Military Use of Fuel in Afghanistan and Iraq

05/24/2007

TRD Special Report


by Paul Munnis
May 2007


The Defense Department is the world's largest energy consumer, spending $10.6 billion annually, almost two percent of the entire country's use.

The Good News:

In September 2005, the federal government decreed that 7.5 percent of its power should come from renewable sources by 2013. The Pentagon is already there [and is headed towards 25 percent renewables by 2025]... In sunny San Diego, California, Naval Base Coronado's solar power is saving the annual equivalent of 6,000 barrels of oil.

Wind turbines help Warren Air Force Base in gusty Wyoming, keeping 4,866 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from escaping into the atmosphere per year. Then there are the nine military bases that are powered geothermally, by the heat of the earth. California's Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake kicks off 270 megawatts of electricity, keeping lights turned on as far away as Los Angeles.

The Challenging News:

True, true. But while clean power is nice, the Wall Street Journal notes, it's small potatoes compared to the oil, gas, and jet fuel the Defense Department guzzles:

In the past 20 years, [the military] has cut energy use at facilities 28%. Still, oil accounts for roughly 75% of total energy use. The military's focus has been on saving power -- also a laudable goal, critics say, but not an answer to dependence on oil...

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have increased military fuel use by as much as 56,000 barrels a day. In addition, the military's improved ability to deploy troops to battlefields comes at the cost of increased fuel use: today, more than half of the fuel consumed in combat theaters is used not by front-line soldiers but by supply convoy... The military uses fuel at twice the rate it did in the first Persian Gulf War and four times the rate it did in the Second World War.

Towards Single Fuel Use

The single military fuel concept was first implemented in December 1989 during Operation Just Cause in Panama.

There JP5 was used as the single fuel. In August 1990, during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the single fuel used was Jet A1. Except for some minor problems related to hot-engine restarting difficulty and gradual loss of power in engines of some tactical wheeled vehicles, such as HMMWVs, the concept worked.

But starting with operations in Afghanistan major problems have been encountered. In Afghanistan, much of the aviation kerosene that initially was procured was Russian TS1 aviation kerosene which is widely available in the neighboring refineries. The fuel being used in onshore Iraq by the US military is JP8.

Not because of the compatibility of available fuels with JP-8, but because of the JP-8 itself, problems are arising. For example, minor problems encountered in the first Gulf War due to the use of JP-8 in ground vehicles, especially in Humvees, became more acute. Keep in mind that in both Afghanistan and Iraq the ground vehicles and equipment are being used much more extensively than they would be used in normal service.

Considering this added use, the hot temperatures and the increasing engine-power demands imposed by the increased weights of up-armor kits, it is no wonder that the ground vehicles and equipment that have rotary-distribution, fuel-lubricated fuel-injection pumps have had many fuel-related engine problems. Since almost half of the Army’s diesel vehicles and equipment have rotary-distribution, fuel-injection pumps, a solution is urgently needed to overcome the shortcomings that JP-8 has. Failure to recognize and act on the problems inherent in the use of kerosene-based fuel with rotary-distribution, fuel-injection pumps will only serve to decrease operational readiness and increase maintenance costs over time.

The real problem with the single fuel concept will became more acute in the future. The Air Force is testing blended synthetic JP-8 (derived from natural gas) as a viable fuel. A gallon of that synthetic fuel is $20, whereas JP-8 derived from natural gas is below 3$. Even if we leave the cost part aside, it is a crime to use JP-8 in compression ignition engines. Combat vehicles operating in high temperature environments (in Iraq for example) therefore must be either allowed to use diesel or they should be remodified. Ditto for generators.

Who Cares?

We should since we have a shortage of refinery capacity and war eats up a percentage of that. Also, we are paying for the fuel ourselves via taxes.

One major positive byproduct from our military experience is that the technology is transferable to our civilian sector. Thus we should think of our military expenditures on conserving energy as a practical test of the application of alternative energy under field conditions transferable to our own communities. If you can run a military base on these alternative fuels than you can run a city on them too. So if we are going to have to spend the money let's optimize the technology and make sure that we apply it to our own civilian sector.

Army Challenges

“The Army once considered replacing the mother of all fuel-gorgers, the Abrams tank engine, with a more efficient diesel plant. But the Army leadership then reversed course because it was too expensive. Most recently, the Army cancelled a program to produce hybrid-diesel humvees, and has slowed down the development of other hybrid trucks in the medium and heavy fleets.”

The Defense Department wants Humvees (military's nickname for the High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV). The vehicle, an icon of the military for about two decades since it replaced the World War II-era Jeep, gets as few as 4 miles per gallon in city driving and 8 miles per gallon on the highway. A standard Humvee gets eight miles per gallon driving on hard surface roads at convoy speeds, a hybrid vehicle would get up to 16 miles per gallon. Army leaders have been designing a gas-electric hybrid Humvee that can travel nearly 470 miles on a 25-gallon tank-or about 19 miles per gallon-and then drive another 25 miles in silence using battery power alone.

In comparison, Ford's Model T got 25 miles per gallon, and today a Ford Explorer gets 18 miles per gallon.

Armored vehicles have very lousy fuel efficiency. Over the past 45 years they haven’t registered any improvement. Instead they put on weight and became fuel drinking monsters. Now more armor plating is to be added to prevent IED damage.

The Navy's Conundrum

With fuel prices escalating, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., is urging the Navy to go all-nuclear.

For now, only submarines and aircraft carriers are propelled by nuclear power. That’s about 80 of the Navy’s 286 ships. But Bartlett, who chaired the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee, says it’s time for the nuclear Navy to grow. “The line has already been crossed for big-deck amphibious ships,” Bartlett said.

When oil hit $60 a barrel, it became more expensive to operate amphibs on oil than it would be on nuclear power, he said.

“And we will shortly cross the line for cruisers,” Bartlett said.

The Navy calculates that nuclear power becomes economical for cruisers after oil costs $80 a barrel, and for destroyers when oil costs about $205 a barrel.

But...cost is a major roadblock for nuclear-powered ships... Nuclear propulsion systems would add “several hundred million dollars” to each ship. The timing is not good. Congress is already distressed about escalating shipbuilding costs. “Once they see the numbers, it will be very hard to convince them” to go all-nuclear, he said...

[In the meantime,] the Navy also taking [smaller] steps to reduce energy consumption. It has installed bulbous bows and stern flaps on some of its ships. Each of these increases fuel efficiency by a few percentage points, according to John Young, the Pentagon’s director of research and engineering.

The Navy also is considering applying coatings to ship propellers to “potentially get 4 or 5 percent savings in fuel efficiency and possibly some reductions in maintenance,” Young told the House Armed Services Committee in September. “It looks like it pays for itself in no more than about a year.”

Air Force Applications

"The Air Force successfully demonstrated how hydrogen fuel cells could one day be used for generating power at forward operating bases and remote locations to help reduce the dependence of U.S. forces on local energy sources and foreign oil," Inside Defense reports.

During the Dec. 14 test, officials from the service’s Advanced Power Technology Office studied how well a newly developed hydrogen fuel cell called the “Multipurpose Electric Power System” could provide electricity to halogen lights, comparing the results to the performance of a diesel generator now used in theater...

The demonstration was the latest in a series of tests under the office’s “tent city” initiative, which examines new alternative energy technologies that may one day help U.S. forces in theater power equipment more efficiently.

Biodiesel: Veggie Oil For The Military?

On 08 August 2005, George W. Bush signed into law a 'New Energy Plan' for the United States. The Congress had been wrangling over this energy bill for a decade or more. Why has this 'New Energy Plan' taken so long? A lot of people have made their fortunes by investing in oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels. As well, the economies of many states of the union will rise or fall on the buying and selling of various forms of alternative fuels -- such as ethanol to mix with gasoline, an economic boost to states in the rural 'corn belt'. On the other hand, the populous cities of the southwest and the northeast need a growing, almost endless supply of affordable electricity. Within the US federation, there are many interests to consider, and those interests are invariably in conflict one with another.

Nation - states – like organisms – need to 'eat'. What nations eat, in one form or another, is energy. Problems arise because energy, like food, carries a cost. Strategic interests, for any nation, dictate that the most abundant sources of energy should be accessible at the lowest possible price. In addition, simple wisdom urges that there be more than one supplier for all key energy needs.

It has finally occurred to the members of the US Congress – and to the Bush Administration itself – that the costs of securing Mid - East Oil have become far too high. It is time, at last, to develop whatever solutions are necessary to wean the West off Mid - East oil. Political leaders recognize that this calls for a long - term strategic plan. If the nation can take a series of small steps, over a reasonable period of time, the changes can be tolerated by US citizens.

Biodiesel, especially in a mixture as low as B20, can be used in any existing diesel engine. Diesel is the most commonly used internal combustion engine in large fleets of vehicles, such as those used by government agencies. EPACT was soon backed up by an 'Executive Order' from the US president. This strategy amounts to a 'carrot-and-stick' approach, because the DOE Energy Policy Act included tax exemptions, and other subsidies, designed to encourage private companies to convert their fleets – trucks, buses, taxis – to B20 biodiesel.


Army Problem

Sounds good until you look at the US Army's problems with tactical vehicles.

US tactical vehicles, those that may be called upon at short notice to be directly involved in combat, are exempt from EPACT. The US Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) is the watchdog agency that monitors the quality of military fuels. (No one wants to be caught fiddling with a clogged fuel line in the middle of combat.) DESC has strong concerns about the quality control of the biodiesel blends that are currently available for sale. If all US military vehicles, aircraft, and vessels must one day move to biodiesel, the sheer volume will mean that the forces will have to buy from civilian suppliers.

Conclusion

We will have to rebuild out military when the Iraq War ends and we have learned a lot of valuable lessons. Now we must apply them remembring that the warm weather experiences of the desert is only a small part of the military's probelm. They must deal with the other extreme - cold weather arctic operations.

As one professor at Stanford University told me: "War is now so expensive that occupation of a foreign nation is clearly out of the question and we knew this before we occupied Iraq. The oil costs alone are staggering and will bankrupt us but we kidded ourselves that we would gain full control over Iraqi oil and thus be able to overcome the costs." He went on to say: "War itself may well be an obsolete way to solve our problems."

Indeed we talk casually about rebuilding our military after the Iraq war but the costs are going to be staggering and we are not even sure how we want to do the rebuilding. We need to make sure we have thought these points out before we invest in rebuilding our military. The time to do that is now and well before we start that task in haste.


Sources:

Defense Tech,
Wall Street Journal,
CASD (Canadian Defense Policy)
Inside Defense