Wednesday, August 27, 2008

2 Types of Energy Dependence for DOD

It's a marginal analogy, but as the US could improve its fuels-energy security through increased independence from (often hostile) foreign oil suppliers, DOD installations could achieve greater electrical-energy security by reducing their near total dependence on the (decidedly fragile) US electrical grid.

The 2005 DOD Energy Manager's Handbook, PDF linked here, is an epic work of 250 pages, and it is the master energy measurement and management guide, albeit on an installation/base level, that the DSB said is sorely lack at the DOD enterprise level.

I haven't made my way through it entirely, and it's hard to imagine a beleaguered mission support group commander or his chief civil engineer having the bandwidth to assimilate it either. But if they're selective, it's all here: organizing for energy management, starting a program, monitoring and metering, analyzing projects, energy efficiency, conservation of water and electricity, and on and on. All good stuff.

So unless I missed these sections, I have only 2 critiques: (1) that renewables only merit a 11 page discussion and it's a light treatment at best. Maybe that seemed right in 2005, but it sure seems wrong in 2008. And (2) that dependency on the fragile grid isn't discussed in more detail, and that moves to add more local generation via on-site renewables and/or on-site clean(er) coal or gas (or other) power aren't discussed, let alone incentivized in some way. This was written four years ago however, so I'll be checking to see if a revision is in the works, as well as whether an enterprise level equivalent is on the way.

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