First Ever Joint Army-Air Force Energy Forum Confirms Fossil Fuels Are Fading Out

July 22nd, 2011 by Tina Casey

The first ever joint Army-Air Force Energy Forum took place this week, and the participants have a message for outdated conventional fuels: don’t let the door hit you on your way out. At the capacity-booked event, senior leadership, including four- and three-star generals, outlined “the strategic importance and future direction of Army and Air Force energy” in terms of innovation, technology, conservation and sustainability. The spirit of the event was best summed up by Dr. Kevin Geiss, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Air Force for Energy, who told a bloggers’ roundtable that the Air Force was born in a transformational advancement in technology, and that “at its core, the DNA of the Air Force is to respect technology.”

Bloggers’ Roundtable at Army-Air Force Energy Forum

CleanTechnica was invited to the roundtable, which featured Dr. Geiss and Richard Kidd, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Energy and Sustainability. Dr. Geiss reminded the participants that the need to focus on energy as a systematic element in long term national defense strategy was articulated back in the 1988 National Security Strategy. Since then, the core issues of financial costs, loss of life due to fuel transportation and storage risks, and the constriction of operational flexibility have intensified under the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Interplay Between Civilian and Military Sustainability

Geiss was optimistic about the ability of the biofuel industry to meet the Air Force’s growing interest in jet biofuel, particularly in light of new alternative fuel partnerships with the commercial aviation sector. He also noted that the presence of large numbers of Air Force reservists in commercial aviation has engendered a fairly direct line of communication for innovative technologies and procedures between the military and civilian sectors. Kidd followed up on the civilian-military dynamic on the community level, by pointing out that for Army installations, “energy, waste, and water solutions have to be done in concert with local communities.”

Servicemen and Women as Green Ambassadors

Kidd noted that an entire battalion has been deployed to Afghanistan with sustainable technology. The troops trained in Kansas and were so comfortable with the gear that upon arriving in Afghanistan they took it straight to the field without waiting for the mobile training unit, which had been delayed. “They are extremely happy with it,” said Kidd, because it has reduced the operational burden and supply logistics involved with conventional fuel and batteries. As these service members cycle in and out of the civilian world, that enthusiasm for new sustainable technology will reach virtually every community in the U.S.

The True Value of Energy

The roundtable covered a lot of ground in a brief half-hour, and about midway through Kidd hit the main note for both the Army and the Air Force. Citing the Energy Forum itself as clear evidence that the military is “talking about energy in a way it has never been done before,” he stated that “the Army is changing the way it values energy.” It’s unfortunate that in the very moment that the U.S. military has adopted a transformational concept of sustainability, some federal legislators are digging in their heels and pushing for “dirty fuels,” but perhaps events like the Energy Forum will help convince more policymakers that there is a lot more to “support our troops” than waving a flag at them.

Read more about the U.S. military and sustainability:

Image: Marine in Afghanistan by DVIDSHUB on flickr.com

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: Air Force Army Joint Energy Forum, Army Net Zero program

About the Author

Tina Casey Tina Casey specializes in military and corporate sustainability, advanced technology, emerging materials, biofuels, and water and wastewater issues. Tina’s articles are reposted frequently on Reuters, Scientific American, and many other sites. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter @TinaMCasey and Google+.

Ross

Your website is full of grammatical errors. I wouldn’t assume your lack of success is attributable to politics.
Moequine

Obviously you folks at Green Power Inc just don’t “get it”.
Unless the government spends money on something they don’t
really feel like they are accomplishing anything.
Go back and tell them you need 500+ billion to “discover”
a new bio-fuel. It worked for Solandria.
The end goal is not to find a solution, but to spend the money.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Solandria? Say who?
  
  Note that we have tons of things you consider a basic necessity of modern life because of the government. And that the government’s clean energy programs have been wildly successful, despite one failure that was completely blown out of proportion and turned into something it wasn’t by the GOP.
- Anonymous
  
  It seems that you do not quite understand the word ‘investment’ when the gov’t lends money to a company in order to see a return on that investment- like jobs and growing the economy. The gov’t has been throwing money at the oil industry since the beginning and without that money, it is not profitable. The gov’t does not want to throw your money away, as you seem to believe so strongly. The green industry is in fact a good thing and should be subsidised by the gov’t in order to help us get away from using finite energy sources like oil and natural gas. The military is doing it, so what does that tell you about the direction of things?
  
  Also, the company name is spelled Solyndra, not Solandria and it was $500 million, not billion-FYI