Military goes renewable

From the NY Times, this might work:

Last week, a Marine company from California arrived in the rugged outback of Helmand Province bearing novel equipment: portable solar panels that fold up into boxes; energy-conserving lights; solar tent shields that provide shade and electricity; solar chargers for computers and communications equipment.

The 150 Marines of Company I, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, will be the first to take renewable technology into a battle zone, where the new equipment will replace diesel and kerosene-based fuels that would ordinarily generate power to run their encampment.

But this is preposterous:

The Air Force will have its entire fleet certified to fly on biofuels by 2011 and has already flown test flights using a 50-50 mix of plant-based biofuel and jet fuel; the Navy took its first delivery of fuel made from algae this summer. Biofuels can in theory be produced wherever the raw materials, like plants, are available, and could ultimately be made near battlefields. [emphasis mine]

So instead of sending truckloads of diesel fuel to a war zone, the military will in the future construct a mini-scale bio-refinery, then plant, grow and harvest a climatically appropriate fuelcrop to fuel its trucks and helicopters?

I wish Company I the best of luck.

The military: Convinced climate skeptics

The fact that a bunch of retired generals and admirals would put together a report highlighting the need to deal with climate change for the sake of national security makes a statement. These retired military leaders aren't pushovers and can't be considered liberal environmentalists. "We're not an easy sell, if you will, on anything," he said. "So the fact that we came together to talk about climate change and the threat, it's real."

That’s Chris Clayton on the climate change and national security panel at the World Food Prize. So what does the top brass think we should do?

"So it's real, let's get over it, and let's look for the opportunities that can be created by dealing with this set of challenges," McGinn said. "It isn't bad. It's not like we have to give up something."

McGinn said the U.S. has to "break this paradigm that the only way to get economic growth and have high quality of life is through fossil fuels."

I’ll take them on my side.

Carmelina - the new jatropha?

The U.S. Navy has anointed carmelina its next-generation biofuel feedstock of choice. It certainly sounds like a model candidate...

Camelina was selected by the DESC because it does not compete with food crops, has been proven to reduce carbon emissions by more than 80 percent, and has already been successfully tested in a commercial airline test flight. In addition, camelina has naturally high oil content, is drought tolerant and requires less fertilizer and herbicides. It is an excellent rotation crop with wheat, and it can also grow on marginal land.

... but remember what happened to the last biodiesel darling.

By the way, running military vehicles on biofuels because they're "domestically produced" doesn't strike me as a particularly good argument.