
Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/science/earth/05fossil.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
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melling
The important thing here is the US military is big enough to create a market.
They've got lots of money and they don't care if the solution is more
expensive than fossil fuels.

~~~
skowmunk
Yup. The involvement of the military or other arms of the Government has
spurred latter penetration of those technologies or sciences into the civilian
market in so many cases.

Arpanet, lasers, operations research, low weight ceramics and materials,
robotics, aviation..... I guess its probably a never ending list, if one digs
deep enough.

(Edit: I am really excited in seeing what technologies will get commercialized
in the future, because of this. We so badly need to move forward on the energy
sector, if we need to save ourselves)

~~~
ars
We can't. That what everyone ignores. The ONLY technology that can replace our
current power sources is nuclear power.

Hydrocarbons are the _ideal_ type of chemical to store and transport energy -
nothing else even comes close.

So we have to make hydrocarbons, or mine them.

The goal of the military to reduce the supply line is impossible - they can
move away from fossil fuels, but they can't move away from hydrocarbons.

Unless they wish to setup local nuclear reactors.

Solar power simply can not provide enough power while simultaneously being
portable. It's also a huge target since solar power uses such a large area.

Generating biofuel locally is a joke. I can just see soldiers driving combines
to harvest a crop. Just like solar, biofuels also require a large area. And
once you'ved used all the local plants then what?

Next thing you know all local war zones will look like the moon as the army
strips every plant for hundreds of miles.

~~~
skowmunk
I agree with almost every word you have written.

And I would like to add a qualifier to what you have written: What you say, is
the present.

The present is not the future.

~~~
brc
You can't bend the laws of physics though. There isn't enough stored energy in
local sunlight, plants, wind or anything else to meet the needs of the
airforce, army or whatever. Unless you're splitting atoms locally.

No amount of technological progress is going to change the fact that sunlight,
plants and other local sources do not posses enough energy _unless you split
apart their atoms_.

You have to transport energy in large quantities to undertake warfare. The
only possible way around this is with stored electricity, except that stored
electricity doesn't power most of the machines of war.

~~~
skowmunk
_You can't bend the laws of physics though._ Absolutely true.

So is the fact, that the laws of physics have been there since big-bang. The
question would be, have we realized all the potential of all the laws of
physics out there, yet? Have we even discovered all the laws of physics, yet?

 _No amount of technological progress_ hmmm, I wouldn't be so confident of
using those words. All one has to do is look at the history of the last few
centuries, or the rate of scientific progress over the last few millenium. It
has been exponential.

I think the convergence of easy availability of knowledge to the masses,
availability of massive and cheap computational power and the massive inflow
from developing countries into the engineering and scientific workforce , will
probably make the word 'exponential' obsolete. But then as they say, proof of
the pudding is in eating. We should repeat this conversation 20 years from now
and see how it went, just for the fun.

Yes, splitting the atoms locally is a good alternative (at least in theory,
for now). Watching the progress of battery technology, from the old mercury
types, to NICD, then lithium and then A123, that's a promising area.

Caterpillar is now selling a hybrid bulldozer, who knows, them making a plug-
in hybrid bulldozer coupled with A123 or more dense battery tech. will inspire
the military to build electric machines.

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dbingham
About time. Wonder why it took them this long? Fuel supply caravans have been
a weak point since the internal combustion engine became important to warfare!

~~~
ars
Not only did it take them this long, it's also _going_ to take them this long
because this goal is impossible.

This garbage article confused hydrocarbon fuel and fossil fuel, and it makes
totally impossible claims.

There ARE no alternatives to hydrocarbon fuel for these purposes. It doesn't
matter if you make them from renewable sources you still need to ship them.

Solar power will require such a large area that it will become a target of
it's own, and the suggestion to make biofuel from local plants is laughable.

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VladRussian
a lot also depends on the future military strategy. A Predator uses less fuel
than a Raptor (and the fuel consumption by the machine itself is just a tip of
the pyramid consisting of all the support, service and maintenance personnel
and equipment that machine requires). It is also much easier from the supply
logistics point of view to strike using a couple of Hellfire from a drone [or
using other precision-strike-from-a-distance weapons] sent from a far away
base than to send helicopters with people or to send [even light] armoured
ground assault from a close-by base ("Black Hawk down" - compare with modern
day strikes in Pakistan). So the military becomes greener. I.e. by minimizing
amount of people and heavy equipment involved at the "last mile" there is much
savings to be realized.

~~~
yardie
You don't win a war with just an air campaign. You still need boots on the
ground to go after people. Hellfire's work great when the enemy is out in a
field with no civilians around. But that is not the case. The enemy is walking
around amongst civilians in places like an open market, a row of houses. These
are poor places for hellfires because using one there means that now you've
got a bunch of people that were neutral on the subject before pissed off at
you.

~~~
VladRussian
placing boots on the ground causes a lot of collateral civilian casualties
(look at, for example, Iraq civilian casualties) and make the people hate
invaders and leads to insurgency. The "Black Hawk down" i mentioned is a real
story of the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_%281993%29>

where USA had 19 KIA and 83 WIA, and Somalis - anywhere between 300 and 2000.
A precision hit to the building which was the original target in the Battle of
Mogadishu would cause much less casualties on the both sides (and much less
fossil fuel burned).

>You don't win a war with just an air campaign. You still need boots on the
ground to go after people.

that is just a generic slogan.

~~~
yardie
Which building would they elect as the target. It's not like the enemy is
walking around in broad daylight under view of the eye n the sky.

And it's not just an expression it's how every successful campaign has been
one. If it was possible to wage an air only war. Don't you think the US, with
he largest airforce in the world would be fully invested?

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chrismealy
They better draw up plans to invade Houston then.

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etherael
399 to 1 ratio in transport to fuel costs? Is this for real or hyperbole?

~~~
1053r
Well, they did say this was for the "forward bases" (read, bases located
inside enemy controlled or sympathetic areas). Keep in mind that they also
said that for every 24 convoys, they lost on average 1 person. There were
probably at least 1 injured for each killed (maybe many injured for each
killed). Ignoring any death benefits, how much do you think it costs to keep a
marine in a hospital (after airlifting them back to the states or elsewhere in
the western world) for a few months and pay for lifetime visits to the VA? 399
to 1 sounds conservative.

~~~
baguasquirrel
I wonder what sort of riots we would have over here if it costed hundreds of
dollars for a gallon of gas. Not a valid comparison, but still fun to think
about.

~~~
Das_Bruce
Are you talking about overnight increase or gradual?

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baguasquirrel
Well if you want riots, of course it needs to be overnight. Wasn't there some
adage with regards to boiling a frog concerning this?

