By Tina Casey •
October 19, 2009
The U.S. military has been pushing for the development of alternative fuels for a while now, and nobody paid much attention until the Pentagon finally put a price tag on the oil habit. As reported by Roxana Tiron in thehill.com, last week Pentagon officials disclosed that getting conventional petroleum fuel to remote combat locations in Afghanistan costs a whopping $400 per gallon.
There couldn’t be a more clear illustration of why the “drill baby drill” mentality is a non-sequitur when it comes to energy security. Regardless of whether petroleum fuels are domestic or imported, they need to be transported to their point of use. That’s not much of a problem when you’ve got modern seaports, highways and fuel depots, but to paraphrase one infamous former Secretary of Defense, you have to fight the war you have, not the war that’s got the ideal infrastructure to support your fuel of choice.
By Susan Kraemer •
October 18, 2009
Underwater surveillance requires a certain supply of persistent power around the coasts, harbors, piers and offshore areas of this nation. Wave energy provides that certainty and reliability because nothing stops the supply chain of power from the roiling sea.
So the US Navy just awarded Lockheed Martin and Ocean Power Technologies a $15 million 4 year contract to provide wave power for terrorism prevention around the coasts. The collaboration holds the promise for finally bringing utility scale wave power to civilian use as well: there’s 2 Terawatts of wave energy potential around the world’s coasts. Twice what the entire world uses now.
By Susan Kraemer •
October 10, 2009
The US Air Force has placed an order for 100,000 gallons of Camelina-based jet fuel, in addition to the 40,000 gallons the Navy ordered last month for $2.7 million, with delivery to begin this year. Sustainable Oils is supplying them with a biofuel grown in Montana with 80% lower carbon emissions than jet fuels now.
The US Air Force has ordered an additional 100,000 gallons of Camelina for their second round of flight tests starting next June. The DOD is trying to find a non food-competitive biofuel that can be blended with jetfuel to reduce carbon emissions and is running tests on several kinds of alternative fuels.
By Tina Casey •
October 5, 2009
In its search for more fuel efficient ways to provide drinking water for long sea voyages and remote bases, the U.S. Navy has developed a second-generation desalination unit that use 65% less energy than conventional technology. It’s only in the prototype stage but the Navy is already looking beyond seagoing use, and has deployed an earlier version of the technology to provide emergency water supply to disaster areas.
Called the EUWP (Expeditionary Unit Water Purification Program) Gen 2, the new unit also offers a significant secondary benefit that applies to land operations. By providing an on-site source for potable water, it eliminates the need to run convoys of tanker trucks. The generators that power the EUWP units still use conventional fuel, but that could change. If they could be adapted to run cost-effectively on solar power and other sustainable energy, the door is open to desalination on a mass scale.
By Tina Casey •
September 27, 2009
The U.S. Air Force, which has been soaring into the wild green yonder on alternative fuels and other sustainability measures, has added paint to its roster of more earth-friendly maneuvers. At Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, the Air Force has been easing away from toxic formulas, using PreKote to protect its aircraft from corrosion. PreKote is a propriety nontoxic base coating manufactured by Pantheon Chemical of Phoenix, Airizona.
The new coating replaces highly toxic and potentially carcinogenic anti-corrosion products based on chemicals such as hexavalent chromium, which the Department of Defense has targeted for elimination throughout the armed forces, using the force of an urgently worded memorandum issued last spring.
By Tina Casey •
September 23, 2009
With the help of hometown lithium-ion battery manufacturer International Battery, Allentown PA is on the verge of becoming the latest rust belt refugee to dip its toes into the new green economy. International Battery has just won a contract with NASA to build a prototype battery strong enough to provide backup power to support the space shuttle program, and it is currently the only U.S. company manufacturing lithium batteries using an earth-friendly water based process instead of organic solvents.
Allentown’s future in sustainable green technology is striking, not only because the city’s manufacturing base was notoriously written off by singer/songwriter Billy Joel a generation ago (”Well we’re living here in Allentown/And they’re closing all the factories down”), but also because the city is a mere hour’s drive away from Centralia PA, one of the world’s most infamous symbols of old school fossil fuels and their devastating consequences.
By Susan Kraemer •
September 18, 2009
Waste uranium can apparently be recovered very cheaply from the polluted runoff from uranium mining using E. Coli and a phosphate storage molecule found in seeds, British researchers have found. They used the common bacteria with a chemical parallel of what is already found in agricultural waste: inositol phosphate.
Inositol phosphate is insoluble, so it forms a precipitate on the bacteria. The E. Coli then broke down the precipitate; releasing the phosphate molecules which then attached to uranium molecules to form uranium phosphate, which can then be harvested to recover the uranium.
What they have developed is a way for one contaminant to clean up another.
By Tina Casey •
August 20, 2009
Hundreds of U.S. military installations have become “islands of protection in seas of development.” The Department of Defense has over 25 million acres of land under its jurisdiction, including key endangered species habitats that are preserved from encroaching civilian development. More than 300 listed endangered species make a home on U.S. military installations and hundreds of others are [...]
By Tina Casey •
July 27, 2009
The Seattle-based company Hydrovolts, Inc. has discovered an economical way to tap waterways for hydroelectricity. Rather than damming mighty rivers or installing turbines in unpredictable oceans, Hydrovolts has aimed its sights on a much smaller target: placid canals and other managed-flow water courses. Even at low flows, a predictable and reliable current is more than enough to power the company’s unique Flipwing Turbine. Though small in scale, the simple and relatively affordable turbine could go a long way toward meeting the electrical needs of local communities as well as farms, factories, and other facilities.
By Tina Casey •
July 24, 2009
DARPA, the U.S. military’s chief high-tech office, is looking for a few good photovoltaics. Not just any garden variety solar panels, mind you. The agency is soliciting proposals for Low-Cost Lightweight Portable Photovoltaics (PoP) that can stand up to battle conditions and environmental extremes while delivering high power conversion efficiency. Think backpacks with built-in solar capacity, with teeth.
By Tina Casey •
July 21, 2009
Huntington Beach bills itself as the home of mild and mellow beach culture, but this southern California town is anything but mild and mellow when it comes to promoting solar power. The place otherwise known as Surf City USA has just announced an aggressive, ambitious program to get solar panels on 1,000 residental rooftops by 2010, in partnership with hometown company Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group.
