Green Options

The US Department of Defense is the largest consumer of energy in the United States spending $18 billion a year. Coupled with economics, dwindling natural resources, and the dangers of transporting fuel in war zones, the military is looking towards alternative fuels.

In a landmark case, the US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the US Navy can carry out sonar training exercises off the southern California coast, without safeguards designed to protect whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.

The US Navy has awarded Ocean Power Technologies a $3 million contract for participation in the second phase of its Deep Water Active Detection Systems (”DWADS”) program.

The Supreme Court today began hearing a case that questions who (or what creatures) get dibs on the ocean waters off the coast of California.

$1 per barrel increase in the price of oil costs U.S. $130 million

Whenever I’m involved in a discussion about government waste and/or the politics of bureaucratic budgeting, I undoubtedly recount a story that usually leaves people nodding in agreement or shaking their head in disbelief. The story goes like this: A friend of mine we’ll call “Rob,” whom I used to work with during my summer breaks, was coming back to Massachusetts for an unexpected late-September visit. Rob had relocated to Pensacola, Florida where he was learning how to fly jets at the Naval Flight Training School. As Rob lifted the golf clubs out of the nose of the fighter jet he had just flown from Florida to Massachusetts for a one-day visit, he knew his trip was different - and he was a little uneasy about it.

You see, Rob’s day-long visit to play golf in Massachusetts was made possible by an officer (or officers) who rightly feared that ending up with a surplus of fuel at the end of that fiscal year would slash the budget for fuel in the next. Rob’s little visit was back in the early 1990s, but with today’s skyrocketing fuel prices, and the added fuel demands of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “largest single user of petroleum products in the world” is looking for ways to use less fuel - and more types of it.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered the Navy to refrain from using the powerful submarine-hunting sonar within 12 miles of the California coast, thus protecting migrating gray whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.  The Navy must spend an hour before any sonar training missions searching for marine mammals, and  use shipboard observers and aircraft to monitor for whales and dolphins while the sonar is in use.  If any marine mammals are spotted [...]

Here’s an example of a global warming consequence that wasn’t exactly on my radar, and some strange news from our neighbors to the north.

The Canadian navy has traditionally had a good relationship with the garbage on board its ships: the cold Arctic temperatures have kept the mess frozen, allowing refuse and olfactory senses to live harmoniously.

Then came global warming. The increased temperatures have caused quite the stink on Canadian naval ships, so much so

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