Scope & Setting the Stage

I'll open with a few posts related to a Defense Science Board (DSB)'s Feb 2008 report. Here is their characterization of DOD energy scope as of EOY 2007, in DSB's own words:

• DOD is the largest single consumer of energy in the US
• In 2006, it spent $13.6 billion to buy 110 million barrels of petroleum fuel (about 300,000 barrels of oil each day), and 3.8 billion kWh of electricity
• This represents about 0.8% of total U.S. energy consumption and 78% of energy consumption by the Federal government
• Buildings and facilities account for about 25% of the Department’s total energy use
• DoD occupies over 577,000 buildings and structures worth $712 billion comprising more than 5,300 sites
• In 2006, the Department spent over $3.5 billion for energy to power fixed installations, and just over $10 billion on fuel for combat and combat related systems
  

These figures exclude energy used by some contractors that performed “outsourced” DoD functions, but are as accurate as current accounting systems permit

So that's the baseline. It's big, spread out, and consumes a huge amount oil to do the job. It's always been that way, since we phased out horse drawn cannon. And it's going to be this way until we can come up with some better approaches. As you'll see in ensuing posts, DSB has already generated some solid new ideas.