Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to CNN, the Pentagon is in a position to kickstart the USA’s green transport revolution through its enormous procurement needs.
Key player in war on climate change? The Pentagon
Opinion by Michèle A. Flournoy
Updated 1818 GMT (0218 HKT) October 26, 2020
Michèle A. Flournoy is managing partner of WestExec Advisors, a strategic advisory firm, and former Undersecretary of Defense in the Obama administration. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.…
The Department of Defense has a critical role to play in this effort. It also has a strong interest in doing so.
…
Gradually replacing older vehicles with new hybrid or electric vehicles would not only be more fuel efficient, it would also grow the market for a nascent US industry. Similarly, retrofitting military facilities with green materials and technologies would make buildings more energy efficient, while also growing high-paying manufacturing and construction jobs.
Scaling investments in alternative energy like solar would lessen demand on local energy grids and help drive down the cost of renewable energy nationwide. By leveraging its procurement power to create large-scale demand, the DoD can accelerate market growth, helping green technologies become more viable and affordable for widespread use while enhancing American competitiveness.
…
Obviously if the US army is going to start running around remote battlefields in tanks which only have a few miles range, someone is going to have to install a lot of EV stations in some pretty inhospitable locations. It might also impact battlefield readiness if US tanks have half the range of opponents, take at least half an hour to recharge, and have to sacrifice armour to be lightweight and energy efficient.
I guess US soldiers could ask enemy combatants to refrain from attacking for half an hour per day, while the tanks are on fast charge, and for the sake of the planet to please refrain from firing RPGs at the fragile base solar panel array and wind turbine systems.
Wow! Is this how the term ‘military intelligence’ was labeled an oxymoron? In this case, it would seem to apply to both the proposal…. and its author!
Michèle A. Flournoy is managing partner of WestExec Advisors, a strategic advisory firm, and former Undersecretary of Defense in the Obama administration.
Now I’m convinced the entire MSM and a certain political party has just been bought by China.
Only this makes any amount of sense after reading that article.
The reach of the CCP is long.
So CNN are still competing with Babylon Bee in the satire stakes?
Diesel-electric trains and ships run because of two different reasons. With the trains, you can use as many locomotives as you need, no throttle, diesels run wide open the whole time, and when coming into the station you can shut off two or three of them and send the extra electric energy through the resistors on the top of the locomotive.
With ships, one diesel, the electric motor enables them to change propeller speeds to the most efficient as they accelerate out of port, avoiding cavitation. Some of them can shut off individual cylinders. None of this applies to tanks for the love of God, putting our military personnel at risk to support a Green Dream? Wow…
The dreamers will never face the consequences.
Remember the “Hover Tank” from the Sgt Bilko movie?
The film Sgt Bilko was my first thought and similarly ignorant to reality.
A Hover Tank is most likely the next suggestion.
Only a year ago a Danish MP suggested we go for flying cars in the near future.
Next comes battery driven icebreakers to substitute the Russian nuclear ones.
The solution for the DoD going battery driven, is small portable 100MW nuclear power stations for charging in the base camp and battery pack on trailers after each vehicle during combat.
This is all very complicated, but there is a very simple solution suggested back in the 1970s by the Danish minister Mogens Glistrup: “A telephone answer machine could replace the military.”
Glistrup was in line with Trump, in that he was angry with the socialistic big government tyranny and falsehood. The establishment saw to their horror that his party, The Progress Party, was about to be largest in the government. The establishment therefore filed a lengthy lawsuit against him, accusing him of paying too little tax. Eventually he was ordered to pay $500,000 in extra tax and a year in an open prison.
Considering that $500,000 was a ridiculous small amount, compared to his fortune and income, they in reality had no case against him, but wanted to push him out of government.
I remember the Norwegians telling me that they wished to borrow Mogens Glistrup to clean up their government.
Glistrup was a professor, businessman, politician and a seeker of truth, was a bit of a redneck and would most likely have tweeted in the same rough way as Trump.
Mogens Gristrup died in 2008.
I’m no stranger to this line of thinking, that is, of using the military as a market for something no one wants. A decade or so ago, people looking for huge space launch markets began promoting space Solar power (beamed to the ground by microwaves or lasers) as a way to deliver power to military operations in remote locations. They did elaborate analyses of the cost of providing diesel fuel for field generators compared to the cost of sending up and operating space solar power stations, and “found” that in the case of the military, space Solar power was more economical.
Now you have to admit that geostationary space solar power stations could provide 24/7 power, and in that sense would be superior to Earth-based solar power sources. However, the downlink issues are rather large – microwave would be the only all-weather transmission medium, and safety issues would limit the power density achievable on the ground. The cost of getting a geo Solar power station on orbit, using expendables of the pre-SpaceX era, would make the scheme a non-starter. But the whole idea was to have a huge launch market enable the development of low-cost launch, attracting private capital that has never been attracted to that field (and still isn’t, really).
I’m not convinced that the cost case closes, and I’d be one of the first to embrace it if it did. But the military is not interested in advancing technology when the technology they have is reliable, and reliability is number 1 for keeping troops alive. When I was at DARPA, I developed an acquaintance with a nuclear physicist, and discussed the space Solar power concept with him. He didn’t look very closely at the idea, but said that it probably would never get any traction. He had approached the military with the idea of a truck-mounted, accelerator-driven nuclear fission power source for forward bases. It was arguably hugely less expensive and more readily brought to technical maturity than space Solar power. But the military has diesel, and it works, and they know it inside and out. His proposal got the same short shrift as the space geeks’.
The concept of power beaming was (usually) called SELENE. I had (unfortunately) some small involvement with the boondoggle since one of the principle investigator/instigators was Dr Hal Bennett, a very senior scientist at the Naval Warfare Center, China Lake. While the guy definitely had clout I had enough interaction with him over the years to basically try to avoid any association with him, his projects, and his sponsors. But, running the Optics Lab meant I had to sometimes be involved. Without dredging the DOD era effort, I’ll conclude with after Hal retired he started a small business called Bennett Optical Research (BOR), in which he got some grants from the state of California to further “development” of the SELENE concept. Mostly it paid for a Ridgecrest building rental and some old cast off optical equipment on which some of his retired cronies worked for free for a few years.
There is an ancient proverb :
“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”
Maybe they wish to end western civilization, with this self destructive way of carbon foolishness .
Actually in the ancient greek version the actual “make mad” is |”make a moron”, and morons were foolish brainless people. Even now “moro” means “baby”.
Let’s look at the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) who wrote this garbage:
Michèle Angelique Flournoy
She was put in the DoD in 2009 to be an Obama anti-fossil fuel advocate at the Pentageon. Otherwise she is friggin’ idiot on defense. No background at all in actually knowing how to kill people and destroy countries that threaten the US.
First off: She was an Obama appointee, no doubt associated with his as a campaign money bundler and got her a political appointed job in the Pentagon. Pay to play.
Her bio:
Flournoy attended Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California. She studied at Harvard College where she received a bachelor of arts degree. She received an M.Litt. in international relations in 1983 from Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar at Balliol College. From 1989 until 1993 she was at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Research Fellow in its International Security Program.
Other words: the author here, Michèle Angelique Flournoy, is an IDIOT when it comes to actual military matters of being able to make sure the US military is NEVER involved in a fair fight with an adversary.
Joel O’Bryan
USAF retired.
Oh, don’t be too hard on her, Joel. she’s on the outside looking in and probably wonders why anyone would even want to join up in the first place.
After all, the draft ended before she was even a bright idea in someone’s head, so there’s really nothing to protest these days…. is there?
Thanks for providing that info. But you left out her engineering degree from somewhere showing she knows how things like this actually work.
Clearly the UN should do what the UN does and join such ideas by a directive that all wars are to be climate change friendly.
Well LdB clearly WWII was climate friendly – the global temp dropped 1940 – 1975 didn’t it?
Depends how much you torture the data and whether torture of said data is against the Geneva convention.
Does that include making all devices for war, and the war itself ‘sustainable’?
LOL CNN is the biggest bunch of fools on the planet.
I say build radioactive powered military vehicles – people will think twice about shooting holes in them.
It has to be an article intended for 1st April.
I wanna see a solar powered sub.
Oh, this is just rich!!! I have to tell my tanker friends who wax rhapsodic about their time in the driver’s seat and shooting off that cannon. They will not just fall down laughing, but they will ask if those are going to be made of plastic like the model airplanes and model tanks.
The scary thing is there’s a pretty decent chance it could happen at least at some level.
Except when fully engaged in all-out war (the last time this happened was WWII), military “leaders” are selected for political reasons, not military reasons. The ranks of flag officers are filled with politicians, not warriors. The military constantly makes decisions and engages in behaviors that directly harm military readiness or good order and discipline for no other reason than political expedience.
Especially if the left wins both the legislature and the White House next week, flag level military politicians will be falling all over themselves to enact PC and “green” policies with no regard to their impact on readiness.
Vague recollection is that the tank shown weighs >60 tons, has a a top speed around 40-45 mph, and ~250 mile range on road. Any electrical engineers out there, how much would batteries weigh for that performance?
…… and can refuel in ten minutes from a fuel system that can come to them, instead of the opposite.. That’s the other downfall of battery powered vehicles. Slow recharge and dependence on a grid or stationary installation.
There is also the crazyfornia poseur way: carry a diesel generator around.
Once again some idiot wants to use the military for an experimental guinea pig. Thank goodness the military has stringent procurement system.
Democrats have favored getting rid of the military for decades, so I guess making it ineffective would be a good first step for them.
The current M1A2 Abrams battle tank weighs 73.6 tons (66.8 tonne), is powered by a multi-fuel turbine engine and has a fuel capacity of 504.4 U.S. gallons (1,909 l) for a road range of 265 mi (426 km) and a cross-country range of 93-124 mi (150-200 km).
How long would this thing run for using batteries?
I remember many, many years ago being on a committee that was to advise on how to protect the Bass Strait oil rigs. This included reps from RAN, and Department of Transport and from an oil company.
The chairman, a Public Service type, posed the question, what happens if a merchant vessel approaches the oil rigs? These have a 500 metre safety zone around them which ships are prohibited from entering. The oil company wallahs said that it was essential that the prohibited zone be extended to about 2 km, IIRC. We pointed out that the size of the prohibited zone was determined by international agreement and that we could not unilaterally change it.
The chairman posed to us “What action could be taken to protect the rigs, and suggested that rigs could send a message to their base and these could advise the Minister of Transport. We pointed out that if there was any real danger, by the time the Minister was advised the rig would have been hit. What was the action that could be taken on the spot? We pointed out that the rigs could try to communicate with the ship by radio or by using an Aldis to alert someone on the bridge. But what if there was no-one on the bridge, or they were not looking? The rigs had sound signals which might alert the ship. But what if no one was listening? I suggested that then that would be a job for the RAN patrol boats that were normally on standby. What could they do? At that stage the RAN blokes started listening with great interest. Well they could come up alongside the ship and try to get someone to pay attention. But what if no one paid attention? Well they could fire a round or two ahead of the ship. But what if still no one took any notice? Then they should fire a round into the rudder and disable the rudder and/or the propeller, and so stop the ship. Great merriment from the naval blokes – at last someone was suggesting that they could be put to their intended use. I have a feeling that the chairman then asked, but supposing the weather was too bad for the patrol boats to put to sea? Get better patrol boats! Hearty nods and broad grins from the naval blokes. I am not certain what went into the minutes of the meeting! I was not asked to be in another meeting on this subject, in fact I am not certain that there was one.
Back to the subject, I recall hearing a Public Service type wondering why a tank had to have a reverse speed equal to its forward speed? The answer was that a tank had to be able to come out from a hidden location, fire at the enemy and then retreat into its hide before its location could be spotted. Hence a high reverse speed was essential!
The great thing is that CNN are actually frightened Trump might lose the election. Their general business prospects were going down the toilet before they got to constantly blabber about the second coming of Hilter, aided and abetted by Russians, for reasons never made clear.
When he leaves office the downward trajectory will probably resume and they know it.
To quote Donald Sutherland in “Kelly’s Heroes”.
Consider this unprintable sarcasm. And that goes for Biden shutting down the oil industry.
The only way the planet would REALLY benefit would be for no more wars!!
I think to know that electric vehicles use high power converters. Power electronics circuits that switch currents in excess of hundreds of Amperes at frequencies of 30 kHz and above.
Performed by power MOS-FET transistors, this “chopping” leads to a sustained generation of sharp electromagnetic pulses of much higher widespread spectrum of frequencies.
Last time I checked, military often require stealth operations. Including radio silence.
Electrically powered vehicles are, no matter how well shielded, potentially detectable with passive radioelectric sensing equipment.
Their typical “electromagnetic signature” can probably be also assessed as well as their numbers and progression characteristics.
Aviation radio is mainly carried by amplitude modulation transmissions, which despite their lower immunity to noise provide other advantages.
And when the rejection is set to low (think: squelch), we can often hear noises that are nothing common to voice or data communication or even a plausible jam of several overmodulating (overlapping) transmitters.
Industrial spread of high power electronics is probably the main source of these nuisances.
Electromagnetic parasitic noise is surely detectable over considerable distance.
I’m not sure that the military personnel would be safer when even relatively inexpensive and vastly known receiver technologies could target ordnance as selectively as on specific models or vehicle types.
However what I know for sure is that, whenever there’s a security breach, someone’s tempted to take advantage of it.
Not mention stray voltage detonating your own ammo.
You just need to understand forward thinking.
She probably is fully aware that during their invasion of France in WW II, the German panzers were able to refuel at gas stations along the way. If the greenies win, they will mandate the end of fossil fuels. Certainly, they will also provide US taxpayer funds to subsidize solely electric power around the world, with fast charge capabilities at many locations. Therefore, rather than requiring long supply lines, the American tanks can simply recharge where they find themselves. See?
I learned how to think that way from some of my students.
And the military would deploy solar panels and windmills to recharge their equipment ? Tactical range anxiety ?
Now it get’s interesting. A “heavy” flying at low altitude with full throttle, all irons out at high angle of attack is all it takes for a “gone with the wind” sequel.
But is she aware that the USSR burned and destroyed all they could? They tried not to leave a building standing. Think they would leave running electricity?