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The Military United States

US Army Turns To Microgrids, EVs To Hit Net Zero By 2050 (arstechnica.com) 95

Posted by BeauHD from the climate-change-is-the-enemy dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US Army released (PDF) its climate change strategy this week, and it's a lengthy document that shows how the largest and oldest branch of the military will not only prepare for climate change but will also zero out emissions from most of its operations and activities. The Army says that the goal isn't just to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions -- though that's a key outcome -- but also to make the force more resilient by "adapting infrastructure and natural environments to climate change risks." The strategy takes a multipronged approach toward addressing the climate threat, including overhauling the Army's installations and its acquisitions and logistics practices.

On just the facilities side, the Army buys more than $740 million of electricity every year, producing over 4.1 million metric tons of carbon pollution. To bring those numbers down while also improving its ability to operate when the grid goes down, the Army says it will install microgrids at each of its more than 130 installations by 2035. Already, 25 microgrids are "scoped and planned" through 2024. Microgrids are usually connected to the wider grid, though they can be easily cut off without losing power, allowing operations to continue if the connection is severed or the grid goes down. Currently, the Army is looking into solar, wind, and batteries to power microgrids.

On bases, myriad vehicles support day-to-day operations, and the new plan calls for the nontactical vehicle fleet to be all-electric by 2035. That includes everything from light trucks like Chevrolet Tahoes and Ford F-150s to massive prime movers like the "Dragon Wagon" and the HEMTT. Light-duty vehicles like the Tahoe are scheduled to be all-electric by 2027. Tactical vehicles, though, will take a bit longer. The Army hopes to hybridize them by 2035 before moving to all-electric in 2050. The plan doesn't spell out what it considers to be tactical vehicles, though the designation likely includes things like Humvees and MRAPs. Currently, there's no concrete plan for all-electric tanks and self-propelled artillery. The Army's plan is also requiring it to "proactively train its people and prepare a force that is ready to operate in a climate-altered world," the document says.

Furthermore, a "Climate 101" course has been rolled out "to introduce fundamentals of climate science to base architects and garrison commanders, and it says it will update all of its training modules, exercises, and simulations to consider the impacts of climate change by 2028," adds Ars Technica. "The goal is to prepare the entire force for whatever conditions climate change presents, from severe weather to a thawing Arctic."
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US Army Turns To Microgrids, EVs To Hit Net Zero By 2050 More

US Army Turns To Microgrids, EVs To Hit Net Zero By 2050

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  • Idea! (Score:5, Funny)

    by kmoser ( 1469707 ) on Friday February 11, 2022 @10:37PM (#62261205)
    What better way to get to net carbon zero than to replace all conventional weapons with non-carbon nukes?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by mcnster ( 2043720 )
      Soy and hemp bullets!!!

      • You jest, but the fact is that the US military is the single largest greenhouse gas producing organization on the planet. It emits more than most countries, FFS.

        Any improvement at all should be welcomed.

        https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

        • Yes, the 100 million gallons of fuel the Defense Logistics Agency bought in 2018 sounds like a lot.... until you compare it to other activities. The Over The Road (OTR) trucking industry consumed 54 billion gallons of fuel in 2016 moving goods around the country. It's possible the trucking industry has gotten more efficient in the last 5 years, but their usage is still orders of magnitude greater than the military. https://www.trucks.com/2016/10... [trucks.com]

          There are some ongoing studies on the feasibility of usi

          • Most military vehicles are short on emissions equipment.

          • The trucking industry isn't a single, organized entity that could be ordered to get its collective shit together.

        • As a globe-spanning military, it also has a need to be capable of operating independently of the infrastructure it can find around the world. As such, it doesn’t always get to benefit from greener grids, fixed solar or wind installations, and can’t necessarily afford to implement scrubbers or other emissions improvements if doing so will affect their operational efficiency. That said, a dependency on specific fuel sources is also a strategic risk, and one that can force a military’s hand i

      • You jest but the military switched to "green" lead-free bullets some years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      I heard rumors burning gun powder releases harmful CO2.

    • That would require a nuclear propulsion for the rockets. I believe Russian scientists were working on that... before accidentally blowing themselves up. [cbsnews.com]

      Not be jingoistic but... if Russia is going to blow up five of their own scientists trying to build a nuclear rocket then I say the US should blow up fifty our own scientists! This is the mine shaft gap all over again!

    • Re:Idea! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday February 12, 2022 @07:36AM (#62261763)

      The Army is actually very green: it's in the business is killing human beings, and I can think of no better way to remove emitters of non-renewable carbon.

  • DOD replicates the standard US military (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Friday February 11, 2022 @10:52PM (#62261233)
    management seen through out US military history. Build a winning force, assign dweebs to run it in to the ground. I mean come on, Climate Change, EV's, Diversity, etc.
    Historically, US Military enters most military situations as a failed organization. But, if it is given the time, the US military will install new leadership, rebuild and Win!
    But that can only be done if civilian moral survives the really bad loses in the beginning.
    Wonder what path the CCP and Russia will take and when? And if they will give the DOD time to replace failed leadership, re learn, re build, re train and re tool.

    • That's kind of true of most militaries. If you haven't fought for a while, then you spend the first part of the war figuring out who is "dead wood" among the top generals.

  • So will the GOP deny funding for the change? (Score:3)

    by rapjr ( 732628 ) on Friday February 11, 2022 @11:02PM (#62261239)
    If they really believe the climate crisis is a hoax they would deny funding to the Army for the upgrades (because of the deficit), which makes the GOP a threat to national security based on the Army's assessment of the need for change. If the GOP does believe in the climate crisis then they are lying and those in office are a threat to national security because they are lying and harming the country.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aczlan ( 636310 )

      Reported climate impact aside, from a logistics standpoint if the army can reduce its need for fuel that makes it much easier (and cheaper) to keep moving.
      In Afghanistan it was reportedly costing $45 to $400 per gallon to deliver diesel to the bases there: https://www.wired.com/2009/11/... [wired.com]

      Aaron Z

  • Spray chia seeds over buidlings, fire tofu missiles, and plant trees everywhere.

  • So we can shoot them with a drone. Preferably during their wedding.

  • Don't know how they're doing to go net zero when the country is so dependent upon China for everything, including raw materials for electric HUMVEE's. I can't see the Chinese being very cooperative in the long term.

    • Chind might be the most aggressive country of any major economy for achieving net zero. The classic claim to this is that coal hasn't peaked but that's because it's the fasting growing economy and growing green energy sectors generally takes some time in transition, at least a decade or two. However, China is also building the most nuclear plants.

      As for mining rare Earth metals, the environmental cost there seems fixed with no significant solution that I have heard besides a miracle in material sciences. Th

      • As for mining rare Earth metals, the environmental cost there seems fixed
        Mining rare earth metals have absolutely no environmental cost.
        You pump water down, the water comes up, you filter and separate, and let the salty water dry to: salt. Then you refine the salt to the elements you are interested in.
        Simple, what fucking costs you idiots are talking about is beyond me.

        • Of course, pumping water is free, and filtering is free, and drying is free, and refining is free! And then transporting those rare earth metals is free, and of course all the associated transportation and manufacturing infrastructure is free, so there are obviously no costs.

          Everything I like has no costs, and everything I dislike has only costs. That's the easiest way to understand the world, so why not adopt it, right?

          • He was BSing, his description of how rare earths are actually mined is a fantasy, or a lie, or ignorance, or (most charitably) being terribly confused.

        • I generally agree with you but youre overall wrong on this one - mining rare earths isnt any worse than other mining forms, but the refining is more complex than most and generates a lot of chemicals to dispose of. Dirtier than most other mining operations overall unless effort is made to do it like a responsible firstworld civilization, jacking up the cost per pound. Cant compete with China, which just dumps the refining byproducts into the nearest aquifer.

        • Mining rare earth metals have absolutely no environmental cost. You pump water down, the water comes up, you filter and separate, and let the salty water dry to: salt. Then you refine the salt to the elements you are interested in. Simple, what fucking costs you idiots are talking about is beyond me.

          Takes one to know one? Here is an account [wikipedia.org] on how the only U.S. rare earth mine operates, and it is typical about how all rare earth mines operate. You seem to be confusing rare earths with one type of lithium mine (the brine well kind).

          To process bastnäsite ore, it is finely ground and subjected to froth flotation to separate the bulk of the bastnäsite from the accompanying barite, calcite, and dolomite. Marketable products include each of the major intermediates of the ore dressing process: flotation concentrate, acid-washed flotation concentrate, calcined acid-washed bastnäsite, and finally a cerium concentrate, which was the insoluble residue left after the calcined bastnäsite had been leached with hydrochloric acid.

          The lanthanides that dissolve as a result of the acid treatment are subjected to solvent extraction to capture the europium and purify the other individual components of the ore. A further product includes a lanthanide mix, depleted of much of the cerium, and essentially all of samarium and heavier lanthanides. The calcination of bastnäsite drives off the carbon dioxide content, leaving an oxide-fluoride, in which the cerium content oxidizes to the less-basic quadrivalent state. However, the high temperature of the calcination gives less-reactive oxide, and the use of hydrochloric acid, which can cause reduction of quadrivalent cerium, leads to an incomplete separation of cerium and the trivalent lanthanides.

          Toxic waste management disposal has been a perisistent challenge at the site. Not only because of solvent extraction wastes and leaks, but:

          In the 1980s, the company began piping wastewater up to 14 miles to evaporation ponds on or near Ivanpah Dry Lake, east of Interstate 15 near Nevada. This pipeline repeatedly ruptured during cleaning operations to remove mineral deposits called scale. The scale is radioactive because of the presence of thorium and radium, which occur naturally in the rare-earth ore.

          • Bad environmental laws, or not enforcing good laws, does not change the fact that you can mine "raw earth" elements just fine without any environmental impact. Like we e.g. do in Germany.

  • Completely mad.

    According to one google link cited further down the US military would be about 47th in amount of emissions were it a country. The same link gave about 25 million tons of CO2 a year. That would be out of a US national total of about 5 billion.

    Which is out of a global total of 37+ billion tons a year.

    Whether the military goes to net zero or not is in the noise. It will have zero effect on the climate, it won't even have any significant effect on US emissions.

    A military with such a distorte

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jzanu ( 668651 )
      This is about not just established bases with huge fuel usage in situations that are flexible - there it is more about moving the General around in an electric cart which has zero loss compared to a jeep. It is also about the field commands. Energy independence is crucial for field operations. Generators require regular (read predictable) fuel convoys, and convoys traveling on routes are subject to enemy attacks that are expensive in casualties to maintain. Guess what produces energy from the environment th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Budenny ( 888916 )

        Are you really arguing that it will be militarily more efficient to run operations by moving to EVs and solar charging? The idea is mad.

        My point is, a military which knows what its doing does not spend its time worrying about global warming, the lack of any good Burmese language poets in the last ten years, whether it has the right position on transgender applicants, whether you should ever put parmesan on a fish based pasta sauce...

        It worries about how best to equip and train, it worries about what will g

        • "Never mind global warming, what the US military needs to worry about is"

          Blah blah blah.

          The military is just a hole in which we burn money if it is not sustainable. There is no point defending a nation on a planet which will become uninhabitable.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          DoD is planning for the disruptions caused by Global Warming. The exodus from Central America is in part caused by the long term droughts they have. And Europe can expect massive movement of people from the Middle East due to drought. In short, Global Warming will be a major component of disruptions world-wide, and DoD must plan for it. . .unlike you and your blinkered view.

          • Well, with open borders, there's no problem, right? Weather gets bad, people move, life goes on. No need for any DoD, if we aren't going to defend anything.

  • Reducing human population is indeed a solution to limit climate change. If you do it without co2 emission it is even better. Also army tagets younger people which is even better for climate since they would have a lot of remaining life years to release co2 .

  • It must be a post about climate change.

  • Anyone thinking about EVs for combat vehicles just needs to consider the following.

    The Russian 2S7 Pion self propelled artillery piece has an operational range of 400 miles from an 840 hp diesel engine.

    How are you going to replace this with EV power, why, and what is the difference in weight going to be, even if you can do it at all? What is the operational range going to be on any realistic configuration? And what happens if the lithium battery bursts into flames, as they will when stressed.

    Madness. The

    • Solid state batteries are being commercialized right now, they solve the fire risk problem. And you don't use pure EVs where range is a concern, you use hybrids.

      • I was going to try a joke around a hybrid tank being more economical in stop-and-go commuter traffic, before recalling images of the long stop-and-go logistics convoys in both Gulf (oil) Wars.

        • Tanks do indeed do a lot of stop and go stuff, and also up and down grade which is another case where a hybrid has a big advantage. Another huge advantage of a hybrid, at least one where hub motors are used, is that they do not require as much strength in the drivetrain as a non-hybrid ICE system, except right at the hub (or in general, downstream of the electric motors.) Or you could and probably should run them as pure series hybrids, eliminating the transmissions entirely. Arguably you also take this opp

    • When working on the car with my ex-Navy, ex-Army National Guard dad, with my growing up on WW2 movies and TV shows, I asked him how many miles per gallon a tank got. His answer: "about 4 gallons per mile".
  • Seems like a no-brainer to slap some solar panels and turbines on military bases to offset at least some of their energy requirements, possibly all of them if they have a way to store power too. Maybe on-base vehicles can act as power banks, storing energy when they are unused which is fed back into the system at night.

    For actual operations maybe not so much. Although it must be a huge logistical pain in the ass to move bowsers of fuel and other crap to support operations so there are bound to be opportun

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aczlan ( 636310 )

      For fixed bases in "safe" locations, sure. For forward bases with unfriendly neighbors, solar panels and wind turbines would make for great targets for mortars, a burst of shrapnel 50-100' above a solar field or near the blades of a wind turbine would greatly reduce their effectiveness.

      Aaron Z

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Fuel dumps, bowsers and tankers make great targets too. I don't see that the operational risk is any greater from using solar or wind in conjunction with generators as backups to reduce overall energy consumption on a base. And besides, if someone is getting close enough to dump mortars on the base, then the base has bigger problems.

  • The US Army is concerned about global warming, pronouns, wrongthink, "diversity," and absolutely everything that is PC, except for global warfare. Next war, US Army is aiming for net zero success.

  • But, this is the age of the complete lunatic.
  • Microgrids would help protect the bases from an attack on the US power grid or an extreme weather event. With solar panels, the military base can become an island of power, able to better help those without power. It is a good idea to make the bases more resilient.

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