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Came across this American article and found it quite interesting:
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,119940,00.html?ESRC=army-a.nl
Portable Nuke Power Plant for the Army?
InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Jason Sherman | December 05, 2006
The Army should consider developing a self-contained nuclear power plant that could deploy with forces to provide energy for its garrisons and allow the service to significantly scale back its logistics operations -- including its reliance on foreign oil -- required to sustain troops around the world.
This recommendation is one of many advanced in a paper delivered this week at the Army Science Conference in Orlando. Its authors, one of whom is a recently retired Army four-star general, argue the service must undertake a fundamentally new approach to energy in order to deal with likely future increases in oil costs.
“Military leaders must understand the approaching end to cheap, abundant oil and its impact on our organization,” wrote Col. Kip Nygren, Darrell Massie, and retired Army Gen. Paul Kern in the paper, “Army Energy Strategy for the end of Cheap Oil,” delivered at the conference Nov. 29. Nygren and Massie are engineering professors at West Point Military Academy and Kern is the former head of Army Materiel Command.
“We must start the effort to change the culture by mandating energy efficiency in all of our requirements and by highlighting the crucial importance of energy efficiency for leaders, soldiers and civil servants at all levels,” they write.
The paper points to two trends that suggest tomorrow’s Army leaders are going to face growing energy bills. First, on a per-solider basis, the Army’s energy requirements have steadily grown over the last 70 years, the authors note. Second, they say, many experts argue that at some point the available supply of oil will begin to decline, driving up prices as supply tightens.
There is also a near-term impetus to think differently about energy. “For the Army, 70 percent of the resupply [effort] in Iraq is fuel,” Nygren said in an interview with InsideDefense.com. “There’s approximately 1,000 tankers on the road in Iraq at any given time to supply us; that’s just a huge effort we put into resupplying forces.”
A deployable nuclear power plant, the paper suggests, could be on the order of a 5-megawatt plant, similar in size to what the Navy powers its aircraft carriers with. “Protection of the reactor from insurgent attack,” it adds, “will need to be carefully considered.”
More broadly, the authors say, a comprehensive view of the issues is required. For instance, Army leaders might consider taking a holistic view of the energy required to train, deploy and sustain a brigade, and then construct an energy plan for that unit.
“Every item of equipment within the unit would be provided an energy budget, which could be sold or traded by equipment builders and the services to most efficiently reduce the overall energy requirements to the total force,” the paper suggests.
These recommendations come as the Defense Department is reviewing policies and investments that might improve energy efficiency and help reduce the military’s reliance on foreign oil.
The paper calls for accounting for the total cost of energy in force and equipment design decisions, a move that is being actively considered by senior Pentagon leaders. According to the paper, the total cost to deliver a gallon of fuel from Defense Department distribution centers to frontline forces is approximately $42.
Other policy changes needed, according to the paper, are incentives across the bureaucracy to reduce fuel use, ensuring “at least 10 percent” of research and development funds are set aside for fuel efficiency efforts and explicitly including fuel efficiency in the weapon system requirements and acquisition process.
Also interesting is that I have heard a number of things with regards to electric powered combat vehicles. Of course, if you have one of these things in your camp, I think the night sentry job just got a whole lot more complicated. :-\
As I am not up on nuclear techonlogy, I would be curious as to how large something like this would be, and just how "portable" it is.
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,119940,00.html?ESRC=army-a.nl
Portable Nuke Power Plant for the Army?
InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Jason Sherman | December 05, 2006
The Army should consider developing a self-contained nuclear power plant that could deploy with forces to provide energy for its garrisons and allow the service to significantly scale back its logistics operations -- including its reliance on foreign oil -- required to sustain troops around the world.
This recommendation is one of many advanced in a paper delivered this week at the Army Science Conference in Orlando. Its authors, one of whom is a recently retired Army four-star general, argue the service must undertake a fundamentally new approach to energy in order to deal with likely future increases in oil costs.
“Military leaders must understand the approaching end to cheap, abundant oil and its impact on our organization,” wrote Col. Kip Nygren, Darrell Massie, and retired Army Gen. Paul Kern in the paper, “Army Energy Strategy for the end of Cheap Oil,” delivered at the conference Nov. 29. Nygren and Massie are engineering professors at West Point Military Academy and Kern is the former head of Army Materiel Command.
“We must start the effort to change the culture by mandating energy efficiency in all of our requirements and by highlighting the crucial importance of energy efficiency for leaders, soldiers and civil servants at all levels,” they write.
The paper points to two trends that suggest tomorrow’s Army leaders are going to face growing energy bills. First, on a per-solider basis, the Army’s energy requirements have steadily grown over the last 70 years, the authors note. Second, they say, many experts argue that at some point the available supply of oil will begin to decline, driving up prices as supply tightens.
There is also a near-term impetus to think differently about energy. “For the Army, 70 percent of the resupply [effort] in Iraq is fuel,” Nygren said in an interview with InsideDefense.com. “There’s approximately 1,000 tankers on the road in Iraq at any given time to supply us; that’s just a huge effort we put into resupplying forces.”
A deployable nuclear power plant, the paper suggests, could be on the order of a 5-megawatt plant, similar in size to what the Navy powers its aircraft carriers with. “Protection of the reactor from insurgent attack,” it adds, “will need to be carefully considered.”
More broadly, the authors say, a comprehensive view of the issues is required. For instance, Army leaders might consider taking a holistic view of the energy required to train, deploy and sustain a brigade, and then construct an energy plan for that unit.
“Every item of equipment within the unit would be provided an energy budget, which could be sold or traded by equipment builders and the services to most efficiently reduce the overall energy requirements to the total force,” the paper suggests.
These recommendations come as the Defense Department is reviewing policies and investments that might improve energy efficiency and help reduce the military’s reliance on foreign oil.
The paper calls for accounting for the total cost of energy in force and equipment design decisions, a move that is being actively considered by senior Pentagon leaders. According to the paper, the total cost to deliver a gallon of fuel from Defense Department distribution centers to frontline forces is approximately $42.
Other policy changes needed, according to the paper, are incentives across the bureaucracy to reduce fuel use, ensuring “at least 10 percent” of research and development funds are set aside for fuel efficiency efforts and explicitly including fuel efficiency in the weapon system requirements and acquisition process.
Also interesting is that I have heard a number of things with regards to electric powered combat vehicles. Of course, if you have one of these things in your camp, I think the night sentry job just got a whole lot more complicated. :-\
As I am not up on nuclear techonlogy, I would be curious as to how large something like this would be, and just how "portable" it is.
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