High energy demands are compromising military operations, science board finds

A much-anticipated study of the Defense Department's energy policy and practices concludes that the military's "unnecessarily high and growing" dependence on oil is jeopardizing the success of battlefield operations, risking lives and driving up costs. Additionally, critical national security and homeland defense missions face "an unacceptably high risk of extended outage from failure of the grid," analysts found.

The Defense Science Board task force on energy security released a report this week that criticizes the Pentagon for failing to develop plans to manage its energy risks, despite similar warnings from a previous panel seven years earlier.

"There is no unifying vision, strategy, metrics or governance structure with enterprisewide energy in its portfolio," the report found. Projects to manage energy consumption are limited to compliance with executive orders and legislation, and almost completely limited to facilities and nontactical vehicles. "There are currently few efforts to manage energy demand by operational forces, which consume about three-quarters of DoD energy."

The task force heard more than 100 presentations on technologies that reduced energy consumption, some of which appear very promising. But with no mechanism for determining their operational and economic benefits, the programs are languishing.

One of the most significant barriers to changing wasteful practices is organizational culture: "The task force found no strong, sustained focus by senior leadership to change the culture that assumes readily available energy, or to create a culture that inherently recognizes the clear linkage between energy productivity and combat effectiveness."

The report echoes the concerns of battlefield commanders who have decried the risk to personnel who are continually moving fuel across the battlefield to fighting units. In the summer of 2006, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, then the commanding general of the Multinational Force-West operating in Anbar Province in Iraq, filed an urgent request with the Pentagon for solar panels and wind turbines so remote bases could generate their own renewable power instead of relying on generators that run on fossil fuel. "Without this solution… continued casualty accumulation exhibits potential to jeopardize mission success," he wrote.

A study last year by LMI Government Consulting found that 80 percent of the materiel hauled across battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan is fuel. The study was commissioned by the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation. In an interview about the study last year, director Terry J. Pudas said, "You used to hear senior commanders say, 'Look, we're not built to be efficient. We're built to be effective.' " That's changed, Pudas said, as the military's increasing dependence on fuel makes operations more risky.

Many of the Defense Science Board's recommendations reiterated those of the previous task force in 2001. In particular, the task force recommends that the cost of fuel consumption -- including the logistics costs of moving it around the battlefield -- be factored into acquisition decisions.

Solving the department's problems will depend on more than new policies and procedures, the board found: "It depends on leadership's willingness to provide the oversight to ensure they are effective."