U.S. Military Links Alternative Energy Research to Lives--and Dollars--Saved

[Fledermaus]

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Flexible solar cells now power communications equipment used by Marines fighting in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, enabling them to shed 700 pounds worth of batteries while on foot patrol. But an F-16 fighter jet flying over Miramar training base in Calif. burns 28 gallons of jet fuel a minute with its afterburners engaged while the C-17 cargo consumes 3,000 gallons an hour.

That heavy reliance on oil—much of it imported—presents a real challenge to the U.S. military. As Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., put it in an address to the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-e) conference here on March 2: "We are reliant on our adversaries for our national security."

That's why the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Energy are partnering on initiatives to further develop and test energy-storage technologies first developed by ARPA-e. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced two such development and deployment partnerships on March 2 for power electronics modules and batteries capable of storing megawatts of power—both to be funded by a requested $25 million each from DOD and ARPA–e in the fiscal year 2012 budget.

"Twenty-five million dollars is the cost of one H-1 helicopter," Mabus said. "The change that $25 million from DOD and ARPA–e can generate, can multiply that one helicopter hundreds and thousands of times." Mabus was referring both to lives saved—for every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq, one soldier or Marine is killed or wounded, according to a U.S. Army study—and money saved. The DOD fuel bill came to some $14 billion in 2010. "For every dollar the price of a barrel of oil goes up, the Navy spends $31 million more for fuel," Mabus noted. "Our dependence on fossil fuels creates strategic, operational and tactical vulnerabilities for our forces."



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=alternative-energy-research-saves-lives