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You're running out of fuels
The Center for Naval Analyses has put out a snazzy new study of the problems energy presents for national security. It is well done, as far as I can tell-I'm no expert in this area. Some surprising angles are explored, like a discussion by retired Rear Adm. David Oliver Jr., a veteran submarine commander, of the difficulties of the Navy's transition from diesel subs to nuclear-powered ones:
You had to essentially destroy the diesel boat community in order to ensure that the nuclear boats could emerge."
Here are the basic findings:
Priority 1: Energy security and climate change goals should be clearly integrated into national security and military planning processes.
Priority 2: DoD [the Department of Defense] should design and deploy systems to reduce the burden that inefficient energy use places on our troops as they engage overseas.
Priority 3: DoD should understand its use of energy at all levels of operations. DoD should know its carbon bootprint.
Priority 4: DoD should transform its use of energy at installations through aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency, smart grid technologies, and electrification of its vehicle fleet.
Priority 5: DoD should expand the adoption of distributed and renewable energy generation at its installations.
Priority 6: DoD should transform its long-term operational energyposture through investments in low-carbon liquid fuels that satisfy military performance requirements."
Btw, this is an area is which Sharon Burke, the czarina of "natural security" at my own CNAS, is doing a lot of interesting work. More on that next week at the annual CNAS hoedown, which kicks off with some guy named Petraeus and winds up with a free beer for anyone who makes it through the whole day.
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“Weapons speak to the wise, but in general they need interpreters.”
—Pindar, Olympian Odes
Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.
Comments? Tips? Email ricksblog [at] cnas.org
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can't assume fuel will get through in ops
The CNA study is a good gateway to the more in-depth Defense Science Board study from 2008 (http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2008-02-ESTF.pdf) that explains that DoD planning methods typically allow force planners and requirements developers to assume the fuel (the tankers, oilers, POL convoys) will always be there and that enemy forces will be too incompetent to degrade them. US loggies are great, but we've become complacent in a very soft (unprotected and thin) capability area. That assumption is only just beginning to change.
Dave's right on the
Dave's right on the difficulties in transitioning from a diesel submarine navy to one all nuclear powered - he and I both lived through that period, at sea, in the boats.
The trouble in the diesels was learning to live to the higher standards of the nuke navy. The nuke side had many top-notch officers (like Dave), and they could do everything, but those that weren't quite to that level found it challenging to conduct operations with the same excellence that was absolutely demanded in engineering.
There was no question of how it should or would turn out. The all-nuke submarine force is by far the better, especially as it largely brought forward the standards and skills of the diesel fleet.
dupe
Dupe - delete
speaking of energy and national security . . .
from the USNI, April 2009
If the rumors are true, PetroChina, a Chinese Government Controlled Entity, is on the verge of buying McDermott International, a company that, as I understand things, is the U.S. Navy’s sole provider of nuclear fuel and nuclear fuel assemblies. McDermott, a Panama “based” corporate tax-avoider, also manages the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
http://blog.usni.org/?p=2352
Amazing!
It's amazing that there's almost ZERO coverage of the McDermott buyout (if it actually happens... ..ed). You'd figure FauxNews or PowerLine would be all over it like umn... neutrons on isotopes.
So I blogged it
Diesel Subs
I always wonder why we do not have diesel subs and Nuclear subs. I would think a conventional fleet sub designed to operate on the surface like WW2 gato boats would be a great coast guard cutter.
The next big energy challenge: Russia
Two resources to keep a close eye on in the next decade are water and oil. The country most likely to challenge us on access to it? Russia. They released their latest national security strategy last month and a good portion of it is devoted to how much they believe in access to energy and where they want access to it. They are prepared to use military force to gain and maintain access to it. While they mention water once in the strategy, it's still mentioned pretty explicitly.
oil and water
Donald Rumsfeld, when speaking of Iraq's natural resources as SecDef, to the best of my knowledge never mentioned oil without mentioning water.
Most of rivers and streams I
Most of rivers and streams I ran across up in Ninewah province seemed more like open sewers than fresh water sources, so yeah, maybe he did get that right.
Iraq's economy is dominated
Iraq's economy is dominated by the petroleum sector, which has traditionally provided about 95% of foreign exchange earnings.In the 1980s, financial problems caused by massive expenditures in the eight-year war with Iran and damage to oil export facilities by Iran led the government to implement austerity measures, borrow heavily, and later reschedule foreign debt payments; Iraq suffered economic losses of at least $80 billion from the war.After the end of hostilities in 1988, oil exports gradually increased with the construction of new pipelines and restoration of damaged facilities of Iraq grew 56% in the '60s reaching a peak growth of 57% in the '70s. However, the current GDP per capita shrank by 23% in the '80s amid the Iran-Iraq War.
oil exploration
Oh and if its free beer, I'm
Oh and if its free beer, I'm there!, Oh wait, I already will.
They keep saying that!
This MUST be at least the third time I've read of a Dod policy paper regarding hydrocarbon usage not only for vessels and rolling stock, but on-base as well.
It seems they spend alot of energy producing the paper this stuff is written on but there's no noticeable move towards efficiency in anything but kill ratios.
Somewhere I also read one of the major reasons that the Iraqis don't manage to put much oil on the international market (besides the fact that their oil infrastructure is constantly under armed attack) is the simple fact that the US military uses most of Iraq's available oil output.
Expect no change...
Steve Earle wrote a song about WHY the Pentagon is so intent on using Iraq's oil instead of simply trucking it in from Kuwait as they used to do.
A thirty second sample (Alt-Country): http://mog.com/music/Steve_Earle/The_Revolution_Starts...Now/Home_to_Houston
The lyrics (Home to Houston, The Revolution Starts Now):
When I pulled out of Basra they all wished me luck
Just like they always did before
With a bulletproof screen on the hood of my truck
And a Bradley on my back door
And I wound her up and shifted her down
And I offered this prayer to my lord
I said “God get me back home to Houston alive
and I won't drive a truck anymore
It's early in the mornin' and I'm rollin' fast
Haulin' nine thousand gallons of high test gas
Sergeant on the radio hollerin' at me
Look out up ahead here come a R.P.G.
If I ever get home to Houston alive
Then I won't drive a truck anymore
I've driven the big rigs for all of my life
And my radio handle's "Train"
Down steep mountain roads on the darkest of nights
I had ice water in my veins
And I come over here ‘cause I just didn't care
Now I'm older and wiser by far
If I ever get home to Houston alive
Then I won't drive a truck anymore
Great God A'mighty what was wrong with me
I know the money's good but buddy can't you see
You can't take it with you and that ain't no lie
I don't wanna let ‘em get me I'm too young to die
If I ever get home to Houston alive
Then I won't drive a truck anymore
This MUST be at least the
It takes time. They make the plans, and put out the RFPs, and get the proposals, and award the contracts. Then as results start to come in they have to start actually replacing things.
You can figure though that in 20 years our military will be ready to roll using far less fossil fuel. And the research they fund now may lead to civilian conservation too. A whole lot of military R&D has no civilian application or gets turned secret and civilian applications forbidden, but this topic has some real potential.
Even the fuel-guzzling aircraft are getting better. As I understand it, the F-22 uses only about 70% as much fuel as older aircraft, down to around 18,000 gallons/hour. And it's far more capable of taking out high-value targets while it's in the air. I tend to argue that within 10 years or so, the high-value targets for an F-22 to attack will be mostly white elephants that themselves use so much fuel we'd be better off to let the enemy keep them in the hope he makes the mistake of actually using them. But I could be wrong.
I wouldn't complain too much about military plans to use less fuel. Our military is pretty much the only part of our economy that's capable of long-term planning. It takes a long time to get results, but at least they're heading in the right direction.
Cost of war...
J Thomas: "I tend to argue that within 10 years or so, the high-value targets for an F-22 to attack will be mostly white elephants that themselves use so much fuel we'd be better off to let the enemy keep them in the hope he makes the mistake of actually using them."
Early on in the Iraq war, before Knight-Ridder changed hands, they had a number of local stringers on the ground in Iraq.
One was interviewing a group of Iraqi resistance fighters, and one of them said, just before they broke off the interview in mid-conversation to go do some damage:(I paraphrase)
"Each time we set off a roadside bomb or attack a convoy of fuel trucks, it cost your forces millions of dollars to respond and it costs us almost nothing".
He may be overstating the cost on the part of the invaders (that's us, considering ALL the rationales & reasons turned out to be lies, yet we're still there), but it's quite clear the 'resurgents' KNOW their economics of warfare.
All one would have to do is read any published paper on how the Russian experience in Afghanistan 'razed' the Russian treasury.
F-22? Obsolete in ten years
Mullen: Drones Future Stalwart of U.S. Force
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 14 May 2009
WASHINGTON - Unmanned aircraft likely represent the future for U.S. military aviation with next generation bombers and fighter planes operating without pilots onboard, the top U.S. military officer said May 14.
"We're at a real time of transition here in terms of the future of aviation, and the whole issue of what's going to be manned and what's going to be unmanned," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing.
Carrier fleets? ditto
The China/Taiwan thaw has removed the last "threat", and China's new Dong Feng 21 missile can evade Aegis and sink a carrier. The Navy is currently is search of a mission, with some advocating a "brown-water" navy, probably for a hoped-for Africa war theater.
Overseas deployments
I liked this part of the study:
"Many of our overseas deployments were defined,
in part, by the strategic decision to ensure the free
flow of oil, to the U.S. and to our allies."
Overseas deployments, Pentagon-speak for invasions which have killed, injured, tortured, imprisoned and displaced millions of people.
Strategic decisions, Pentagon-speak for illegal, falsified war-for-power-and-profit.
Insure the free flow of oil, Pentagon-speak for a commodity which is sold and bought on the open market and (except for delays from a pirate or two) has never been subjected to a loss of "free flow."
The US and its allies, Pentagon-speak for the US, UK, Poland and El Salvador.
Don, how old are you?
Where you even around in the 70s? Does "never" mean "as far back as I personally remember"?
I was around then, and old
I was around then, and old enough to read the news.
The Shah of iran wanted to get a cartel running and raise prices. He asked Kissinger if it was OK and Kissinger said yes. Kissinger cared about grand strategy and wasn't concerned about a little money.
But OPEC was a bunch of quarreling lunatics and could not really agree on anything. So the shah's plan wasn't working. Then the 1973 war came. Israel had it lost, but the USA bailed them out to the point of threatening global war with the USSR unless the russians agreed to let israel win. Suddenly quarreling OPEC stood together. Under leadership from the shah and King Saud they stopped selling to us and they sold just enough to europe for their own needs, not enough to resell much to us. But western europe did ship us some oil and suffered their own shortages as a result.
I had a friend who was working in a hardware store. He said that the supply chain was going crazy. They could put in an order for a shipment of glass and maybe half of it would come in, or maybe none. They never knew what would actually be available. Pieces of the economy were shutting down. There were long lines to get gasoline, and often gas stations ran out. We started silly sorts of rationing, like you could only buy gas on even or odd days depending on your license plate. I remember there were people who wanted to drive between california and utah who couldn't do it because they needed an open gas station on the way, and there wasn't one. Some of them came up with the brilliant idea of driving part way with gas cans in their van, burying the gas cans in the desert, and driving back to refill their tanks and get more gas cans so they could make it all the way. We had frantic times for awhile.
A US general publicly announced that we could take the oilfields within a week or so. A saudi engineer publicly announced that they could easily sabotage their refineries. He said he could turn two valves and his refinery would be useless forever. A US general publicly announced that we could take the oilfields and have "some" production within 2 months.
But then it settled down. The Shah was deposed and died of a brain tumor. King Saud was shot and killed by his nephew who went to UCLA. The saudis thought it was CIA mind control but the americans said he was just crazy.
The saudis said that when they tried to punish the USA it was the third world that suffered the most. They said they had a duty to sell lots of oil, to be charitable to the poor people. Was that the reason? Were they scared of us? I don't know how to tell.
It's been a long time since anything like that happened and I don't miss it.
ESPC
ESPC - Energy Saving Performance Contracting - is the key to a step-jump in energy savings at DOD and other government installations. Done right, it will incorporate renewables along with direct efficiencies in the buildings and facilities of the base.
Cost? The capital investment for the new gear (and the cost of money) are paid for off-budget by the design-&-installation contractor - as is the ongoing energy bill after retrofit - from the original utility outlays, which are now funneled to the contractor. At the end of the amortization period (current law allows up to 25 years for federal installations, though the typical timeframe is much less) the customer picks up the utility payments at the much lower energy-efficient rate and continues to use the equipment originally installed at no cost to customer - it's owned by the government.
No-brainer, right? What's holding it back? OMB scorekeeping rules were the obstacle as well as absence of permanent authorization, but these were taken care of in the last Energy Bill. Now what holds back ESPC are the MILCON managers, who give up direct funding authority, and the stodgy, unimaginative, lazy - dare one say in this context ... useless - contracting shops (this makes their heads hurt because they don't know how to handle something that doesn't cost them anything), installation commanders, their Echelon Two superiors, the military services themselves, and DOD.
The time to do a fresh assessment of the energy savings potential in DOD is after military installations worldwide are wall-to-wall with modern ESPC-derived energy systems. Until then, we're leaving dollars and BTUs on the table.