Defense Department Leads the Way on Sustainable Energy

From racial integration to reducing smoking, the U.S. military has played a key role in leading social change. Now the armed forces are doing the same for sustainable energy – not just because dirty fossil fuels contribute to the de-stabilizing effects of climate change, but because energy efficiency and renewable energy can save lives, reduce costs, and contribute to mission effectiveness.

In July 2010, the Department of Defense (DOD) launched a partnership with the Department of Energy (DOE) to advance clean energy technology. At that time, EESI brought DOE and DOD officials together to discuss energy innovation strategies with Congress.

This July, we continued our work to bring the defense and clean energy communities together by publishing a fact sheet and convening a briefing on DOD’s deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy. At the briefing, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), deputy assistant secretaries from the Navy and Army, and two veterans discussed the many sustainable energy initiatives underway in the military.

For example, reliance on heavy batteries and generators force soldiers to be “tethered to a supply chain,” according to Army veteran Drew Sloan. New technologies like solar blankets offer more operational flexibility and have received a positive response from soldiers using them in the field. DOD is also promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy at its installations around the world and developing renewable jet fuels to reduce petroleum use. (Petroleum has a particularly high impact on budgets: for the Navy, every $1 increase in a barrel of oil equates to an extra $30 million in costs.) “Our energy reliance in this country is a serious threat to national security; economically, diplomatically and militarily,” said Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (U.S. Navy, Ret.) at the briefing. “The over reliance on fossil fuels can be exploited by those who wish to do the U.S. harm.”

Events such as this EESI briefing demonstrate that whether mission effectiveness, balanced budgets, or resource protection is your top concern, energy efficiency and renewable energy are winners across the board.

EESI Executive Director, Carol Werner, also made this point in her letter to the editor of The Washington Post.