By Will Rogers
Best Defense military fuels correspondent
While the Navy has long
been a forward leaner in promoting environmental stewardship, today's
test flight of a biofuel blend in its F/A-18 Super Hornet is all about
promoting national security.
At CNAS we have spent a great deal of time
studying energy security and speaking to officers from the Navy, the Air Force,
the Army and the Marine Corps who are acutely aware that energy security and
national security are inextricably linked. The U.S. military is the largest
consumer of energy in the federal government. And its outsized dependence on
energy means that the military cannot get its mission done without access to
fuel. The Navy's efforts to diversify which fuels it uses in its aircraft means
that it's attempting to reduce its vulnerability to fuel supply disruptions,
price spikes and the consequences of energy use -- whether that's in how the
global oil trade affects geopolitical considerations or the emissions
contributing to climate change. Also note that the Air
Force just tested a 50/50 biofuel blend in both engines of an A10-C Thunderbolt
II, largely aimed at the same goal of diversify which fuels it has to rely
on -- seeing as it depends on three times as much fuel as the Navy to conduct
its missions.
At the same time, the
Navy is looking at fuel options that may reduce its carbon emissions and its
contributions to global climate change. Indeed, the Navy is gaining a better
understanding of how climate change may affects its facilities, capabilities
and missions -- with observable changes in a melting Arctic. Its investment in
alternative, greener fuels is not to achieve environmental ends, per se. Those
are a happy and welcome coincidence, but the bottom line for the Navy is that
it needs to do what it can to ensure its capability to provide for America's
defense and be a global force for good. It is clear that global change in all
aspects of our energy systems and environment are affecting U.S. security, and
I think it's great that the Navy (and DOD broadly) is thinking about how to
secure the nation in the face of these long-term trends.
We'll
have a
big report out on this soon.
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