Army Green

One thing I never understood about the Bush administration was its refusal and even attempts to undermine development of renewable energy sources. Developing renewables at home (as well as decreasing energy consumption and increasing efficiency) will make us less dependent on depletable resources with highly volatile prices.

The Army seems to finally be getting it. Forget any considerations about being green. Self-sustaining renewables are just good security all around, as the linked story explains.

Fuel/electricity are critical to military operations. If our interconnected grid is disrupted, so are our power supplies to our military bases. Generators only last for so long and require diesel to run.

As Dr. Kevin Geiss told a bloggers conference: "If we were going to try to get power and energy for our installations and we wanted to make sure that we have consistent access, that it’s affordable, that we would be at a low risk for disruption, that we would have decreased impact on the environment, I would say that our renewable and alternative energies would pop to the top of the list."

Solar plants will still have to be backed up with generators, and I don't know how much capacity they have to store energy for inclimate weather, nor will many military bases be appropriately located to produce substantial amounts of power by solar panels. But the more we look for solutions, the more we will find.