No Renewable Power for Coalition Forces in Iraq?
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.26.07
What a pity: Noah Shachtman of Wired's Danger Room reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff has decided to nix an "urgent" request made by Marine Corps Major General Richard Zilmer, the head of coalition forces in Western Iraq, for renewable power stations. Zilmer's "priority 1" plea called for the installation of 183 solar- and wind turbine-equipped stations which, he argues, would've allowed troops to avoid unnecessarily putting themselves at risk by constantly having to transport fuel to outlying bases along exposed routes.
"If this need is not met, operating forces will remain unnecessarily exposed ... and will continue to accrue preventable Level III and IV serious and grave casualties," he said. He also pointed out that the high cost of the fuel (which can reach up to $400 in Iraq), in addition to the costs incurred by transporting and storing it, made switching over to a renewable source of energy a more financially viable solution.
Unfortunately the Joint Chiefs would have none of it. Arguing that the solar and wind-power technologies are "not mature enough" to deploy in a battlefield setting, they recently sent Zilmer a curt rejection notice, almost a year after he made his initial request. They may be deployed following a "technology demonstration" that will take place in the next fiscal year.
On a more positive note, four hybrid-electric power station prototypes from SkyBuilt Power, a company based in Virginia (which we mentioned before here), will soon be tested by the Army's Rapid Equipping Force. If approved, two units will be sent "outside the U.S." (i.e. Afghanistan and Iraq) to be tested on the battlefield, after which a decision will be taken on further deployment options.
Via ::Danger Room: Joint Chiefs Neg "Urgent" Green Power Plea (blog), ::Good: Under the Radar (magazine)
See also: ::Reframing the Military: Earth Restoration Service Argues for Global Military Environmental Efforts, ::Iraq's Marshland Still Not Safe, ::Rumsfeld Directs DOD To Study Energy Alternatives, ::Australian Military Go Solar in The Northern Territory
I'm not sure which side to take on this one. One one hand, there's a slogan that some president said "your either with us or against us"...well, I guess the US govt is against us because the citizens of the USA want to get away from fossil fuels and keep our soldiers as safe as possible. On the other hand, solar/wind power is expensive and can be damaged easily.
this is silly. the "reasons" provided by the Joint Chiefs are the same reasons the local zoning board wants to reject your application; they don't know enough about the technology, and don't realize it's ALREADY a mature one!
wind turbines have graced world landscapes for hundreds of years; only recently (the last 100 years) have these turbines been generating electricity. As for solar, if panels are deployed in space, one of the harshest environments we presently send humans, where extreme heat and extreme cold are often just minutes apart, where microscopic particles flying over 50,000 MPH can destroy a satellite, then I think they're worthy of a PERMANENT BASE (separate political issue) in Iraq.
Our government needs to be overhauled; the people who publicly and routinely choose profit over environment (drilling in the Arctic, etc) need to get the axe. Gone are the days of corporate greed...it's now time of corporate responsibility.
An "urgent" request on the battlefield by a commander should carry weight, and of course it doesn't sound like a request made by chance. I'm sure the commander had teams of people working out solutions, and renewables produced on-site was the best one they came up with.
This is complete and total madness. 2009 can't come soon enough.
Ovonics has a metal thin film solar cell (panel, ribbon? Its actually a huge sheet, not a collection of cells) that can be shot (yes shot with a gun) without hurting its ability to make electricity. It loses that bullet sized chunk, but the rest of it keeps working.
A group of students at the Naval Postgraduate School wrote an excellent paper on the use of solar power to power Iraq itself:
http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/iraqsolar.pdf
Placing a solar system on each of the 800,000 residential rooftops in Baghdad would provide more power than Iraq is expected to use until 2020 or so...
One of the most overlooked points is the concept of self-defense of the power grid - whereas the US is currently spending lots of time and manpower defending oil pipelines to keep Baghdad powered, using local roofs to provide their residents with power would be self-defending: give somebody 24/7 AC in a Baghdad August predicated on their rooftop power source, then see if they'll be complicit to terrorist destruction of the power system... I have a feeling that the population would quickly rat out who the mischiefmakers are in their communities.
Just a thought,
-Rory, your token conservative tree-hugger