Читать книгу Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells – Our Ride to the Renewable Future - Amanda Little - Страница 28

In the early autumn light of 2007, the trees that fringed the Pentagon were just beginning to turn—a sea of green etched so subtly with red and gold that they looked like an unfinished painting. Despite the imposing neoclassical façade I’d seen in so many photographs, the building, as I approached, looked surprisingly humble, unadorned, and low-slung. No sign of the tragic events of six years before remained on the building’s exterior. But inside, a string of police line tape marked “Do Not Cross” still demarcated a section of the structure’s destroyed west side.

I had gone there to discuss the military’s fuel consumption with Dan Nolan, who oversaw energy projects for the Defense Department’s Rapid Equipping Force. (He recently retired.) Nolan, who graduated from West Point and has an engineering degree from the University of Southern California, procured in-field equipment ranging from tents to tanks for the Pentagon. He dealt with the nitty-gritty practical challenges of upgrading military combat machinery—meaning he’s the one charged with answering General Zilmer’s request for sustainable power stations. Just what exactly would it take, I wondered, to transform a hydrocarbon military into a petroleum-free enterprise?

I met with Nolan in a windowless, soundproof room with cinderblock walls and a two-way mirror in the basement of the Pentagon, where interviews with the media are often scheduled. Bald and muscular, with a bejeweled U.S. Army signet ring, Nolan offered me a metal folding chair directly across from his, interrogation-style. Though the setting was austere, the conversation rolled amicably. Nolan was eager and passionate about the military’s green future, and painted a buoyant picture: “I can see a future,” he said, “where we have base-camp generators powered by garbage, surveillance aircraft powered by the sun, hybrid-engine tanks many times more fuel efficient, soldiers’ clothing that harvests solar energy to charge their electronic field gear…footwear that converts the kinetic energy from movement into stored energy, buildings and facilities operating entirely on renewable energy…it’s all in the works.”

Thus far, Nolan’s most successful energy-efficiency programs had been comparatively low-tech. He devised a superinsulating spray foam that could be applied to the outside of soldiers’ tents in Iraq to save on air-conditioning demands: after the DoD spent $95 million on insulating foam for base camps in Iraq, the agency earned that back in energy savings in just sixty days. The security benefits are perhaps more impressive: DoD data show that if all U.S. military base camp tents in Iraq were spray-foamed, the number of fuel convoy trucks needed would be reduced by thirteen per day.

Nolan was additionally collaborating with a start-up called SkyBuilt Power to meet the demand for renewable in-the-field power stations. SkyBuilt had developed a mobile power station that fits into a standard shipping container and uses a mix of solar, wind, and hydro power to augment diesel generators. The hitch was cost: this contraption is priced at roughly $100,000, compared with just $7,500 to $10,000 for a basic diesel generator. For that reason, Nolan had been able to deploy only two of the renewable power systems in combat zones since General Zilmer issued his request.

The range of green innovations the Pentagon is working on is impressive—extending beyond specialized military applications to products with potentially vast commercial potential: a combined-cycle jet engine with 40 percent greater efficiency, jet fuels derived from algae, low-cost lightweight titanium applications to replace heavy steel, ultraefficient batteries. The Pentagon has partnered with companies including Boeing, General Motors, and General Electric to try to bring some of these products to market, but the time frame is vague at best. “Hard to say,” Nolan replied when I asked him how soon some of these products will be commercially viable. Another reality check is the Pentagon’s annual budget for developing efficient and alternative technologies: $300 million. That’s less than one half of 1 percent of its total R & D budget—indicating that fossil fuel reduction is not exactly a top priority.

The energy consumption rate of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is many times what it was in World War II and substantially higher than that of operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Today, an F-15 fighter jet burns about 1,580 gallons of fuel in one hour—more than the amount of gasoline an average American household consumes over the course of a year. A KC-10 (an aerial refueling tanker) burns even more—about 2,650 gallons per hour. The B-52 bomber burns a staggering 3,266 gallons per hour. It’s worth repeating: that’s more than the quantity of fuel needed to sustain an American household for two years burned inside of one hour. As for ground vehicles, an Abrams tank, which runs on technology designed in the 1960s, travels less than 2 miles per gallon of fuel; a Bradley fighting vehicle, which entered service in 1981, also gets fewer than 2 miles per gallon. An armored Humvee gets 4 miles per gallon. Much of this equipment has gotten more energy-intensive over the years because of additional armor, which adds weight and drag.

While the army had a program back in 2004 that aimed to replace the engine of the Abrams tank with a more efficient diesel-burning engine, it was canceled due to budget constraints. Instead, engineers are fitting the tank with a battery pack to save fuel while the vehicle idles. Similarly, efforts to develop hybrid engines for tanks and Humvees have been tabled due to funding shortages.