The Military Responds to Global Warming

Could the U.S. military help lead the nation into a clean energy future?

Even as the Bush administration sought to suppress science and delay action on climate change, the Department of Defense began working on freeing itself from reliance on oil, and to plan for the risks of global warming.

I first encountered this myself in 2004, when I wrote up the Pentagon's report on the military and environmental risks of extreme climate change for a news service. Global warming "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern," declared the authors of that study.

A couple years later I was reporting and writing two articles about community biodiesel plants for Grist in in 2006. One of my sources told me that the Air Force was among those most interested in small-scale biodiesel and wind power technologies -- viewing it as a national security risk to remain dependent on foreign oil imports, and vulnerable to the volatility of oil pricing.

Since then, the information's become much more common knowledge, and Defense cites both green and security concerns in its push for energy independence. As Reuters & New Scientist reported jointly last year,

The US military has a history of fostering change, from racial integration to development of the internet. Now Pentagon officials say their green energy efforts will help America fight global warming.

By size alone, the US Department of Defense can make waves. It accounts for 1.5% of the nation's energy consumption.

The military has set a goal that 25% of its energy should come from renewable sources by 2025 and aims to create machines and methods to help "Main Street America" reach similar targets, says Alan Shaffer, a retired air force officer who leads the Pentagon's research and engineering arm.

"It's only the Department of Defense that is big enough and has the federal mandate for the necessary scope of development" of new energy technologies and products, he says.

...These energy technologies may one day spread to households, as a byproduct of a more efficient military, said Colonel Dave Belote, commander of Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada. The biggest solar power array in the US has been operating at Nellis since November in a public-private partnership.

On the downside, even the pragmatists in the Department of Defense sometimes fall prey to magical thinking. Last year, the US Joint Forces Command issued a long-range planning report, "Joint Operating Environment 2008," claiming that the scientific data on what's causing climate change was still open to doubt.  Recycling this tired disinfo meme earned the agency rebukes from both strategic and scientific experts, as the Boston Globe reported:

Sharon Burke, a former Pentagon and State Department official who is now a specialist at the Center for a New American Security, said the report was factually "wrong" and "out of line," saying that there is a wide consensus that human activity, namely the production of greenhouse gases, is responsible for global warming.

Other specialists had similar reactions when they read the report.

"It's very wrong," said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose work was cited in the military report. "The jury is not out" on what is causing global warming, he added. "I don't know where that statement came from, but it's pretty bizarre."

Emanuel also took issue with the report's assertions about future storm intensity.

"Everyone pretty much agrees that the intensity of events could go up with global warming, although we argue how much," he said in an interview.

The Joint Forces Command redeemed itself a bit by backing off the "causes" kerfuffle in favor of more pragmatic concerns. "We are in complete agreement that climate change will be a national security driver in the future," Rear Admiral John M. Richardson, director of strategy for the command, told the Globe. "We are focused on the implications of climate change. We see what is happening. What is causing it is not in our purview. The commanders have to deal with the effects...Don't take away that we think it is any less important."

In a recent high-profile report, the Navy affirms the connections between climate change, economics, energy and security, and argues that "confronting these converging risks is critical to ensuring America’s secure energy future."

The Military Advisory Board (MAB) of the Center for Naval Analysis report, "Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security," reaches the following conclusions:

• U.S. dependence on oil weakens international leverage, undermines foreign policy objectives, and entangles America with unstable or hostile regimes.
• Inefficient use and overreliance on oil burdens the military, undermines combat effectiveness, and exacts a huge price tag—in dollars and lives.
• U.S. dependence on fossil fuels undermines economic stability, which is critical to national security.
• A fragile domestic electricity grid makes our domestic military installations, and their critical infrastructure, unnecessarily vulnerable to incident, whether deliberate or accidental. Looking forward, the report warns that continuing business as usual is perilous because of the converging national security risks of energy demand and climate change:
• The market for fossil fuels will be shaped by finite supplies and increasing demand. Continuing our heavy reliance on these fuels is a security risk.
• Regulatory frameworks driven by climate change concerns will increase the costs—both economic and geopolitical—of using carbonbased fuels.
• Destabilization driven by ongoing climate change has the potential to add significantly to the mission burden of the U.S. military in fragile regions of the world.

According to this 2007 report from the Brookings Institution, the Defense Department uses 93% of all energy consumed by the federal government.  "The DOD spent approximately $13.55 billion on energy as a commodity in FY 2006," the study notes. "Of that, DOD spent roughly $10 billion on mobility fuels and $3.5 billion on facilities and infrastructure. A $10 per barrel increase in the cost of fuel increases DOD 12 operating costs by roughly $1.3 billion per year, which roughly equates to the entire 2007 procurement budget for the United States Marine Corps."

No doubt these vulnerabilities contributed to the $20 billion in stimulus money being directed at the military for energy efficiency and other improvements, as Wired.com reports, as well as "$75 million to each of the services for "near term" energy efficiency technology demonstrations and research."

With the transition in Washington to a more rational, science-friendly administration, hopefully the military will embrace the moment to solve its own strategic concerns, back strong action on greenhouse gas pollution, and help promote clean energy in civilian society as well.

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Image: Solar power array at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.