It’s nice to know someone has finally realized that the America’s dependence on foreign oil might be a national security problem. The Pentagon is turning its eye to greater energy efficiency on the battlefield. The military spent $15 billion last year on energy. The Pentagon is expected to spend $1.8 billion in 2010 on renewable energy technology and that spending is expected to rise to $26.8 billion by 2030. In 2009, the Department of Defense rang up an energy bill of $13.3 billion. By comparison, the U.S. military uses as much energy as the African nation of Nigeria.
Of course the energy strategy was mandated by law in 2009. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) also introduced a bill that would create a Joint Contingency Base Resource Security Project that would facilitate the efforts of the military services to pool their research efforts. With the Army developing hybrid vehicles and the DOD pushing renewable energy technologies, it’s quite possible it will have beneficial effects in the civilian market.
In the first six months of 2011, Americans spent more than $50 billion on fuel. With the economy still reeling from the shock of $4 a gallon of gasoline, the military’s campaign to develop renewable energy technologies may succeed in stemming the transfer of wealth to countries that don’t like the U.S. very much and reduce our carbon footprint. Only the Koch Brothers could argue with that.
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