Transition Driven By Logistics Concerns
Environmentalists are pushing the carbon agenda, but it could be
the US Navy which ends up leading breakthroughs to free us from
fossil fuels. The reasons have little to do with global warming,
and everything to do with military logistics.
Ray Mabus is a former governor of Mississippi, a former US
ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and is now Secretary of the Navy. Not
surprising given his background, he's formed a belief that freeing
the US military from the constraints of the world petroleum supply
will be crucial to preserving its ability to act when
necessary.
In an interview aired opposite the Superbowl last Sunday on
C-SPAN, Mabus told Brian Lamb it was his time in Saudi Arabia which
cemented his resolve. Mabus says, "I’ve set five goals for
the Navy, the biggest of which and we’re going to meet these
goals is that by 2020 at least half of all energy that the Navy
uses, both afloat and ashore, will come from non fossil fuel
sources.
"We are too dependent on either potentially or actually volatile
places on earth to get our energy. Now we’re susceptible to
supply shocks and even if we’ve got enough, we’re
susceptible to price shocks. I mean, when the Libya situation
started and the price of oil went up $40 a barrel, that was almost
a billion dollars additional fuel bill for the US Navy. A billion
dollars and the only place we’ve got to go get that money is
operations or training, so our ships steam less, our planes fly
less, we train our sailors and Marines less.
"We would never give these countries the opportunities to build
our ships, our aircraft, our ground vehicles, but we give them a
vote in whether those ships sail and whether those aircraft fly or
those ground vehicles operate when we allow them to set the price
and the supply of our energy and we’ve just got to move away
from it."
Regarding alternatives, Mabus said the Navy and Marines are
expanding their use of solar and wind power, which is resulting in
less need to transport heavy batteries and less need for manpower
to guard fuel supplies. But it is in propulsion where military
logistics may produce the most radical change in energy use.
Mabus notes, "We’ve certified all
our aircraft, every aircraft the Navy and Marine Corp fly for
biofuels. We’re doing the same thing with our surface fleet
today. We’ve got an F-18, the Hornet, that’s flown 1.7
times the speed of sound using a 50/50 mix of biofuel and aviation
gas.
"...the Navy has led this country in changing energy for a long
time now. In the 1850s, we went from sail to coal. In the early
part of the 20th century, we went from coal to oil. In the 50s, we
pioneered nuclear. And now, we’re changing it again. And
every single time, from the 1850s to today, you’ve got
naysayers, they say you’re trading one form of energy that
you know about, that’s predictable, that’s affordable
for another that’s not and you just shouldn’t do it.
And every single time, they’ve been wrong and I’m
absolutely confident they’re going to be wrong again."