Getting There
We arrived in Kuwait City and immediately were taken to Ali Al Salem Air Base north of the city. This way station on the road to Iraq and Afghanistan has seen thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and civilians pass through. I have been through here three times and the pros there do a great job of moving a mass of humanity in and out of war zones with a minimum of pain. That being said, "hurry up and wait" in 120 degrees is no fun. Spray foam anyone? Eventually we boarded the C-17 with a couple of multi-ton MRAPs for the four hour trip to Kandahar. It is apparent that the closer you get to the front, the less bureaucracy you have to endure. Kandahar was our last stop before entering the domain of the US Marine Expeditionary Brigade – Afghanistan.
Camp Leatherneck
Headquartered at Camp Leatherneck, MEB-A is responsible for all USMC operations in the Helmand Province, the wild west of Afghanistan. According to ISAF (International Security Assistance Force, the NATO command in Afghanistan), bases are either temporary or enduring, and only Bagram and Kandahar are designated as enduring. All other bases, therefore, are temporary. This distinction becomes important when discussing military construction. Temporary bases are not eligible for those funds, therefore all construction projects must be $750K or less (without a DoD waiver). The potential economies of scale via by large investment are unfortunately limited by this legal designation. Result: $20 million worth of projects at one installation are being done $750K at a time.
Marines Return and the Maturity Path
Although the US has been in Afghanistan for years, the reintroduction of the Marines is a recent event with all the attendant growing pains, and in many cases they had to fight their way back in. Marine bases are classified by maturity and command responsibility. Camps are large, more mature sites, pushing logistics down to the next level, Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) who in turn provide support to the Combat Outposts (COPs) and from there to the Patrol Bases (PBs). The permanence (actually it's more like the opposite of permanence) of these bases ranges from fleeting to temporary to enduring. Energy demand seems to follow the bureaucratic path as well ... in other words, demand declines (some might say dwindles) as you move down the hierarchy. Additionally, as maturity grows, so does efficiency. When they first deploy, Marines are extremely effective, but not necessarily efficient. Energy demand is low and singular and spot generation is the rule. As a base matures, it brings in the climate control necessary to protect electronics and provide a better environment for troops. However, little is done to increase the efficiency of the structures until the next level of maturity is reached: contract support.
Contract Support and Spot Power
Contract support for temporary bases should contain provisions for rewarding the contractor for efficiency, otherwise there is no incentive. Commanders must insist on this. As non-enduring bases shift from fleeting to temporary, a number of energy conservation and efficiency measures can be taken. Simply moving from spot generation to “ganging” generators increases the efficiency of power production as a prelude to prime power. Spot generation is one generator to one load. Usually the generator rarely matches the load so it runs at lower efficiency and burns additional more fuel. When you group or "gang" generators so that load more closely matches generation, you have greater fuel efficiency and less wear and tear on the generator. In one installation we visited, 19 megawatts of capacity was available to support five megawatts of demand. This is not a matter of malfeasance, it is simply the fact of spot power. Individual generators are required as facilities are established. Over time, efficiencies can be gained through “ganging”, but this requires a command decision. The same is true in the application of other measures such as tent foaming, shifting from tents to hard structures and moving to contract support. In tactical situations, we call it “position improvements”.
Initial Recommendations
The reduction in the fully burdened cost of fuel (FBCF) in dollars and blood require that we give commanders the tools and the knowledge to improve their positions as soon as the situation warrants. There is a cost-cross over point where delaying the decision to move from fleeting to temporary status can be measured and assessed. Determining that point is as much art as science; however, delaying the decision without good tactical rational puts our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines at unnecessary risk. The more support functions the uniformed forces can turn over to contractors, the more combat power can be put where needed. The caveat is that accountability must be ruthless. Contracts must have explicit requirements for efficiency and conservation of energy with appropriate incentives. If the contractors cannot demonstrate cost savings there must be severe penalties. There is an old maxim, “The unit does well what the boss checks.” We must give the boss the tools to check.There's that call for tools again (see previous post). Stay tuned ... other Services like these energy audits and are signing up. You may get to read another one in the not-too-distant future.
Since 2004, resupply casualties have been decreasing in Iraq and increasing in Afghanistan. Energy and water technologies are emerging that can substantively reduce the need for resupply convoys in theater; and therefore potentially reduce casualties without sacrificing operational effectiveness .... Resupplying troops in theater with fuel and water is a mission in which personnel vulnerability can be reduced through increased use of energy efficiency, renewable energy and on-site water production in theaters of operations.and this on unforeseen consequences from Recommendations on MRAP vehicles:
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. The complexity and scope of these types of issues and tradeoffs is beyond the scope of the methodology and capability presented in this report. These hardware decisions require the application of large scale combat and combat support models used by the Army’s analytical agencies such as the Center for Army Analysis.Take away: DOD requirements folks haven't had analytical tools for energy factors. Commanders' calls for better protection for troops in convoys simultaneously put more troops in harm's way as more convoys must travel IED-strewn roads to transport the additional fuel MRAPs' need vs. the trucks they replace. This report (and this blog's constant emphasis on metrics for operational energy) is a call to action for more and better energy-related analytical tools and models to improve mission effectiveness ... and save more of our brave, young folks' lives.
The Defense Department “still lacks an effective approach to fuel demand at forward-deployed locations,” said William M. Solis, director of defense capabilities at GAO. He spoke at a hearing of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee.Who in DOD sees the problems created by the fuel demand policy vacuum and is working non-stop to find a fix?
"Managing fuel at forward-deployed locations has not been a priority …. and reduction efforts have not been well coordinated or comprehensive,” said Solis.Why, exactly, is that?
One reason why the Pentagon is having difficulties managing energy consumption at forward locations is the absence of data about fuel demand, said Solis. “We found that the information on fuel demand management strategies and reduction efforts is not shared among locations, military services, and across the department in a consistent manner.”Why not? And who's taking the steps to make sure this problem is remedied stat?
The Army’s current generators are rugged enough for combat use but they are fuel hogs. The service is now testing a militarized generator — called the “advanced mobile power system” — that is expected to consume 10 to 20 percent less fuel. (AB note: this system is most often called AMMPS, as in "Advanced Medium-sized Mobile Power Source".) A forward-deployed battalion typically requires about 24 60-kilowatt generators. The experimental generator is made by Cummins Corp., based in Minnesota. The company will ship prototypes to the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in June so they can be tested for at least a year before they are shipped to deployed forces possibly by 2010, [DDRE's Al] Shaffer said. “It’s not as fast as we would like to go, but we don’t want to field systems before we are sure that they won’t cause additional problems.” If the tests are successful, the Army plans to buy up to 67,000 of the advanced mobile generators in 2010 and 2011.This has been going on for 3 or 4 years. Still another year to go just to test?
The Army also launched an energy-management experiment called “hybrid intelligent power generator,” or HI-Power.Does anyone in the field know about this? Is leadership holding anyone accountable to get this technology into the field the instant it's ready to start helping?
The Pentagon should consider offering commanders financial incentives to consume less fuel, he said. GAO investigators at Camp Lemonier — a U.S. naval base in the Horn of Africa — found that base commanders had identified a number of ways to curtail fuel demand, but they saw little return on the investment because they would not be able to apply the savings toward camp improvements.Again, what's the policy solution being worked here? Who's got the lead on this initiative?
Until more efficient generators and mobile grids become available, the Pentagon is seeking to drop fuel consumption in the field via common-sense techniques. One of the most successful has been to spray insulating foam on military tents.This is activity we trot out every time ... what's next ???
Shaffer said it is difficult to establish “metrics” for energy consumption at forward bases because every operation is different and each confronts unique circumstances that may drive energy use up or down. “Deploying to Iraq, and air-conditioning tents in summer takes a lot more energy than deploying to some place where it’s a temperate region,” Shaffer told the subcommittee. “So I’d like to tell you we have good metrics. We do not. We probably need to get better metrics. But we don’t have specified goals other than down.”Another recurring refrain: "metrics are difficult." Understood. But that doesn't justify complete stasis. Maybe something is going on somewhere. But I've asked around and found nothing. Where are the version 1.0 energy metrics we can learn from and build on going forward? What's being used in the JLTV program? What about you Air Force? Navy? Bueller?
“During operation Enduring Freedom, the Dragonfires of Sea Control Squadron (VS) 29 achieved the highest mission rate ever reached by S-3 aircraft–and double that of any other Navy aircraft. It did this with the second least expensive maintenance costs of any aircraft in the airwing by not completely shutting down the aircraft’s avionics and engines between sorties.”
I had the privilege of interviewing Kevin Billings a few months ago via DOD PAO's New Media operation when he commented on the Air Force's resolve on reducing its fuel use. Well here he is again, in InsideDefense.com, describing fuel-driven USAF operational changes in much more detail:Using techniques such flying more direct routes to their destinations to taxing aircraft on fewer engines or starting engines at later times before takeoff and using simulators far more often, the service has managed to save millions of dollars in energy costs, according to Kevin Billings, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, logistics and environment. “We had a 3-percent reduction in fuel use last year while flying expanded missions,” said Billings during a Jan. 14 interview at the Pentagon. Service officials achieved this by expanding direct routing of aircraft, reducing the weight of aircraft, using simulators and updating maintenance procedures.
The service is ... working with the State Department to expedite diplomatic clearances for its aircraft. This would allow the jets to fly much more direct and efficient routes through other nations’ airspace.
... and the FAA:
[USAF] is asking the Federal Aviation Administration to let its planes to descend on direct glide paths during landing instead of gradually “stepping down,” said the assistant secretary. This will let the Air Force take advantage of new Global Positioning System-based navigation tools that allow more efficient flight patterns while maintaining safety, according to Billings.
This is all good stuff and we need to see more of it. The Air Force has by far the largest energy burden of the 4 services, and uses the vast majority of the fuel. Stay tuned for more ...
Photo: GPS Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) by Wikimedia Commons
