The Navy’s push to become a more environmentally-friendly fighting force took a beating on Capitol Hill last week. But the tongue lashing delivered by House defense lawmakers has little chance of gaining traction on the Hill or inside the Pentagon, analysts say. House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee member Randy Forbes took Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to task, slamming the service’s continued investment in alternative fuels, one of Mabus’ top priorities for the service. “I understand that alternative fuels may help our guys in the field, but wouldn’t you agree that the thing they’d be more concerned about is having more ships, more planes, more prepositioned stocks,” Forbes said during the Friday hearing. “Shouldn’t we refocus our priorities and make those things our priorities instead of advancing a biofuels market?”
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A man stands in front of a windmill exhibit inside the Andrew Mellon Auditorium that is filled with an internactive and computer-operated show floor and stage for GE’s four-day event ‘American Competitiveness: What Works,’ February 13, 2012 in Washington, DC. As part of its ‘Hire Our Heroes’ program, General Electric says it will hire 5,000 veterans over the next five years and invest $580 million to expand its aviation business.
Faced with a need to fill more than 100,000 skilled jobs over the next eight years, US energy companies are working to attract veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with the experience needed in an industry that needs a large-scale upgrade in its infrastructure. Keep reading →
As the United States continues attempting to wean itself off of foreign oil, the Department of Energy has been increasingly supporting alternative technologies.
Among the efforts has been the DOE’s support of ClearFuels-Rentech’s pilot-scale biorefinery in Commerce City, Colorado. Keep reading →
Oil is a global commodity–it is easy and cheap to ship it around the world. That means that the security of its distribution network is just as important as the security of its supply. This distribution network–including port terminals, huge oil supertankers, and lengthy pipelines–is vast and costly. It is also vulnerable to conflict, piracy and terrorism.
About one fifth of America’s oil imports come from the Persian Gulf, passing through the Strait of Hormuz as it is shipped to our shores. Over 15 million barrels of oil per day pass through the Strait, a 21 mile-wide body of water vulnerable to Iranian anti-ship missiles. Iran has repeated its threats to close the Strait and is well positioned to carry out attacks on oil tankers in transit. The very threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz to shipping is enough to give the Iranian regime more leverage in the region than they are due. Keep reading →
It is a wonder sometimes that new energy infrastructure is ever built.
On a recent walk-through of a new tool devised to help renewable energy projects with permitting challenges that arise in Department of Defense reviews, the overriding impression was one of wonder. Complex maps and layered data showing flight routes, radar line-of-sight limitations and domestic US military installations left surprisingly scant available open land for project development, although projects that lie in restricted areas do get permitted by DoD. Keep reading →
The current White House administration says it is hoping to lead by example, at least in terms of energy usage.
As part of the White House Council on Environmental Quality GreenGov Symposium, Mother Nature Network hosted a live panel discussion on Tuesday with five leaders on energy efficiency within the Obama adminstration. The panel was moderated by MNN Board of Advisors member and Director of Communications and Senior Research Scientist for Climate Central, Dr. Heidi Cullen. Keep reading →
A project to install solar panels on military housing across the US, creating thousands of jobs, has been cut back sharply after SolarCity, the company behind it, failed to secure approval for a government loan guarantee before a September 30 deadline.
California-based SolarCity had pleaded with Congress to extend the September 30 deadline for loan guarantees, but on Monday was forced to admit defeat, saying it planned to move forward with a scaled down project without the loan guarantee. Keep reading →
News: SolarCity Unveils Plan to Double the Total Number of Residential Solar Installations in the U.S. Through Insta… http://ow.ly/1eAOSL
By Shifra MincerNews: SolarCity Unveils Plan to Double the Total Number of Residential Solar Installations in the U.S. Through Insta… http://ow.ly/1eAOSL @solarcity
The military has been moving full force into the energy efficiency space. Now it might get a little help.
On Thursday, a bipartisan group of congressmen announced the launch of the Defense Energy Security Caucus, a government group that will focus on educating Congress and the American people on the importance of deploying sustainable and renewable energy solutions in the US military. Keep reading →
The mission: defeat the enemy while preserving Uncle Sam’s pocketbook. Saving the Earth is a worthy, but secondary, objective.
The Department of Defense last week rolled out its plan to consume less, and find new ways to source, energy. The need has become particularly pressing as operations in Afghanistan and Iraq last year led U.S. forces to consume 5 billion gallons of fuel. The military’s insatiable thirst for energy puts troops in danger as they transport fuel through hostile territory – the Marines estimate one service member is killed for every 24 convoys. It also exposes the Pentagon budget to price shocks in volatile energy markets. Keep reading →
