[CPEO-MEF] ENERGY: Marine Corps battlefield technology

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Marines Push to Front Lines in Renewable Energy Innovation
A backpack that generates electricity? A vest that cools you in a hot  
tent? As the U.S. military looks to reduce its dependence on fossil  
fuels, the Marine Corps is leading the way with cutting-edge  
technology and innovative devices.

by Justin Gerdes
Yale Environment360
June 27, 2013

Last month, at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Mojave Desert combat training  
center, some of the military’s best and brightest gathered to test  
the latest in energy-saving gear. The gadgets sound like ones that a  
green scientist might dream up if set loose in Q’s lab - collapsible  
solar arrays, electricity-generating backpacks, hybrid power systems  
using solar panels, and personal cooling vests. But, as I saw on a  
visit to the center, these devices are very real - some have already  
been deployed on the battlefield in Afghanistan - and demonstrate the  
Marine Corps’ determination to save fuel in the field.

Since 2001, the average Marine Corps infantry battalion has a 300- 
percent increase in computers and IT equipment and a 200-percent  
increase in vehicles. This proliferation of energy-guzzling gear  
comes at a steep cost: Marines wounded or killed in fuel and water  
convoys, as well as a surging fuel bill for taxpayers.

According to a Marine Corps study conducted two years ago, one Marine  
was killed or wounded for every 50 fuel and water truck convoys in  
Afghanistan, and one in 17 of the convoys was disrupted by an  
improvised The corps' growing fuel burden is not just a budget-buster  
but a threat to Marines. explosive device. Seventy percent of the  
logistics required to sustain Marine Corps expeditionary forces  
onshore is for fuel and water. An infantry company (125-150 Marines)  
today uses more fuel than an infantry battalion (900-1,000 Marines)  
did in 2001. In Afghanistan, the corps has spent $794 million in one  
year for the fuel used by Marines deployed at some 300 sites.  
According to Major Brandon Newell, Technology Lead for the Marines’  
Expeditionary Energy Office, approximately 60 percent of that fuel is  
burned to provide climate control for Marines and their equipment.

...

For the entire article, see
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/ 
marines_push_to_front_lines_in_renewable_energy_innovation/2667/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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