1]

“Fort Leavenworth, Kan., is getting green — environmentally speaking — and saving money with energy efficient ingenuity. Eight electric vehicles have been added to the growing fleet of efficient government transportation, bringing the garrison’s total to 13…..…..the cost to run a gas powered vehicle 20 miles a day at $2 a gallon is around $742 a year. The cost to run a GEM [Global Electric Motorcars] vehicle is less than $40 a year for the same mileage…….The purpose of the vehicles is short distance commuting for meetings and daily government tasks.” [emphasis added]

Source: General Electric Motorcars

GEM costs more than $10,000 and run solely on gel cell batteries. The vehicles plug into an outlet to recharge. They stay charged for around eight hours and reach speeds up to 25 miles per hour in High Mod (15 mph in Low Mode), which happens to be the less than the top speed in most military facilities.

First, what is the aim? Well, short distance commuting.
Second, how fast are they? Less than 25 mph.
Third, how many people can it carry? Well, 4 of the 6 available models can carry only 2 people. But I guess they mostly carry only one person. So, to carry (about) a 80 kg person you need this minimum 520 kg car.

In their GEM Models brochure the company says “Imagine spending just two cents per mile to operate a vehicle that can take you most places you need to go on your work site, campus, or in the neighborhood. In fact, for about $1.00 of electricity you can drive 50 miles in a GEM car. Show us a gasoline powered vehicle that can match that savings!”

Wow, I am really impressed with the magnitude of twisted logic.

Let me show you an alternative that saves even that $1. Bicycle!

Source: Los Angeles Times

Its speed is around 20 mph. consumes no commercial energy and emits no pollution. Needs no infrastructure. Its range is around the same as GEM.

Let me quote e few word from the Speech of former Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, at the AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference (Hartford, Connecticut, Monday, July 21, 2008): “Another key area of research and development where we need to continue to make gains is in the exploration of energy alternatives and fuel efficiency efforts aimed at reducing our military’s reliance on traditional fuel. Improving energy efficiency continues to be one of the top 25 overarching goals as Deputy Secretary of Defense. “

When talking about energy alternatives the DoD officials must pay more attention on productivity, effectiveness and cost subject to the purpose. Sometimes no-energy can also be an energy alternative. Bicycle is one of them.

See also this recent article on the use of Bicycles in Amsterdam. If a city can do it, why a military cannot?

[1] Public Works Digest (of U.S. ARMY INSTALLATION MANAGEMENT COMMAND), Volume XXI, No.1, January/February 2009, p.22

Forecasting Oil Prices

2009-02-13T17:33:00.002+02:00

in today's market is mission impossible

There exists no agreement among analysts on why oil prices have registered such an erratic path in the past few years, and what or who were behind it. The widely quoted suspects are oil market fundamentals (supply, demand and inventory levels) and speculators.

Economic theory tells us that in efficient markets (where players are assumed to have perfect knowledge and behave rationally) the prices reflect the true state of the market fundamentals. Prices are assumed to deviate from efficiency based on those fundamentals. If price deviations are significant enough then volatility is created.

In practice, however, efficient market hypothesis has collapsed following repeated failures to align underlying strength of fundamentals and market perceptions with reality. Moreover, humans by nature are irrational and none of the market players have perfect knowledge. The reality doesn’t fit the conventional economic theory any more.

This may be hard to digest but examples are too many to prove why this is so. Consider the followings:

On 19 May 2004 the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi told the press the OPEC to increase quotas by at least 1.5 mbd in its June meeting, in order to ease the prices. A few days later, prices surged to 13-year high, instead of going down.

When oil hit $85 on 15 October 2007, the main culprit in the news headlines was Turkey-PKK tensions and fears of a Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq. The same day Gold rose to 27-year high. What gold has had anything to do with that tension was beyond comprehension, but in the following months the dollar euro exchange rate appeared more and more in the news headlines as the main scapegoat.

Crude oil futures surged more than $4 a barrel on 28 November 2007 right after an explosion and fire on a pipeline sending Canadian oil to the US Midwest refineries. Two days later prices resumed the pre-explosion level even though US crude imports were still cut by 20 percent.

A decision not to increase OPEC production on 5 December 2007 meeting was believed to send prices toward $100, but prices settled back below $90. And that happened despite the US crude inventories dropped an unusually large amount ahead of the peak winter season, imports notably on the Gulf Coast declined remarkably, and about 600 kbd UAE production was shut in for field maintenance.

Right before the military clash between Russia and Georgia in 8 August 2008, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, carrying around 0.9 mbd of oil was shut in. About a week later BP Plc, the operator of the Baku-Supsa pipeline, declared force majeure on oil exports through the pipeline and closed it for security concerns. At the end of August around 1 mbd of oil production in Gulf of Mexico was shut in due to Tropical Storm Gustav. Also around 1 mbd of Nigerian oil production was shut in due to unrest and technical disruptions. But the oil prices continued sliding from $120 towards $100 per barrel.

On 22 September 2008, oil prices soared more than 15%, the biggest one day gain on record, and closed the day above $120 a barrel. There was no bad news in the market that particular day, except that it was expiry of the front-month futures contract.

In its 24 October 2008 meeting OPEC announced to cut the production by 1.5 mbd. In the same day, US gasoline inventories had dropped to their lowest level since 1967. Instead of going up, the prices declined $5 immediately after the announcement and closed the day with a dollar loss compared to the previous day. Three days later the price of WTI was below $100 per barrel.

In fact, neither speculation nor fundamentals have had any systematic impact on prices over the past five years. The erratic oil price dynamics are indeed due to the weighted combination of market fundamentals and speculation, which are affected by many impulses including economic, technological, geological, political, and physiological factors. However, to quantify them in terms of their impact on prices with any degree of accuracy are somewhere between difficult and impossible.

The price of oil in futures exchanges and off-exchange in exempt or over-the-counter (OTC) markets is set (in the short to medium term) by traders’ expectations which are based on their assessments on, reaction to and perceptions about current and future market conditions.

This does not necessarily imply that any attempt to understand to which direction oil prices are moving should take its starting point in the derivatives markets. It also does not mean that speculators are the sole culprit in the oil price movements. For instance, while crude prices rose sharply in May and June 2008, net speculative positions declined.

Both market fundamentals and speculators have contributed to unusual elevations and swings observed recently in oil prices. We are witnessing a structural shift with strong cyclical components in the pricing of oil. The conventional market fundamental underpinnings are still valid today but additional variables should also be factored in. Traders’ expectations will continue to put additional pressure on prices.

The main driver of market sentiment should be the facts, and not fears, concerns and worries of traders against perceived risks. The bad news is that the oil market lacks transparency and true consensus from production, consumption to stocks and to trading.

(a longer version can be found in January 2009 issue of Global Energy for the Mediterranean magazine.)

Why all reputable institutions which had been forecasting three digit figures for 2009 oil prices only six months ago are revising permanently their estimates downwards now?

In fact, how analysts have been making their forecasts over the past are not too different from the story below, which is a classic (this version is from washingtonpost)

It was autumn, and members of a Native American tribe asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a new Chief in a modern society and had never been taught the old secrets of Nature, he looked up at the sky and had no clue what to do. To play it safe, he replied to his tribe that the winter could definitely be cold and that they should collect firewood early, just to be prepared. So, the members began gathering wood.

Being a practical leader, he figured he should also use the resources available to the modern society. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Will this winter be cold?"

"As of now, it looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the forecaster said.

So the Chief went back to his tribe and told them to collect even more wood. A week later he called the National Weather Service again and asked for an update.

"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "based on incoming data, this winter is looking to be colder than we expected." The Chief was surprised, but again went back to his tribe, told them that this might be a very cold winter, and asked them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

One week later, the Chief called the National Weather Service yet again, hoping for a new answer. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

"Positive," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"Really?" the shocked Chief exclaimed. "How can you be so sure?"

"First," the forecaster replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

CENTCOM Logistics Nightmare

2009-02-08T01:29:00.004+02:00

in Afghanistan is Just Starting

A January 2009 GAO report on Defense Logistics states that “the availability of spare parts and other critical supply items affects the readiness and operational capabilities of U.S. military forces, and the supply chain can be a critical link in determining outcomes on the battlefield.” Well, partly correct but not complete.

DoD has been keeping its optimistic stance about logistics problems and hence fails to see the big picture. Now, when the closure of Manas base has become a reality DOD and especially CENTCOM has started to panic. This is also a lesson for NATO. Who gives this lesson? Russia.

On 4 February 2009 an extraordinary session of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation [CSTO] and an extraordinary meeting of the Interstate Council of the Eurasian Economic Community [EurAsEC] was held in Moscow. So to say a military political alliance.

The main theme of the CSTO session was the creation of the Collective Rapid Reaction Force.

Here is what Medvedev said during the press conference following the meeting: “The Collective Rapid Reaction Force should be an effective, all-purpose instrument that can be counted on to realise security objectives throughout the CSTO. And these would include resisting military aggression, conducting special operations to eliminate terrorists and extremists, the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking, as well as dealing with the consequences of natural and industrial disasters…..we agreed that it must be very well trained, large enough to do its job, well-equipped, supplied with the most modern military equipment, and generally effective. As far as fighting potential is concerned, it needs the same sort of training as the troops of the North Atlantic Alliance.
….
we agreed to create a full-fledged, important, well-trained collective forces that will actually work together, be under a unified command if necessary and will be highly mobile. …. Russia is ready to contribute one of its divisions and one brigade to the force, which should give you an idea of the scale: this is to be a serious fighting force. ……Once again let me reiterate that we must move from rapid deployment on paper to a real military force, to the real Collective Rapid Reaction Force. Our decisions were taken with this aim and should be understood in this sense.”

Global Insights made the following comment about those meetings:’ How will the stronger military and economic integration within the seven member states affect relations with the other CIS participants: Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, and Moldova? Given the neutral status of the latter two and pro-NATO inclinations in the first two, they are not likely to join the military alliance any time soon. The documents signed yesterday are only a step towards Russia's ideal vision of its position in the post-Soviet space, but it is nevertheless rather remarkable, and brave.”

A day before the CSTO-EurAsEC meeting, Medvedev met with Kyrgiz president. In the press conference following Russian-Kyrgyzstani talks, Medvedev said : “We discussed today the various opportunities for expanding all the different ties between our countries…. These include geological exploration projects, including fossil fuels prospecting and exploration in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, modernising Kyrgyzstan’s oil and gas industry and electricity sector, and cooperation in the mining industry and in processing agricultural goods. ….. According to the documents we have just signed, Russia will accord Kyrgyzstan loans for a total $2 billion and will provide $150 million in financial aid. ….. we have just concluded an intergovernmental agreement on construction of the Kambaratinskaya Hydroelectric Power Station-1 in Kyrgyzstan. “

Well, this is not the whole story of course, the most important thing was the announcement (official) closure of the US Manas Air Bas. President Bakieve made the following remarkes: “back in 2001, when real military operations were underway in Afghanistan, operations using artillery, military aircraft and so on. In other words, a real war was underway. At that time, Kyrgyzstan took the decision to offer its territory in order to help in the fight against international terrorism. I think the Republic of Kyrgyzstan has made a big contribution to combating international terrorism over these years. We did not send our soldiers, but we made our territory available. By the way, at that time, the idea was that this would be for one or two years at the most, but eight years have passed since then……. over this time …. we discussed the issue of economic compensation for Kyrgyzstan for use of the base many times with our American partners. Unfortunately, however, we failed to reach an understanding with the United States. For three years now, we have been talking about the need to revise the terms of the agreement and settle the issue of economic compensation, which at present does not satisfy Kyrgyzstan at all, but the United States has not shown understanding. That is the purely economic side of the issue. ……just a few days ago, the Government of Kyrgyzstan decided that the time has come to close this military base on our country’s soil.”

Since the closure of an important base in Uzbekistan in 2005, Manas has played a key role as a troop transit and fuel supply (including aircraft refueling) for US air and ground troops in Afghanistan. Most of the supplies, including fuel, to Afghanistan go through Pakistan. And there are not that many countries bordering Afghanistan.

Source: U.S. CENTCOM

According to AFP news Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said his country was ready to allow the transit of humanitarian and commercial supplies (including construction materials, medicines, fuel and water) to Afghanistan by road.

If Tajik offer is not taken the US military will have a really big pain in logistics supports to troops in Afghanistan. There are news coming recently that Russia granted transit rights to non-lethal U.S. military supplies headed to Afghanistan. Russia had opened a corridor for Germany to transit goods to Afghanistan last year. The problem is that supplies from Russia must transit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

What is the real problem: Fuel supplies Pakistan is already having problems. As long as no reliable and secure road transport routes are found from neighboring countries, fuel supplies to Afghanistan must be delivered by air. This means that fuel costs will skyrocket.

Defense Logistics Agency is already looking for supplier of fuel to Afghanistan (or see here) and also trucking services to move fuel within Afghanistan

The visit of United States Central Command chief David Petraeus to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in January 2009 to reach agreements for opening new supply routes through their territories for the coalition forces in Afghanistan was too late. And with no concrete result.

The ability of US forces to operate in Afghanistan is based on logistics. The US military planners should read again George Thorpe’s Pure Logistics, bible of military logistics profession. He said back in 1917 that “every strategical and every tactical problem should be solved logistically to determine what measures logistical resources will afford.” It seems that the US military planners think otherwise.

Fuel Use in Nontactical Vehicles

2009-02-01T18:18:00.003+02:00

The Pentagon is working toward developing alternative fuels and propulsion technologies to decrease its energy dependency, and increase its energy security. The Pentagon’s environmentalism, however, does not align much with reality.

Fuel use in non tactical vehicles (passenger cars, vans, SUVs, trucks, buses and ambulances) account for less than 2 percent of total energy use by the US military.

Let me give some statistics from the GSA's Fiscal Year 2008 Federal Fleet Report (available for download as of January 31, 2009) on military fuel use in non tactical fleet vehicles.[1]

In 2008, fuel use in military nontactical vehicles (NTV) remained the same as in 2007, slightly over 100 million gallons of gasoline equivalent. To be exact, 101.5 million gallons gasoline equivalent. In fact, this is more or less what the military services have been consuming over the past years.
With its 75 percent share, gasoline is the most consumed fuel in military nontactical vehicles. Gasoline is followed by Diesel (18%). What this means is that, conventional oil products account for 93% of the total fuel consumption in NTV. What happened to biofuels hype? Well, biodiesel accounts for only 5% and ethanol/E-85 only 1%. The share of all the other alternative fuels (compressed natural gas, electric and hydrogen) is only 1%.
Isn’t that a bit strange? The military services have had 196,166 vehicles in their inventory in 2008. Of those vehicles one-fourth is capable of running on E-85. Maybe I am doing something wrong in that math?

The largest fuel consumer in nontactical vehicles is Department of Army, accounting for more than half of fuel used in all military NTV. It is therefore quite normal that Army focuses more on alternative fuels.

The US Army announced (Army Announces Historic Electric Vehicle Lease) in January 2009 that it plans to lease 4000 neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) until the end of 2011, which will constitute the largest acquisition of electric vehicles not only in the US but probably in the world. They will be used on Army bases for passenger transport, security patrol, and maintenance and delivery services.

This sounds good. But what does not much sense is the Army’s intention of developing and using hybrid-electric powered Manned Ground Vehicles for its armored forces. Fuel efficiency, easing dependence on oil, and reducing GHG emissions are very loose concepts for tactical ground vehicles if they ever will be deployed abroad. Try to use hybrid-electric armored vehicle in Afghanistan. The concept is good but again, applicability is overseen. We have seen what happened to Humvees and how much money is spent for Humvee Reset.

Despite an aggressive PR campaign by the Pentagon, biofuels are not yet used in tactical vehicles. And the U.S. military’s real pain is its oil consumption in tactical vehicles.

Besides costs issues, biofuels have several shortcomings in military tactical vehicle applications. The Defense Department does not currently use biofuels in aircraft due mainly to their high cloud point — it may cause the fuel to gel and clog the engine as the aircraft climbs. The use of biodiesel in marine vessels is prohibited because of its hydrophilic characteristics — it may result in damage to engine fuel system components, accelerate fuel storage instability, and affect the fuel’s cold weather operating properties. The use of biodiesel in Army ground tactical vehicles is prohibited largely because of fuel stability, vehicle performance and maintenance considerations. See for more on that in my article published in February 2009 issue of the National defense Magazine (Defense Department Should Rethink Energy-Saving Tactics)

I will repeat here what I said in my previous post: Too much body, too many gadgets but too little head is not an option for future military leaders if they would like to meet future challenges. They have to possess rigorous intellectual understanding and critical thinking capability with a non-myopic strategic insight.

Notes:
[1] Past issues of GSA federal fleet reports go back to 2000 both in PDF and word format.
Don’t get excited much. All the tables in the Word files are given as picture. So, if you want to construct a time series or want to put data in Excel format, you have to type them. Wouldn’t it be nice if GSA provided the tables in Excel format so that the analysts like me would spare time and nerve?

Time to Bailout the Pentagon

2009-01-17T12:51:00.004+02:00

Congressional Budget Office of the Congress of the United States published a report in January 2009 entitled Long-Term Implications of the Fiscal Year 2009 Future Years Defense Program (Pub. No. 3184). A must read and think twice document.

Senior DoD officials must read and repeat 10 times the following sentence on the blog of Robert A. Sunshine, Acting Director of CBO: “Decisions made today about national defense –whether they involve weapon systems, military compensation, or numbers of personnel– can have long-lasting effects on the composition of the nation’s armed forces and the budgetary resources needed to support them.”

CBO’s projections of the amount of budgetary resources might be needed in the long term to carry out DoD’s the 2009 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) demonstrates that to fulfill DoD’s plan require sustaining higher inflation-adjusted levels of spending than those that occurred at the peak of the defense buildup in the mid-1980s.

CBO lists four key factors that account for the projected high level of spending:

1) Plans to purchase more new military equipment over the next several years and then to sustain that rate of procurement over the longer term;

2) Plans to develop and produce weapons systems with new capabilities and rising estimated costs;

3) Plans to increase the size of military forces, coupled with the increasing cost of pay and benefits for military and civilian personnel;

4) Plans to meet rising operations and maintenance costs for both aging equipment and newer, more complex equipment.

In CBO’s projection of DoD’s current FYDP,[1] defense resources average about $549 billion annually (in 2009 dollars) from 2014 to 2026 (excluding potential future supplemental or emergency appropriations).

Possible unbudgeted costs[2] have the potential effect of increasing the projection of long-term demand for defense funding to an annual average of about $652 billion through 2026, or 26 percent more than the funding provided for 2009.

Costs for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and for other purposes related to the war on terrorism in 2008 rose to $187 billion in 2008 dollars, or 28 percent of defense funding that year.

Well, finding this money is not that of a problem because the US government can always print more dollars (as it does now) which eventually will have long lasting negative impacts in the future.

Top Number 1 priority for any sound long term plan is to know what or where DoD would want to be in the future? And that requires guesstimating or anticipating the future threats.

What kinds of wars are likely to take place in the future and with whom? Current fashion is irregular one. But is the Pentagon procurement program in line with that or in line with the real needs?

Procurement Nightmares

Center for Strategic & International Studies published a nice document in late 2008 (Anthony H. Cordesman and Hand Ulrich Kaeser, America’s Self-Destroying Airpower: Becoming Your Own Peer Threat, CSIS, October 2008). It says:

“No military service currently demonstrates that it has leaders that can create affordable procurement programs. Every service has, to some extent, mortgaged its future by failing to contain equipment costs, and by trading existing equipment and force elements for developing new system that it may never be able to procure in the numbers planned. ….. The US defense procurement system has effectively become a liar‘s contest in terms of projected costs, risk, performance, and delivery schedules. Effective leadership is lacking in any of these areas. In both shipbuilding and military aircraft manufacturing, the services have become their own peer threats.”

They say “fish rot from the head down.” With this they mean “The Secretary and Deputy Secretary have failed to manage from the top. DDR&E, the Comptroller, and PA&E have failed in one of their most basic missions. Documents like the Quadrennial Defense Review – like all of the service strategy documents – have become pointless statements of doctrine, policy, and good intentions that are not supported by workable force plans, procurement plans, program budgets, and measures of effectiveness…….the Office of the Secretary of Defense in a struggle to determine what capabilities will actually be needed in the future,”

They state that the US must establish clear priorities for irregular warfare relative to more conventional threats.

Meanwhile, they outline the fact that the Air Force and Navy have made major cuts in their number of existing combat aircraft, in part to fund modernization plans they will never have the money to fully implement.

They note that “Combined US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps tactical fighter strength dropped from 5,783 at the end of the Cold War in 1992, to 3,985 in 2000 at the start of the Bush Administration, and 3,542 in 2008. The number of bombers dropped from 276 at the end of the Cold War in 1992, to 208 in 2000, and 180 in 2008. Similar shifts took place in the transport, tanker, and helicopter fleets.” This happens at the time USAF’s O&M budget increases while fleet readiness decreases. Average aircraft age is increasing and hence cost of flying hour.

Former Chief of Staff General Moseley and Secretary Wynne had called for a fleet of 381 F-22 which led to a clash with Secretary of Defense Gates, “who stated in February 2008 that the F-22 had no role in the war on terror.”

The F-22 (supposed to replace aging F-15s) has almost tripled in unit cost, and comes close to $200 million a piece (excluding R&D costs). Meanwhile, the planned procurement quantity has been reduced from 750 to 183. F-35 (supposed to replace F-16s and F-18s) and B-2B face or will face a similar fate. F-35 is one of the most expensive single procurement programs in the history of the DOD, even though a unit cost for the F-35 is half of F-22. Marine Corps’ procurement priority V-22 Osprey (a tilt-rotor aircraft to replace CH-46 helicopter) has become a “flying shame.” The bomber B-1B is now recognized as a failue. See CSIS report for details. One way or the other, most USAF procurements have problems with performance, technology risk, delay, cost escalation.

By the way, why should USAF replace, say 100 F-16s, with 100 F-35, if one F-35 is much more capable and superior compared to F-16?

I don’t agree with the authors’ argument that “The only alternative is a major increase in real defense spending.” But this is another issue.

Challenges, Needs, Tradeoffs, Perceptions, and their Implications for the Future Military Force

Now let me highlight some very important points from a report called The Joint Operating Environment: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Force, United States Joint Forces Command, 25 November 2008.

The report is “speculative in nature and does not suppose to predict what will happen in the next twenty-five years. Rather, it is intended to serve as a starting point for discussions about the future security environment at the operational level of war.”

The forward of the document, written by General J. N. Mattis, U.S. Marine Corps, Commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, states that “When future war comes, our concept developers across the Armed Services should have the fewest regrets if today they study, challenge, and implement solutions to the security implications defined here in the JOE. In our line of work, having the fewest regrets defines success when the shocks of conflict bring the surprise that inevitably accompanies warfare."

The report says that in the future conventional wars are less likely. Note that another report[3] by the National Research Council’s Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability[4] concluded that a high-confidence CPGS capability would be valuable; that technical development and assessment should be pursued immediately; and that if system effectiveness is demonstrated, production and deployment should follow as soon as practicable. If the DOD’s stated goal of achieving “global” strike[5] were to be accepted as a strict criterion, it would rule out potentially attractive options. Long range is an important element of CPGS but not the only factor of interest.

Back to the U.S. Joint Forces Command report. It says:

“In the long-term, the primary purpose of the military forces of the United States must be deterrence
….
In planning for future conflicts, joint force commanders and their planners must factor two important constraints into their calculations: logistics and access to bases in the immediate area
….
innovation and adaptation require imagination and the ability to ask the right questions. They represent two of the most important aspects of military effectiveness…. the ability to innovate in peacetime and adapt in war to the actual realities of the battlefield. Unfortunately the present culture and bureaucratic structures of the Department of Defense place major hurdles in the path of future innovation and adaptation….Two areas that demand change are acquisition and the personnel systems.
…..
Without a thorough and coherent reform of the acquisition processes, there is the considerable prospect an opponent could incorporate technological advances more affordably, quickly, and effectively – with serious implications for future joint forces.”

Very well said but not sufficient.

Each senior DoD planner (and Mr. Antony Cordesman) must read and repeat 100 times the following sentences written by Lieutenant Colonel Gregory C. Wilmoth in False-failed innovations (JFQ, Autumn/Winter 1999–2000, pp. 51-57)

“To succeed technology must meet a need that involves choices and tradeoffs. Needs shape development. Provided needs are met, technology can be shaped in various ways, even irrational ones. As needs change over time, so do the characteristics of a given technology.
…..
technologies that are inappropriate in one age have been resurrected through adaptive methods and organizations to fill essential requirements at a later time
….
there must be a clear grasp of future requirements. Needs drive how technology is shaped and used. Only by analyzing requirements thoroughly and defining them objectively, unconstrained by narrow thinking about how traditionally military capabilities have been used, can a failed technology become a false-failed innovation. Look first to needs. Revising organization and doctrine must follow, then identifying available technology. Achieving innovations, false-failed or otherwise, frequently requires vision but always calls for hard thinking that transcends a didactic, linear conception of how technology becomes capability.”

But this does not mean that for every simply need we need to develop high technology gadgets.

Now, see what President Bush understands about Defense Transformation (from speech given at West Point in December 2009): “we are transforming our military for a new kind of war that we're fighting now, and for wars of tomorrow.… As part of our transformation effort, we are arming our troops with intelligence, and weapons, and training, and support they need to face an enemy that wages asymmetric battle…we've been transforming our military since early 2001 to confront other challenges that may emerge in the decades ahead. For example, we have begun the most sweeping transformation of America's global force posture since the end of World War II. We're shifting troops from Cold War garrisons in Europe and Asia so they can surge more rapidly to troubled spots around the world. We've established new military commands to meet challenges unique to Africa and to support our homeland…..We've invested more than a half a trillion dollars in research and development, so we can build even more advanced capabilities to protect America from the dangers of a new century. We're making our forces more joint and interoperable.”

No comment. We will see whether Obama will do any better.

In a recent article appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine (A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age, January/February 2009) Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates[6] states that “The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs.”

He argues that “it is unwise to confront the United States directly on conventional military terms.” Therefore he gives the image that investment priorities should focuse more on specialized gadgets which are supposed to be well suited to today’s irregular wars and less on traditional, or conventional weapons systems.

He believes that the major issue is to build “innovative thinking and flexibility into the rigid procurement processes…... The key is to make sure that the strategy and risk assessment drive the procurement, rather than the other way around.” Well, instead of saying it he should have done it.

Let me finish with some final remarks. Too much body, too many gadgets but too little head is not an option for future military leaders if they would like to meet future challenges. They have to possess rigorous intellectual understanding and critical thinking capability with a non-myopic strategic insight. Are American tax payers sleeping?

Footnotes:
[1] The FYDP is prepared by the Department of Defense (DoD) for each fiscal year and submitted to the Congress as part of the President’s budget request.
[2] This includes several possibilities: That the costs of weapon systems now under development would exceed early estimates; that medical costs might rise more rapidly than DoD has assumed; and that DoD would continue to conduct military operations overseas as part of the war on terrorism, albeit at reduced levels relative to current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[3] U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike: Issues for 2008 and Beyond, Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability, National Research Council, 2008.
[4] Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) is a military option under consideration by the U.S.
[5] The committee concluded that setting a goal of 1 hour for execution time in a conventional strike was sensible when viewed in terms of feasibility, value, and affordability.
[6] I don’t agree with most of Gates’ thoughts, especially the following: “Other nations may be unwilling to challenge the United States fighter to fighter, ship to ship, tank to tank. But they are developing the disruptive means to blunt the impact of U.S. power, narrow the United States' military options, and deny the U.S. military freedom of movement and action. »

DOD Needs More Operation Question Marks

2009-01-15T20:52:00.004+02:00

I am back!

January 2009 marks 80th anniversary of a major stepping stone in aerial refueling.

On January 1, 1929, a tri-engined Fokker C-2 aircraft (see also wikipedia) climbed into the southern California sky. This aircraft, dubbed the "Question Mark," was not history's first air refueling mission, but it played a crucial role in the beginning of air refueling efforts. The flight lasted from Jan. 1-7, 1929; a total of 150 hours and 40 minutes. The crew flew a 110-mile racetrack from Santa Monica, Calif., to San Diego, Calif. During the flight, they made 43 contacts with the tanker aircraft…. the Question Mark received 5,700 gallons of fuel. (see Flight of the Question Mark).

Source of photo: USAF

In was not the first time that aerial refueling was ever tried. But it got most public attention. The need was foreseen and some people were giving hard thoughts on how to make it possible to have a flying gas station.

In his commentary (Tankers: From a Question Mark to today's fight) Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, Air Mobility Command commander says that “Today, the question isn't how critical is the tanker to our warfighters and our national security. We know the need for a tanker is critical; it's a capability our nation simply cannot do without.” But today KC-X, the new aerial tanker, has become a chicken-egg problem. There are several reasons for that but in my opinion the DoD is still not clear what kind of aerial refueling tanker it needs.

I really wonder whether any person involved in drafting the request for proposals had read the following sentences of Lieutenant Colonel Gregory C. Wilmoth in False-failed innovations, (Autumn/Winter 1999–2000, JFQ, pp. 51-57)

“To succeed technology must meet a need that involves choices and tradeoffs. Needs shape development. Provided needs are met, technology can be shaped in various ways, even irrational ones. As needs change over time, so do the characteristics of a given technology. Air refueling is a classic illustration of how variables play on technological progress. There was little practical use for refueling in flight during the 1920s or 1930s and the concept languished, though British aviation circles kept the basic notion of the technique alive. Thus when an urgent need arose in the Air Force during the 1940s the technology base was ready. Capabilities remained about the same during these decades, but it changed rapidly after 1948. Organizations and doctrine were created that turned the technology into an innovation. Air Force commands grouped tanker aircraft into tanker squadrons and wings within existing organizations. Doctrine evolved as what began as a range extender for bombers spread to tactical aircraft, transports, and helicopters.
…
technologies that are inappropriate in one age have been resurrected through adaptive methods and organizations to fill essential requirements at a later time
…
there must be a clear grasp of future requirements. Needs drive how technology is shaped and used. Only by analyzing requirements thoroughly and defining them objectively, unconstrained by narrow thinking about how traditionally military capabilities have been used, can a failed technology become a false-failed innovation. Look first to needs. Revising organization and doctrine must follow, then identifying available technology. Achieving innovations, false-failed or otherwise, frequently requires vision but always calls for hard thinking that transcends a didactic, linear conception of how technology becomes capability” such as inflight refueling that were discarded but reappeared when needs and circumstances changed.

Needs versus wishes. Necessities versus waste. Today, militaries around the world, especially the US, are in the opinion that more high technology gadgets will deliver the needs of the future. They are dead wrong. They are mixing innovation with technology. Bazooka, for example, is not a high technology weapon but was an excellent innovation.

In the next post I will explain more.

Just How many US Military Bases

2008-12-06T16:54:00.002+02:00

We know that the Pentagon’s Global Presence and Basing Strategy asked the total number of American military sites abroad to be reduced to 550 by 2012. That’s fine. This number is completely irrelevant simply because of the fact that today we don’t know how many military bases exist. DoD’s reference of Base Structure Report does not tell the truth.

According to the DoD Base Structure Report[1] the US Department of Defense remains one of the world’s largest “landlords” with a physical plant consisting of more than 545,714 facilities (buildings, structures and utilities) located on more than 5,429 sites on 29.8 million acres, valued at over $706 billion. (761 sites are located in 39 foreign countries, excluding Iraq, Afghanistan and many others).

This makes 120,596 km2, which is almost equivalent to half of the UK, or N. Korea, or Mississippi or New York.

In fact, the DoD is the world’s largest landlord, much ahead of the US General Services Administration and General Electric as claimed by some. For example the US military bases in many countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Hungary, Austria, Israel, Bulgaria, Qatar, etc. are not listed in Bases Structure Report.

The ones given in the Base Structure Report of the DoD list only military bases either owned or leased by the DoD. To be listed sites should meet a predetermined size and value criteria. To qualify for entry in the published report, a site located in the United States must be larger than 10 acres AND have a PRV (Total Plant Replacement Value) greater than $10 million. If the site is located in a foreign country, it must be larger than 10 acres OR have a PRV greater than $10 million to be shown as a separate entry. PRV for all facilities (buildings, structures, and utilities) is the cost to replace the current physical plant (facilities and supporting infrastructure) using today’s construction costs (labor and materials) and standards (methodologies and codes).

In June 2008, Brooking Institutions had published a report entitled
Unfinished Business: U.S. Overseas Military Presence in the 21st Century by Michael E. O'Hanlon. It contains some useful information but doesn’t answer the crucial question: How many US bases there are all around the world?

It says that “Today, the United States has at least some military forces in about 150 countries around the world.” This is nothing new.

The report outlines the three new definitions of military facilities.

Main Operating Bases: has permanently stationed U.S. combat forces, well developed base infrastructures including family support, and robust security protection.

Forward Operating Sites: Has a modest U.S. support presence. US military forces are deployed for purposes such as bilateral and regional training purposes.

Cooperative Security Locations: Has little or even no permanent U.S. presence. Relies on contractors or host-nation support for maintenance and routine operations.

But doesn’t give the number of facilities grouped according to that classification.

But it says that in Iraq “There are about a dozen very large bases, and a total of at least 45 major bases, according to an early 2007 counting by Stars and Stripes newspaper. Including forward operating bases and various combat outposts, the number of installations is well over 100. The larger bases include Camp Victory at the Baghdad Airport, where main U.S. military headquarters as well as two American divisions are located (as of 2007), Camp Anaconda/Balad Air Base north of Baghdad (home to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, the only Air Force wing in Iraq), and Camp Speicher near Tikrit.”

IT reports that DoD “has more than 1,000 armed personnel in about a dozen countries. Germany, Japan, and Kuwait are principally hubs or staging grounds for maintaining presence and conducting operations throughout a key region and beyond.
….
Critical countries in the American base network abroad also include Djibouti, Bahrain, Qatar, and Egypt, as well as the British territory of Diego Garcia.
….
Not only does the United States have a great deal of firepower stationed abroad, it has the infrastructure, the working relationships, and the transportation and logistics assets needed to reinforce its capacities quickly as needed in crises.
….
But stationing hundreds of thousands of troops abroad is not an automatic or inherent characteristic of major powers, especially in the modern post-imperial era. Apart from the United States, no other major power has more than 20,000 to 30,000 forces abroad (with Britain and France leading the way after the United States). Substantial powers such as Russia, China, and India deploy forces totaling only in the thousands normally, as do several countries that participate frequently in peacekeeping missions. »

Cool, but it is beyond my comprehension why the report does not say that many of the bases they talk about do not appears in the Pentagon’s official military base count. Something is wrong here.

But then the report touches to an excellent point :

“Long-range strike forces are most usefully defined as capabilities that can effectively fight from American bases, without having to first establish foreign beachheads. By that definition, long-range strike forces are primarily air and naval assets, though some special forces may fit the definition as well.”

Long-range strike assets like bombers, transport planes, tactical aircraft, and support aircraft for purposes such as intelligence, flying gas stations, aircraft carrier battle groups (each having 55 combat aircraft), and attack submarines don’t justify having that many bases around the globe. The report agrees with that. The DoD wants to have faster, stronger, more lethal war machines. That is why it spends billions of dollars for the procurement of new assets (even though much of it could be called gadgets).

To this we should add the followings from the Brookings report:

“Prepositioning
Prepositioned supplies include huge ships stocked with weaponry and ammunition as well as ground-based facilities storing weaponry and supplies. Among other things, the United States tries to keep the capacity to quickly fill out up to eight ground combat brigades with equipment stored overseas and ideally kept in good working order at all times. However, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have complicated the effort to keep such equipment stocks complete.

Strategic Lift
Another key aspect of global posture is strategic lift, including ships and airplanes…. Among its other capabilities, the United States has about three dozen amphibious ships capable of carrying more than two brigades of Marines and their equipment, roughly 360 large airplanes for carrying troops and equipment and another 200 quickly available via the civil reserve air fleet program, each typically able to carry 50 to 100 tons of cargo per flight, and about 20 large “roll-on roll-off ” ships each capable of carrying 15,000 to 20,000 tons of equipment (equipment and initial supplies for a heavy division weigh about 100,000 tons).”

The report makes some good points including

“It would not be prudent to start thinking about any long-term American military bases in Iraq at present. This is at best a very premature idea to consider. If it is ever seriously contemplated, the idea should originate from a future Iraqi government, not from Washington.
…..
Possible missile defense sites in the Czech Republic
and Poland… are not inherently bad ideas. But they are not needed now. In addition, the way in which they have been proposed and pursued has also been too bilateral, failing to benefit from the legitimacy and support that a NATO-led decision could provide.
…
Pentagon plans appeared to envision stationing a brigade of forces at a time in Romania and/or Bulgaria starting in 2008; this seems an overly rushed schedule. Whether more soldiers are kept in Germany or stationed in the United States, they should not be deployed to eastern Europe in large numbers while the Iraq and Afghanistan wars continue to take soldiers away from their home bases and families so much already.:

The report some good remarks on AFRICOM, but argues that reducing the military presence in Germany is not that good.

At the end, my question still remains unanswered: Just how many US military bases exist worldwide?

[1] DOD (2008), Base Structure Report FY2008 Baseline, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Installations & Environment, 2008. The report provides a listing of installations and sites owned or leased by the Department.

Military and Renewable Energy Sources

2008-10-31T21:36:00.003+02:00

It's been quite some time I have been writing on US military energy consumpion.

My best piece so far has appeared on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website today.

Here are some of the key messages:

Oil fuels the U.S. military's nearly 11,000 aircraft and helicopters, 200 combat and support ships, 200,000 tracked and wheeled vehicles, and 190,000 non-combat vehicles, such as trucks, passenger cars, and buses (not to mention many unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles).
......
The peaking of global oil production, which is expected to occur in the next few decades, will mark the beginning of the end of the oil age and will have serious implications for the U.S. military
........
The military is aware of its dependence on oil, and is working to increase its energy efficiency and to create viable alternative fuels such as biofuels and synthetic liquid fuels from natural gas and coal. Rising energy prices necessitate the change even more. In 2008, the Pentagon's bill for energy will total roughly $15 billion. The Pentagon has requested $3 billion more for fuel for 2009 than in 2008, and oil accounts for almost 80 percent of the military's total energy bill. The U.S. military estimates that each $10 per barrel increase in the price of oil costs the U.S. government an additional $1.3 billion dollars
.........
The piecemeal energy approach the U.S. military is taking will not be sufficient to wean itself off oil. What the Pentagon must do PDF, if it is serious about changing its energy usage, is create a comprehensive energy consumption profile and formulate a long-term energy policy.

A grand and viable long-term energy strategy for the U.S. military is necessary due to the length of time it will take to institute future changes, develop alternative energy sources, and cycle old equipment (fuel-intensive equipment and vehicles ordered without an energy plan) out of the services. Making long-term plans now will ensure that military planners can consider energy efficiency in equipment purchasing.
.........

I would like to hear comments from my readers, especially from the ones in the Pentagon, on this article.

When the FEMR FY 2008 figures are out in January 2009, I will post here a long (15 pages) article summing up the facts, bitter realities along with the good, the bad and the ugly.

Weird Military Energy Ideas

2008-10-19T17:38:00.001+03:00

In January 2007 I wrote on Alternative Fuel Fantasies for Military on this blog. Since then I saw several new ideas coming forward painted with pink hopes, like making using of unusued trash also gain attention. (See my post Military Garbage as an Energy Resource in June 2008).

An article in Biofuelsjournal reports that Defense Energy Support Center and U.S. Army will test a new initiative to turn biodegradable waste into diesel fuel, in order to reduce the Army's logistical footprint at installations or Forward Operating Bases.

The units operate by breaking down biowaste products through a bacterial action with the potential capability of producing longer, unique hydrocarbon strands. This bacterial action occurs while releasing oil, which can then be processed to useable fuel; in this case diesel fuel is the target result. Each mobile test unit is comprised of a 45-foot trailer with 10 reactor units, 10 fuel receivers and a control office. The DESC and Army officials plan to place the first mobile biomass unit at Fort Stewart, GA, in October 2008, and will be followed by several others.

October 2008 issue of National Defense Magazine has a good article written byMatthew Rusling (Can ‘Weird’ Ideas Cure Our Energy Woes. Below I give important parts (to me) of his article.

One invention, called the crowd farm, draws energy from human movement. In a busy train station, a system of sub-floor blocks would depress slightly when stepped on by droves of commuters. The blocks would generate electric current as they rubbed against each other.

A crowd could theoretically power a moving train this way, according to the concept’s authors, James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, who were both graduate students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology when their idea won first place in the Holcim Foundation’s Sustainable Construction Competition in Japan last year. They calculate that 28,527 steps would produce enough energy to power a moving train for one second. The principle could also be applied at large events such as rock concerts, where more movement could result in louder music.

Another idea purports to generate electricity from man-made tornadoes. The Atmospheric Vortex Engine, invented by Canadian scientist Louis Michaud, is a more than 200-yard-wide area whose walls are 100 meters high. Warm air enters at the sides and flows in a circular motion. The air reaches speeds of up to 200 mph and a vacuum forms in the center. The winds keep this shape as they rise several miles into the sky. Each of these structures could generate 50 to 500 megawatts of electrical power. Michaud’s website said the process could become a major source of electrical energy. “The unit cost of electrical energy produced with an AVE could be half the cost of the next most economical alternative.”

Another company is extracting oil from the excrement of microorganisms. In a process not unlike beer making, scientists at LS9 Inc. Renewable Petroleum Company break down sugars from plants or other sources into what is essentially a sugar-based brew, which is cooked up in a large fermentation tank. The microbes, which are from strains of E. coli, are then added and begin to feed off the sugars. The company claims to be the first to report the cloning of the genes responsible for hydrocarbon production, which it infuses into microbes. Those microbes then excrete diesel fuel. The procedure is environmentally friendly, said Greg Pal, senior director of corporate development. “Unlike ethanol, it does not go through an energy intensive process to separate water from ethanol…..The fuel is more energy dense than ethanol or butanol”. The plan is expected to go commercial in an estimated two to three years.

And now on waste: Michael Ladisch and Nate Mosier at Purdue University, along with project leader Jerry Warner, founder of Defense Life Sciences LLC, have invented a machine that converts garbage to energy. Now the Army is testing it in Iraq. A contraption about the size of a small truck takes kitchen waste and converts it to ethanol. Gas is then fed to a diesel engine that generates electricity from a generator. The ethanol, in vapor form, is also fed to a diesel engine, which also generates electricity from a generator.

About a ton of trash could power roughly three or four houses for a day, for example, although the technology would not necessarily be used to power single houses. The company, Defense Life Sciences, also plans to eventually put it to commercial use, such as powering an office building with cafeteria refuse. Waste conversion has been used in other ways. In Rwanda, prisoners’ feces are converted into combustible “biogas,” or methane gas that can be used for cooking. And Israeli firm BioPetrol is developing ways to make gasoline out of human sewage sludge.

While many alternative ideas are technically feasible, the question remains whether they are or will be cost effective.

Air Force energy reduction plans

2008-10-12T15:12:00.003+03:00

The Air Force has been a leader among the DoD services in proposing new measures to cut energy consumption. USAF recommends increasing the use of flight simulators as a substitute for live flying; modifications to flight routes and efficient cargo loading as fuel-conservation techniques; more en route fuel stops to replace in-flight refueling; engine modernization programs to increase their efficiency. (All KC-135R refueling tankers have upgraded engines).

A simpler way to cut fuel use is to fit some airplane wing tips with winglets, small airfoil wing attachments that reduce drag as an airplane moves through the air. They can also increase cruising speeds and help the airplane fly higher.

Source: Boeing Media

X-48B, the airplane is triangular shaped and made mostly of lightweight composite materials. It will get up to 30 percent better fuel mileage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjx0QARFdq4

See also NASA’s BWB section and the presentation of Beoing’s Advanced Systems by Darryl W. Davis at Farnborough International Airshow 2008, 15 July 2008, as well as the info on DoD Energy blog.

Another USAF initiative is to use synthetic fuels derived from natural gas and coal. I wrote heavily on synthetic fuels on this blog. In this post I would like to point two good articles.

The first one is by Breanne Wagner, Market for Synthetic Aviation Fuels Off to a Shaky Start, National Defense Magazine , May 2008 . The article gives an in-depth look on synfuel providers.
Algae, wood chips or garbage could in the future help fuel airplanes. Makers of synthetic fuel are eager to offer their wares to the military as a lower cost and nationally produced alternative to petroleum-based products.

Chief among the potential buyers of synthetic fuel is the Air Force, which has trumpeted an ambitious plan to power its aircraft with alternative propellants. Rentech and Baard Energy were two of the first companies to announce plans to build synthetic aviation fuel plants. But their sites won’t be ready until 2011 and 2012, respectively. The companies have decided to mix traditional hydrocarbon-based products with biomass — plant matter that can be burned for fuel — in an attempt to reduce harmful emissions.

Rentech plans to build the first U.S. synthetic aviation fuel plant in Natchez, Miss., which will produce a blend derived from petroleum residue called petroleum coke and water sludge, says CEO Hunt Ramsbottom. Rentech will employ a variation of the Fischer-Tropsch method to gasify the substances and convert them to synthetic fuel. Fischer-Tropsch is named after two German scientists who created the process to convert natural gas or coal to liquid fuel. Rentech may also experiment with natural gas as the primary feedstock and blend it with sugarcane, garbage, or wood chips.

The company will avoid using coal as a feedstock, he says. Industry experts have said fuel derived from coal has enormous potential because of its abundance, but production of the fuel could release twice as much greenhouse gas as petroleum, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

Facilities that use hydrocarbon substances as a feedstock — including coal-to-liquid plants — will require an expensive process known as carbon capture and sequestration, which catches the carbon during production before it can be released into the environment.

Ramsbottom asserts that his company will capture enough carbon to “produce fuels with carbon footprints that are better than what it replaces.” Rentech’s petcoke/biomass fuel could be up to 25 percent cleaner than petroleum, depending on the feedstock mix, he says. John Baardson, CEO of Baard Energy, says that his company’s fuel would be 40 to 50 percent cleaner than petroleum, based on a life cycle analysis.

Baard plans to open its plant one year after Rentech, in 2012. The company chose to use a combination of coal and wood waste to make its synthetic fuel, Baardson says. The mixture of coal and biomass is expected to significantly reduce the carbon footprint and reduce costs. The company will produce either Jet-A, used in commercial aircraft, or JP-8, used in military airplanes.

Rentech built a testing facility in Commerce City, Colo., which was scheduled for completion in the spring. The plant is expected to produce 10 barrels a day of diesel, aviation fuel and naphtha (petroleum ether) using a variety of feedstocks, including natural gas, coal and biomass.
Baard is building an 800-acre coal-to-liquid test site in Wellsville, Ohio, which is expected to produce 35,000 barrels per day of jet fuel, diesel and other chemicals. The facility will capture and sequester at least 85 percent of all carbon dioxide produced, the company says.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and utility provider Arizona Public Service are also studying how to produce cleaner jet propellants by adding plant oils. Both are looking at triglyceride oils, such as algae oil, as potential feedstocks because they do not emit any carbon during production. DARPA program manager Doug Kirkpatrick says that there are at least 68 different oil crops that could be used and says the technology is already available to convert them to fuel. However, critics say that biofuels production is expensive and results in carbon emissions when the crops are harvested.

The Air Force hopes to spur the growth of a U.S. synthetic fuels market. But a section 526 of in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act that was signed into law by President Bush in December contains language that would prevent the Air Force — or any government agency — from buying synthetic jet fuel unless it is proven to emit less carbon over the life of the substance than currently used petroleum. The Air Force was taken off guard by the new requirement, contained in.

Today, the military purchases fuel on an annual basis, Sayles says, while electricity is bought in 10-year contracts. Although the Air Force cannot yet purchase synthetic jet fuel on a commercial scale, an exemption in the 2007 energy act does allow it to buy fuel for testing. The service bought its first batch in 2006 from Syntroleum, an energy company based in Tulsa, Okla. The company has since closed down its plant. The Air Force plans to purchase 300,000 gallons this year, but has not yet released a bid. The Defense Logistics Agency will release two bids on behalf of the Air Force, one for a coal-to-liquids fuel and the other from any feedstock. Last year, the service bought 281,000 gallons of gas-to-liquids fuel from Shell in Malaysia.
The commercial industry also began testing alternative jet fuels in February when Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747-400 from London to Amsterdam powered by 80 percent petroleum and 20 percent biodiesel derived from tropical oils, says Imperium Renewables, the company that provided the fuel.

The second one is Michael G. Frodl, Coal-To-Liquids’ Promise Big Profits, But Obstacles Remain, National Defense Magazine, October 2008 . The article discusses coal-to-liquids developments from several different angles.

So far the military’s coal-to-liquids efforts have slowed down. Congress failed to authorize much of the needed funds and the White House has yet to allow the Air Force to enter long-term contracts with synthetic fuel manufacturers. Private industry, on the other hand, has made strides in launching coal-to-liquids projects and in capturing and recycling carbon dioxide. Coal-based fuel entrepreneurs will still require governmental guidance, and will need to agree to invest in carbon capture technologies that will make the conversion of coal into liquids no more emitting in carbon than current oil refining processes.

Companies believe that the investment in carbon capture technology can be recouped by recycling the byproduct for downstream domestic industries. This is contrasted with the costly sequestering of carbon into the ground, an option that will be both economical and safe only for oil and gas drilling and coal mining operations.Coal-to-liquids programs can serve as the best vehicle for accelerated development of carbon capture, storage and recycling technologies, even without a large Air Force contract as the main driver. A barrel of synthetic fuel can be made for about $40, and capture might add another $20.Baard Energy announced earlier this year that it has raised private funds and won state assistance to build coal-to-liquids and biomass plants in Ohio. Baard was one of the companies maneuvering for an Air Force contract but lost patience with Washington. Another firm, DKRW, associated with Arch Coal, announced it will build a coal-to-liquids plant in Wyoming that will make gasoline and jet fuel. The Crow Nation announced it is partnering with an outside investor to build a coal-to-liquids plant on its lands in Billings, Mont.

Those three projects alone represent private investments of almost $15 billion. Energy entrepreneurs with outside financing, as well as cash-flush energy companies that can self-finance, still face at least two major challenges. First, they will need to get their potential legal liabilities mapped out under a new regime that all of them recognize. Second, they will need to guarantee Washington that they can produce liquids from coal without emitting more CO2 than liquids from crude. the next challenge will be what to do with all the captured carbon. Many in government and industry have assumed that storage in the ground will be the main, if not only, way to handle the mountains of carbon captured. Sequestering CO2 is truly an ambitious task.

Even if sequestration gained support at the national level in Congress, it is likely that many communities across the nation, as soon as they learn that their local geology has been identified as a place to bury millions of tons of CO2, will rise up and block the effort. If the coal-burning and coal-transforming industries want a solution for the billions of tons of carbon they will have to capture, they should seek self-financing and safe technological solutions.One option is to recycle the carbon for use by domestic industries. Perhaps the safest way to deal with captured CO2 gas will be to convert it into a solid. A solid will also not threaten communities when the first truck transporting carbon inevitably jack knifes and dumps its load. If it’s liquid CO2 under pressure, it will turn, probably explosively, into gas if the tank leaks, and people and animals close by will be asphyxiated. If it’s solid, it’ll only be an inert powder on the roadway.

One enterprising Texas utility has already invested in a small company, Skyonic, which makes a technology that mixes cheap and readily available sodium with CO2 to create sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. In the Persian Gulf, a local company, Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co., has announced that Bahrain’s first fertilizer plant will capture carbon dioxide from flue gas and recycle the captured gas as feedstock in the production of urea and methanol. Another small U.S. company, Carbon Sciences, combines captured CO2 with cheap and readily available calcium to create calcium carbonate, a material used commonly in the construction industry. The construction industry is one of the few industries whose appetite for materials is large enough to make a lot of the recycled carbon disappear.

The coal industry has a long history of providing fly ash to the cement industry — a form of recycling that involves electrostatic capture of dust in combustion gases and use of that dust in making cement bricks. In theory, there are simply too many potential uses for recycled carbon. As transportation costs for raw materials mined outside the United States rise, industries that use some form of carbon as an input will be increasingly tempted to redirect their purchases to domestic carbon capture recyclers. The cheaper recyclers make their carbon products, the more business they’ll take from the raw material dealers.One concern is whether carbon “cracking” — the process whereby heavy hydrocarbons are broken down into simpler molecules — and recycling will eat up more energy than capture by itself, or whether more fossil fuels will be burned in order to power the cracking.

A solution to that would be the development of solar-powered cracking of carbon — or artificial photosynthesis.CO2-free electricity from nuclear power can also be used to crack the CO2 and cover the shortfall as solar power is scaled up. Eventually solar-powered cracking of CO2 will neither reduce energy outputs at coal-burning plants, nor add to costs that might make coal-based fuels non-competitive with liquids from crude.One major obstacle to the development of this carbon recycling industry is the emergence of laws that codify the social stigma of carbon. California workplace regulations already list CO2 as a “hazardous substance,” given the risks it poses to workers in confined spaces.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that CO2 is a “pollutant” that can be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. If Congress ever tries to combine both findings and succeeds in designating carbon a hazardous waste, the carbon recycling industry will be doomed. Make carbon an official hazmat and the coal burning and transforming industries alone will need a new Yucca Mountain of their own every week. Carbon can be safely regulated as a pollutant without it being turned into a massive burden for society and the economy.