Latest GAO Report Hits DOD Hard on Grid Reliance

Sometimes it seems like there's just too much on the DOD's plate:

• having to simultaneously kill people and build trust with communities
• with too many risks to track and mitigate, and 
• too many jobs to be done by too few folks ...
• in an increasingly constrained budgetary environment
• and I'm not even going to mention EMP (woops)

Now comes GAO telling Congress and DOD that the Department is asleep at the wheel when it comes to plans and preparation for extended power outages in CONUS and overseas. Here's a couple of excerpts from the summary:

DOD’s most critical assets are vulnerable to disruptions in electrical power supplies, but DOD lacks sufficient information to determine the full extent of the risks and vulnerabilities these assets face. All 34 of these most critical assets require electricity continuously to support their military missions, and 31 of them rely on commercial power grids—which the Defense Science Board Task Force on DOD Energy Strategy has characterized as increasingly fragile and vulnerable—as their primary source of electricity.

and

The 10 Defense Critical Infrastructure Program vulnerability assessments we reviewed did not explicitly consider assets’ vulnerabilities to longer-term (i.e., of up to several weeks’ duration) electrical power disruptions on a mission-specific basis, as DOD has not developed explicit Defense Critical Infrastructure Program benchmarks for assessing electrical power vulnerabilities associated with longer-term electrical power disruptions.

Sounds to me like this necessary work could piggyback nicely with efforts to prepare for and take advantage of new and emerging Smart Grid and microgrid capabilities. Somebody on that?  Hope so.

Fuel Efficient Future Fighters

As is increasingly the case, thanks to Ollie keeping his finger on the quickening pulse of energy innovation in DOD. Sometimes having separate services field overlapping or redundant capabilities is an organizational efficiency buzz kill. Other times, sibling rivalry drives them further/faster than they might otherwise go.

Here are recent announcements from the Navy on its ambitious F/A-18 Green Hornet biofuel fighter program and the Air Force looking at bringing ADVENT efficient jet engine technology to the F-35. Maybe they Army has something up its sleeve with helo's?

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Wall Street Journal Status Update on New Energy Technologies

Ten, twenty, thirty years ago you could hope farsighted folks would start investing substantial funds to more rapidly advance the economic viability of renewables, particularly solar. But it wasn't going to happen. You could have hoped (if you were that kind of person) that government would invest big bucks to find energy research. But you would have been disappointed.

Well, these are the new days, and while some fresh minds are working on building the next new iPhone app, thousands more at MIT and elsewhere have the pedal to the metal on nanotech solar and modified genetic biofuels and a million other things that could change the world.

This Wall Street Journal article gives you a snappy late 2009 update on five of them complete with nice illustrations, tells you where they stand today, describes the capabilities they might bring tomorrow, and states plainly that all of them have serious challenges they've yet to overcome. My favorite line from the article balances the good with the hard: "Scientists are attacking the problem from a host of angles—all of which are still problematic."

Here are the five, all of which could make a big difference in DOD, not to mention the rest of the nation:

• Space based solar
• Advanced car batteries
• Utility storage
• Carbon capture and storage
• Next generation biofuels

There is no question some or all of these technologies will be part of our future energy portfolio. The only questions are when, how much, and what else?

Illustration Credit: Wikimedia Commons

UAV Anxiety: Losing Touch with Distant Drones

Thanks to Peter Reed and Stephan Tremble for this. You'll recall how I drone on about the fuel demand implications of a global sky filled with DOD UAVs 24/7/365. Boring, right? Well, bet you hadn't thought of this energy-related risk (below) ... I certainly didn't !!!

During "lost link" episodes, when communication with the air crew is broken, the plane circles on a preset course and waits for direction. "We have to find it. It's like hide-and-seek," Dowd said. The week Gersten took command at Creech, a power surge hit the base and he lost contact with several Predators and Reapers over Afghanistan and Iraq. His crews told him this was nothing to worry about, and in fifteen minutes all the planes were back online. Two weeks later, another power surge hit Creech and he lost contact with more Predators and Reapers. Within a half hour, all were found. But systems so technology-dependent will be vulnerable to exploitation, whether through hacking or physical interruption of data -- shooting down a satellite, perhaps, along its round-the-world journey. And in increasingly wired war zones, everyone will be fighting for bandwidth.

Read the full article in Esquire ... quite interesting indeed.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Navy Shows Smart Grid Leadership

I recently had a chance to speak with Rear Admiral Phil Cullom, who I met at CNA's "Powering America's Defense" report release gathering earlier in the year.

RADM Phil Cullom runs N43, Fleet Readiness and Task Force Energy, works with (and brought into the discussion) RADM Mark Handley whose role is now Commander of 1NCD (1st Naval Construction Division).

Handley, who led the Navy Energy program way back in '96, reminded me that since 1985 up until just recently, the Navy has reduced energy demand at facilities over 30% by hitting the low hanging fruit. Having hit a bit of a wall, with a view to only much higher hanging fruit, Hadley said he views the Smart Grid has the way to take facilities energy demand reduction to the next level, primarily via usage info the Smart Grid will provide.

How'd the Navy go so far so fast in its Smart Grid thinking? Seems like they got a head start when in the year 2000 a San Diego energy price spike drove the local base to aggressively meter over the Web as a solution. Immediately visible where the sources of the highest demands and the facilities manages quickly adapted and dealt with "problem users." Problem solved and by the way, these actions had considerable ROI, the Admirals noted.

So dear reader with facilities responsibilities, I must ask, what are you waiting for?

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

DOD Energy Blogger Letter to Editor at "The Hill" Re: DOD Cost of Fuel in Afghanistan

Long-time readers will note I've spent a fair amount of time on this blog saying the DOD doesn't properly value fuel in its systems requirements definition, force planning, acquisition processes, war gaming, etc. So it was more than a little ironic that I found myself yesterday writing to the influential DC newspaper "The Hill" arguing that they're telling lawmakers that the prices they quoted for fuel delivered to troops in Afghanistan is far too high.

But they printed an article that grossly distorted the facts, and since I know a thing or two about this topic, and since what we decide to do in Afghanistan is of paramount national interest, thought I had to chip in. No guarantee they'll respond; they haven't yet as far as I can tell. But just for the record, here's what I wrote the editors last night (18 OCT 2009):

Dear Sirs,

I politely request you consider publishing a clarification regarding last week's article, "$400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan." As someone who has been studying the DoD's use of energy at US bases as well as in war zones, the article's title, as well as its very first sentence, state and then reinforce a potentially damaging factual inaccuracy that could impact public policy decisions being made right now.

The $400 per gallon figure was recently cited by Marine Corps Commandant Conway when he said thecosts of transported fuel in Afghanistan can be "up to $400" per gallon. In most cases, the costs are well below that maximum. The DoD's own understanding of these costs is not nearly as conclusive as theauthor suggests. Here's how the Defense Science Board task force on energy put it on page 30 of their definitive 2008 report: "... delivered costs for fuel to range from a low of $4 per gallon for ships on the open ocean to $42 per gallon for in-flight refueling to several hundred dollars per gallon for combat forces and FOBs deep within a battlespace." In Afghanistan as in other areas remote from the United States, fuel costs are relatively low at large central bases. As you get closer to the tactical edge of operations, however, costs escalate substantially as military forces transport fuel and protect fuel in transit.

A second source of potential confusion in the article relates to a failure to properly define the DoD's still-new metric: the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel (FBCF). Suffice it to say that the higher figures cited by General Conway and Army energy security program director Kevin Geiss include a long list of direct and indirect costs that go far beyond what readers will likely infer from the article (for more info on factors considered in FBCF analysis, see here).

However, while at its most precise, the FBCF can be understood as a range of possible costs, we may soon have better estimates for these numbers in Afghanistan. General Conway authorized an energy cost investigation team that recently returned from their mission in Afghanistan. As I understand it, the raw data they captured is being analyzed and will made available when complete.

For now, and especially during a period of intense debate over our future strategy in that country, I ask you to communicate to your very influential readers that the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel in Afghanistan is not $400 per gallon, not nearly. In my opinion, the inaccurate and alarmist article published last Thursday will do far more harm than good.

I thank you very much for your attention.

Respectfully,

Andy Bochman

• Principle blogger at the DOD Energy Blog
• Author of "Measure, Manage, Win: The Case for Operational Energy Metrics" published by National Defense University's Joint Forces Quarterly journal

Army Corps of Engineers’ Sustainability Conference Report

Sabot 6's Dan Nolan's out there and at it again. Looks like he was within 10 miles of my home territory in Boston and didn't even let me know ... he's definitely going to get it.  But for now, you're going to get it, straight from him and his recent experiences at an Army sustainability conference. Enjoy!

DN: I had the opportunity to deliver the keynote address at the US Army Corps of Engineers’ North Atlantic Division (NAD) Sustainability Conference hosted by the New England District in scenic Concord, MA on 7 Oct 09. Traveling through the back roads under the canopy of fall splendor, I could see why this was land for which one would fight.The conference was attended by about 80 military engineers and managers, including members of the NAD HQ, folks from all six Districts (even Europe!), as well as the USACE’s Engineer Research and Development Center (Construction Engineering Research Laboratory) and U.S. Navy’s Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC). The purpose of the conference was to inform and educate military engineers about federal and DoD policy mandates (e.g., EPAct 2005, EISA 2007, the DoD Energy Security Strategic Plan, E.O. 13423 and the new Executive Order), meeting LEED (especially changes with LEED 3.0), the technologies on the market that will enable the USACE to achieve the various requirements, and case studies and best practices using those technologies. The interest and excitement was palpable in every session, and the discussion was spirited as engineers and managers compared notes and case studies between districts and Services on what the impact of the policies has been and will continue to be (especially the new Executive Order). Most importantly, the discussion demonstrated how to continue positioning the Corps to meet the new challenges of sustainable design, energy efficiency and renewable technologies. Seeing the momentum from the grass roots level of the USACE, echoing the themes presented by the CG, LTG Van Antwerp the day before at the AUSA Convention was very heartening. The guys and gals who have to make it happen are ready and the leadership is committed. I look for great things to follow from the Corps!