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A da p t i n g E x p e d i t i o n a ry
C a pa b i l i t i e s to
E n e rg y C h a l l e n g e s
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Colonel Edward (Ted) Smyth
Thus far, we have had three previous roundtable discussions
on the subject of energy and energy challenges, so at this stage of
the game, you might wonder what sets this particular roundtable
Colonel Edward (Ted) Smyth is the Supervisor of the Analysis,
Modeling, and Simulation Branch and a Fellow within the National
Security Analysis Department (NSAD) at JHU/APL. He is also a Fellow
and former President of the Military Operations Research Society
(MORS) and a former Marine Corps Colonel with 30 years of active service, during which he commanded Marine Corps units at the company/
battery, battalion, and regimental levels. His primary military occupational specialty was artillery/fire support with subspecialties as a military operations analyst and historian. Since joining JHU/APL, he has
served as the Director, Land Attack Warfare Studies and as Supervisor
of the Ground Operations Section of NSAD. He has also coordinated
efforts in support of Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Sea Strike
analyses, served as the Supervisor of the Joint Effects Based Operations
Group, developed and organized a 3-day symposium sponsored by
MORS on the subject of “Analysis of Urban Warfare,” and served
as the Senior JHU/APL Analyst in support of the National Security
Agency’s Signals Intelligence Requirements Office. His most recent
activities include active contributions to the Johns Hopkins University
Symposia on Unrestricted Warfare and the 2010 Climate and Energy
Symposium. He also provided leadership and/or major contributions
to the following projects and analyses: a MORS Special Meeting on the
subject of “Wargaming and Analysis”; an Analysis of Alternatives on
the Joint Effects Targeting System (JETS); a study of the implications of
economic and financial issues and actions on U.S. national security; an
analysis of DoD and interagency coordination in support of homeland
defense; and the Quadrennial Defense Review-directed study on a
comprehensive review of the Reserve Component. Colonel Smyth also
serves on the faculty of The Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School
of Engineering.
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discussion apart. In my view there are really two factors. First, we
are going to dwell almost exclusively on expeditionary capabilities
and the energy challenges created by being expeditionary. Second,
this roundtable consists of folks who day to day are either serving
in the Marine Corps on active duty or in a civilian capacity. So this
is, in effect, our Marine Corps panel for this symposium.
I am not an energy expert per se. I will leave it to the panel
members to provide those details, but what I thought I might do
in the way of introducing this particular panel is attempt to put the
term “expeditionary” in context. To do that, I will offer a definition
or at least provide you with a set of characteristics that are normally used by the Marine Corps and others in describing expeditionary. I will also briefly touch upon the types of missions Marine
expeditionary forces conduct and capabilities that they possess,
and then I will touch briefly on how we link some of those expeditionary capabilities to some of the emerging energy challenges that
we face. At that point, I will pass it off to the experts to describe
some of the solutions that they are working on.
My initial effort to find an accepted definition of the term
“expeditionary” took me to Joint Publication 1-02, the Dictionary
of Military and Associated Terms. [1] Unfortunately, I did not find a
great deal of help there. The term “expeditionary” does not appear
in that document. What you will find is a definition of the term
“expeditionary force,” which, in my view, does not fill the need of
defining what a true expeditionary force is all about.
Accordingly, I chose to expand my research and consulted
a number of Navy and Marine Corps sources. Please note that
the Marine Corps sources frequently describe “expeditionary” in
terms of being a state of mind, one that drives the way in which
the Marine Corps organizes, trains, and equips its forces. These
sources also serve to describe “expeditionary” in a number of different ways and provide characteristics that include rapidly deployable, self-sustainable, adaptive to mission requirements, scalable,
and agile. These same sources also frequently provide a comprehensive overview of the types of missions that naval expeditionary forces have recently supported as well as information on the
numbers of Marine Corps forces that have been involved. As we
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well know, these types of operations are continuing today. Below
is a summary of some of the important points from my research:
• Expeditionary Force: “An armed force organized to accomplish a specific objective in a foreign country.” [1]
• The Navy and Marine Corps describe “expeditionary” as a
state of mind that drives the way their forces are organized,
trained, and equipped. Forces are described as possessive
of a high state of readiness, scalable and agile, self-sustainable, capable of rapid deployment, and able to begin operating immediately upon arrival, even in the most austere
environments. [2]
• During 2010, naval expeditionary forces participated in combat operations in Afghanistan, successfully completed their
mission in Iraq, conducted humanitarian assistance/disaster
relief operations in Pakistan, Haiti, and the Philippines, and
conducted antipiracy missions off the Horn of Africa.
• At the end of 2010 there were approximately 20,700 Marines
in Afghanistan, 6,200 at sea in Marine Expeditionary Units,
and 1,600 engaged in various other missions, operations, and
exercises. An additional 18,000 Marines were also assigned
to garrison locations outside the continental United States.
Figure 1. Marine Corps Operations
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Turning now to Marine Corps operations (Figure 1), I am sure
that most of you are aware that the Marines are routinely organized
into Air-Ground Task Forces to meet designated mission requirements and are capable of rapid deployment and employment from
the sea, land, and air. In recent years, Marine expeditionary forces
have been deployed frequently alongside their Navy shipmates.
The list below highlights a number of other key points regarding the Marine Corps:
• Contributions:
–– A versatile “middle-weight” capability to respond across
the range of military operations
–– Inherent crisis response speed and agility buys time for
national leaders
–– An enabling and partnering capability in joint and combined operations
• America’s return on investment:
–– 8.5% of the proposed FY2012 DoD budget
–– 31% of DoD ground operating forces (combat, combat
support, and combat service support)
–– 12% of the DoD’s fixed wing tactical aircraft
–– 19% of the DoD attack helicopters
The Marines are now characterizing themselves as a middleweight force: a force that is much lighter than the U.S. Army yet
possesses considerable combat power. The projected Marine Corps
mission focus as identified by Secretary Robert M. Gates in his
February 2011 speech at West Point clearly requires the continuance of Marine Corps expeditionary capabilities. At the same time,
I think everyone recognizes that the Marine Corps of the future
will be somewhat smaller than today’s Marine Corps. As forces
are withdrawn from Afghanistan, Marine Corps force structure is
almost certain to be reduced. In addition, I have noted the Marine
Corps’ own description of the current and future contributions it
will make to the nation in terms of national security. As indicated,
these capabilities come at what I think is a very reasonable cost.
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In short, the Marine Corps provides the American taxpayer with an
excellent return on investment.
It is this expeditionary combat power that we are going to
focus on this morning because as Marine Corps combat power has
become more lethal, it has also become increasingly dependent
on fossil fuel. Along with the substantial increase in Marine Corps
combat power, the number of tactical vehicles, radios, computers,
and other equipment organic to Marine Corps units has increased
threefold over the past decade. This increase has obviously contributed to increased fuel requirements. Daily Marine Corps fuel
consumption in Afghanistan, for example, is estimated to be in
excess of 200,000 gallons. According to General Jim Amos, the
current Marine Corps Commandant, this dependency on fuel puts
both Marines and expeditionary capabilities at risk.
The photograph in Figure 2 shows a typical fuel convoy in
Afghanistan. This convoy reflects today’s efforts to sustain forces
in the field. In addition to the challenges posed by the terrain and
a fairly limited road network, relying on such convoys in a hostile
threat environment necessitates extensive use of security forces,
forces which become another target for the adversary along with
the fuel and supplies that are being protected.
Figure 2. Energy Challenges
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So what is the Marine Corps doing about it? As you will soon
learn, the Marines are currently working hard to reduce both the
size and the amount of equipment that they use as well as the
energy demands associated with that equipment. When implemented, these changes will reduce the demand for fuel and thus
there will be fewer fuel convoys and fewer personnel in harm’s
way. I will leave it to my roundtable colleagues to describe the
important initiatives that are underway.
REFERENCES
1. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 1-02, Department of
Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 2010,
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf.
2. General James F. Amos, The 2011 Posture of the United States
Marine Corps, 2011, http://www.quantico.usmc.mil/MCBQ
PAO Press Releases/CMC 2011 Posture Statement-bm.pdf.
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Colonel Robert Charette, Jr.
Colonel Ted Smyth’s introduction proves that I am not an
expert in energy but only an expert in burning energy. It is an
honor to be here. This was one of the first forums I addressed
Colonel Robert Charette, Jr., enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves in
1985. He then attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned in 1986. He has a B.S. degree in chemistry from Delaware Valley
College, a master of business administration degree from the University
of Phoenix, and a master of national security strategy degree from the
National War College. He has attended numerous major professional
schools. He has served as the VMFA-235 Embarkation and Pilot Training
Officer, Third Battalion/Third Marines Air Officer and Operations
Officer, VMFA-312 Admin Officer and Pilot Training Officer, VMFA451 Aircraft Maintenance Officer and Operations Officer, Marine
Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron-1 FA-18 Instructor, Director
of Safety and Standardization, Tactical Aircraft Department Head, I
Marine Expeditionary Force G-5 CENTCOM Planner, Task Force-58
Air Officer, VMFA-314 Executive Officer, VMFA-323 Commanding
Officer, Marine Aircraft Group-11 Operations Officer, Joint Staff J8,
Chief Joint Requirements Oversight Council Secretariat, and the USMC
Representative to the Joint Chief of Staff Working Group. He is currently
Director, Expeditionary Energy Office. Colonel Charette participated
directly in the following combat operations: Operation Desert Storm,
Operation Southern Watch, Operation Deliberate Force, Operation
Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. His personal decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal with two gold
stars, Air Medal with combat distinguishing device, Air Medal Strike/
Flight Award numeral six, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation
Medal with combat distinguishing device and two gold stars, Navy and
Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and seven Sea Service Deployment
ribbons. He has earned “Top Ten” honors with Carrier Air Wing 8 and
Carrier Air Wing 9. He was awarded the 1996 Alfred A. Cunningham
Award for being selected as the Marine Corps’ Aviator of the Year.
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last year after getting my orders pulled to go to Miramar and fly
again. So this reminds me of last year’s horrible experience. But I
will tell you, it has been a fascinating journey; it has really been
about watching and helping develop cultural change in the Marine
Corps. Commandant James Conway started the process a year
ago, and Commandant James Amos has put the pedal to the metal
and has continued it. It has been fascinating to watch what the
Commandant’s leadership can do.
So what did the Commandant do? How did we get here? Several
years ago, Commandant Conway, working with General Amos, at
the time the Director of Combat Development and Integration down
in Quantico, conducted the Marine Corps Vision and Strategy 2025
Study. They looked at the war after the next war, how we need
to be positioned for it, and how it will be affected by resource
constraints around the world. They considered the fact that a lot
of people live near the world’s oceans and the fact that a lot of
people live in urban areas. The next war could well be over oil or
it could be over water. The world is changing rapidly. Populations
in Europe and Japan are decreasing, while those in Asia and Africa
are increasing dramatically. The price of oil has once more begun
to rise as you can see on the left-hand side of Figure 1.
Figure 1. Rising Energy Demand: Increasing Fiscal
and Combat Risks
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If we have learned just one thing from the last 10 years of
combat, it is that if one man can build it, another man can destroy
it. You do not need a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)
if you are not on the road. The impact of that, however, is that
you cannot require fuel or water. So, that is the issue that the
Commandant was looking at. There is an obvious danger in putting a fiscal concern next to a mortal combat concern; they are not
the same. Obviously, the reason we are attacking this problem is
to reduce the risks incurred by our Marines. However, the fiscal
issue is also important. You can see that fuel prices spiked between
2000 and 2001. Congress passed an emergency supplemental
during that timeframe that authorized $1.56 billion to account for
the cost of fuel. The operation and maintenance (O&M) accounts
in the Marine Corps and the other services had been totally disrupted. If we did not do something about that rise, the Marines
would not have been able to train. When we lose money in our
O&M accounts, we can have Marines at risk because they cannot
complete the required training. So we have to address the fiscal
issue head on.
The bottom line is we cannot afford to do business as usual. It
is not in our best interest fiscally, and it is definitely not in our best
interest combat wise; that is what got us going. As a follow-up to
Strategic Vision 2025, the Commandant set up my office and put
this great team together over the last year.
When you take a look at it in real terms, the Marine Corps is
burning over 200,000 gallons of fuel per day (Figure 2). The price
per gallon that we pay in the Helmand Province is $7 even. We do
not pay the Defense Logistics Agency price of $2.80 in Afghanistan;
we pay the NATO price of $7.05. What does that come down to?
Well, it adds up to $1.4 million per day, or a little over $500 million
per year. Right now it costs about a billion dollars to operate the
Marine Corps for a year in Afghanistan. That is half of the Marine
Corps’ entire annual procurement budget; so that is significant.
Then you take a look on the right side of Figure 2. We have been
running about 5 million barrels a year. Most of that is consumed by
aviation, and as you have already heard, the Navy is working on
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that challenge. There are things we can do in training and simulation that we are looking into.
Figure 2. Marine Corps (USMC) Energy Use
What we are really getting after though are the things that we
can affect today on the battlefield. One of the principal components of Marine Corps battlefield energy consumption is batteries.
The Marine Corps spends $22 million a year just on batteries, and
a large share of those batteries power our radios. We do not need
to get into the jammers that Marines carry, or the sights or night
vision goggles.
Let us just take a look at the number of radios in a Marine infantry company, like the one depicted in Figure 3. Prior to September
11, 2001, each of our infantry companies had a couple of radios,
which required a total of about 160 watts of power. At that time,
the total weight of the batteries required for a 3-day company-level
patrol amounted to 122 pounds, and it only cost us about $4000.
Today in Afghanistan, some 10 years later, that same company
requires about 1255 watts of power because now every Marine
has a radio. The batteries to provide that power weigh 586 pounds
and cost $117,000. We just cannot afford to do business like this.
We are going to price ourselves out of the warfighting business.
General Joseph Dunford, the Assistant Commandant of the Marine
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Corps, has told us that we are out of money. We have got to start
thinking.
Figure 3. The Company Pre-2001 versus The Company Today
So General Amos has raised the bar in his latest planning guidance. He told us to do something about our energy consumption.
Fortunately, we have had an 8-month head start. The Expeditionary
Energy Strategy provides a baseline for our current energy use on
the battlefield. [2] While the Marines are frequently deployed in
different places around the world, we also spend a lot of our time
at home, which means that Marines have to train and think at home
so they are prepared to do the things they need to do when they
get to the battlefield.
Prior to the 1990s—and I joined the Marine Corps in the mid1980s—the Marines were very much a resource-limited force.
When we landed an F/A-18, we called the radio room to find out
how many flight hours we should log because we were concerned
about fuel use. When we went to the fueling pits, we had shut
down our left motor—the right motor was connected to all the
important hydraulics—because we were worried about burning
gas on the ground. When a Marine woke up in the morning on
a patrol, he had two canteens and a couple of iodine tablets. You
made do with what you had, but over the last 20 years, we have
become resource spoiled. We now drink only bottled water on the
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battlefield; Marines do not carry canteens anymore. They expect
to have bottled water.
I was a battalion operations officer (OPSO) some years ago. As
penance for flying too much, they gave me an OPSO tour. I started
as a forward air controller and then they made me the battalion
OPSO. We went to Lowe’s and bought a little Honda generator
because we did not have a generator at the battalion headquarters. We ran it all night to power our stuff so we were not wasting
money on batteries. If you go to Helmand Province today, you will
find that there are generators everywhere. We have Marines starting up 60-kilowatt generators to charge their iPods. By the way,
those kids have guns, so I am not going to say anything to them,
but they need maybe a couple microwatts. We have gotten completely spoiled over the last 10 or 20 years because post-Desert
Storm, we stopped thinking about our fuel bill. We stopped thinking on the battlefield about water because water was always going
to be there. Our logisticians have done heroic work supplying a
battlefield where consumption is out of control.
Figure 4. 35th CMC’s Planning Guidance [2, 3]
We have to turn the corner. Fast, lethal, austere—those are the
attributes of expeditionary operations. The infantry company that
goes out today is magnitudes more lethal than an infantry company was in 2001. We have learned a lot. While we are definitely
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more lethal, we still have to be able to fit back on ship. We have to
be able to get back to our austerity and our speed. We have probably lost some of that, and so what we are figuring out right now in
working with the Marine Corps Systems Command and the Office
of Naval Research (ONR) is how we lighten our load and how we
power that load in a smart way that is less costly. We have to think
ourselves out of this. We are not going to be able to pay our way
out of it.
The triangle on the right-hand side of Figure 4 shows how we
are going to compress ourselves back to the center. One of our
goals is to end up getting some of our energy from renewable
sources. As you will see shortly, we are well along the way to
doing that. We are also going to increase the efficiency of our current gear as we reset and recapitalize. Then we have to make sure
that our requirements documents capture that and move forward
so when our requirements community sends a document to the
Marine Corps Systems Command, it includes energy efficiency Key
Performance Parameters (KPPs). I would actually like those KPPs to
be designated energy performance KPPs, but we have not made
that change yet; but I am floating that idea. More importantly, the
anchors for our whole approach are leadership and training. We
have to have Marines thinking about resource constraints. We need
our Marine Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels and some of the old
guys to think hard about this.
Colonel Eric Smith, a friend of mine, just took over RTC-8
in Northern Helmand Province. He is working very hard to get
his Marines off bottled water by the end of the year. They get it,
and thanks to our leadership it is starting to echo throughout the
Corps. Earlier this week, we sent a Marine out to Twentynine Palms
to show an infantry battalion how to use one of the small solar
blankets we have given them. Forty Marines and their Lieutenant
Colonel sat through that training session. It is starting to spark; that
ethos is going to be our biggest driver, and it does not cost us a lot
of money.
Today in Helmand Province we are burning about 8 gallons of
fuel per Marine per day. In Vietnam I think we were using about
a gallon or so per Marine per day. Moreover, we are projected to
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continue this climb. The equipment we are buying is heavier, and
it is more power dependent. Still, we have to turn the corner. Our
plan calls for us to reduce the fuel required by that same force that
is in Helmand Province by half by the year 2025. The only fuel
that will be on that battlefield is that needed by mobility systems.
Generators are going to disappear. We are going to have more
power-efficient equipment. We are going to have Marines that
think differently about their resources. We are going to harvest as
much solar energy as we can. We are going to store it using some
technologies we do not know about today, and we are going to use
our vehicles in ways that we are not even thinking about. We are
going to harvest energy from our vehicles, whether it is heat energy
or kinetic energy. Our vehicles will micro grid and will become
backup power sources.
Figure 5. Strategy and Timeline
Our strategy has been signed out (Figure 5). What is different
about it is that we have backed it up with an official requirements
document, which identifies 112 specific energy-efficiency-related
shortfalls. We believe that that requirements document is the intellectual foundation for getting us where we want to go. It will inform
both the acquisitions community and the training community. We
have also stood up a new power-and-energy (P&E) future naval
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capability (FNC); so we now have our own tier in the FNC process.
That FNC will guide the work that is going on at ONR, with the
other services, with the agencies, and with the labs. By having a
strategy that flows through a requirements document, everyone
will be able to understand what the end state is for the warfighter
and see the linkages. We also hope that this approach will improve
our ability to successfully transition programs from the research
and development and science and technology worlds. We recognize, of course, that such programs involve risk, but we want to see
if we can improve the transition rate. We believe that our requirements document will help us do that.
We have also asked our operational analysis division at
Quantico to build a methodology so we can figure out if making
these investments makes sense. We believe they do, but we want
to back it up with rigor.
Figure 6. Expeditionary Energy Goals Breakdown
Figure 6 shows the breakdown of that 50%. Figure 6 does not
appear in our strategy, because we do not want anybody in the
system gaming it. I do not want anyone to say that we can just get
our 25% from the ethos change and that we do not need to build
new solar panels. So, I am sharing it with you in confidence.
The point is that when we wrote the strategy we invited individuals from academia and the venture capital community to come
in and provide a red team review. Based on their feedback, we
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ended up with the numbers I have shown above. We believe they
are reasonable. We believe they are executable. When we briefed
the Commandant on our strategy, he said that he wanted it faster. I
said, “Sir, right now we have over 112 things we have to get closed
before we can get there, and that is going to cost a significant
amount of money. We are going to get there, and we are dedicated
to doing it, but it is going to take time.”
So let me switch gears from the strategic level where we have
been focused down to the tactical level. Obviously our most
important thing is to protect the Marines who are in harm’s way.
A year ago, Colonel David Karcher, Mr. Cody Reese, and I were
in the field down at Quantico trying to figure out what we were
doing with our Experimental Forward Operating Base (ExFOB). At
the time, our charter was to develop and deploy an 80% solution
vice spending several years working on the 100% solution. So, in
January 2010, we went out to industry with a request for information (RFI) and asked for their best technologies in solar, water, and
efficient shelter design. We ended up looking at products from
over 200 different companies.
Figure 7. The Ground Renewable Expeditionary Energy
Network (GREEN) System and the SPACES System
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We invited 16 of those companies to bring their products to
Quantico, and we ended up buying about six of them. Figure 7
shows two of them. The solar panels that appear in front of
these Marines make up what is called the Ground Renewable
Expeditionary Energy Network (GREEN) System. On the wall is the
SPACES system that we have been working on since 1996.
Following our first two ExFOBs, we approached India Company
of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (3/5). In September
2010, they went into the Sangin Valley in Afghanistan’s Helmand
Province—one of the hardest combat areas in modern history. We
sent these solutions in with them. When we first approached them
in June 2010, they wanted nothing to do with this gear. I begged
them to take it. I told them that if they did not, I would be fired
and that I really need this job because the economy’s not good. So,
they somehow found it in their hearts to train with these systems
and carry them into combat. When they came back, they provided
feedback on how they had used these items. In the process they
told us things that we had not even thought about. As a result,
we are now accelerating our effort to bring them to the rest of the
Marine Corps.
They are getting prepared to come home. We hope to have a
couple of their folks come to Washington and talk about what they
did in their own words. We are particularly interested in learning about their combat operations because they went into a tough
area, and we hope to talk a little bit about how they used the
energy efficiency systems we gave them.
So what is the ExFOB team? It is organized under Lieutenant
General George Flynn, the Deputy Commandant for Combat
Development and Integration. The team includes the Marine
Corps War Fighting Laboratory (MCWL), the ONR, the Marine
Corps Systems Command, our Training and Education Command
(TECOM), the Capabilities Development Directorate (CDD) from
the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and finally my
Expeditionary Energy Office (E2O). We meet weekly; our Executive
Board meets every quarter, and we run ExFOB annually. Our next
one will be held August 11–19 at Twentynine Palms.
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The neat thing about this is we never intended for it to turn
out this way. It was one of those things where you just rush to
the field to get things to the front because we were told to do so.
When the Commandant gets interested in something, we get rather
fascinated, and so we ran to the field and did this. Along the way,
we found that it became a process. The things we learned helped
inform our requirements. We also started investing differently, and
when we did our Program Objective Memorandum (POM) drill,
we started changing investments around based on what we could
get from industry and what we thought was possible. At the end of
the day, we gained confidence that some of the stuff can actually
work, and we built confidence in our young Marines by getting
this new technology out to them. When I was in college if you
talked about environmental stuff, you got beat up by guys like me,
but today when you talk about environmental stuff with young
Marines, they are all over it. Their school systems are apparently
different than mine; they embrace this technology. So while it was
confidence building with us old guys, the youngsters got it right
away and ran with it.
Figure 8. ExFOB Process
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Figure 8 will just give you an idea of the scope of our efforts
to date. We did Phases 1 and 2 at Quantico and in the process
evaluated the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) options. Phase 3
was accomplished during the deployment of India 3/5. We conducted Phase 4 last August at Twentynine Palms; we are in the
process of purchasing the solution concepts identified there right
now. Colonel Karcher and his folks are doing tremendous work
coordinating that. If those systems pass the evaluation that we have
planned for this coming May at Twentynine Palms, we will take
them to Afghanistan this summer.
Now we are really amping up the ante. We are looking at getting a battalion-level Combat Operations Center (COC) off the net
entirely if possible or, at the very least, saving a significant amount
of fuel. When we conduct ExFOB 2011 this summer, we are going
to look at concentrated solar power, and we are going to look at
stationary vehicle exportable power. We are really trying to wrap
our minds around how we can make our vehicles better. The RFI
for bringing solution options to ExFOB 2011 closes at the end of
April. The neat thing about ExFOB 2011 is that we have partnered
very closely with the Army to do the evaluation. We really want to
make sure that we share everything we are doing.
Let us get into specific solutions from ExFOB, and the reason
I want to bring this up is because I think it is fascinating. Figure 9
shows the SPACES system; it is a small solar blanket that you can
roll up in your pack. It comes with an inverter that you can use
to charge up a couple of batteries while you keep marching on
patrol. The system was first tested by the Marine Corps in 1996.
The requirements document was not written for it until 2004. It
did not deploy to the field until 2010. At that point, it went viral.
We have no more on the shelf. India 3/5 got it in their hands last
October; they were the only battalion we asked to use this. We
never mentioned it to the other nine infantry battalions or the
Marine Expeditionary Units. The word went out virally. It went
from Marine to Marine; we never advertised this. We were a little
hesitant because we did not know how it was going with 3/5. Now,
thanks to word-of-mouth advertising, we have no more left. We
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are trying to get an additional $9 million to buy some more; hopefully we will get them soon.
Figure 9. Fleet Demand for Renewable Energy Increasing
The success of this system was demonstrated effectively
during one of the unit’s 3-week patrols. The platoon commander
was very skeptical when we first gave him this gear. By accident,
the Marines filmed a video following the patrol that has provided
excellent advertis­ing for the system; we had nothing to do with it.
The platoon commander told Combat Camera that his patrol used
no batteries whatsoever during the entire 3-week duration of their
patrol. Instead, they used the SPACES blan­ket. Normally, batteries
for an infantry patrol have to be resupplied every 2 to 3 days. So,
doing without that resupply is significant. It increased the patrol’s
operational reach. They were less at risk, and they were able to
operate all their systems on the move. There is a link on our website at Marines.mil. A couple of videos are posted there, including
the one with the platoon commander’s comments.
There are some limits to this system. Amorphous silicon does
not do well in clouds and rain. We sent it to the Philippines recently
to test it. It did okay when the sun was shining, but it did not do
well in clouds and rain. We have provided three systems to the
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Naval Research Lab so they can tell us how to make it better. We
know this has applicability, but we need to make it better.
Shown in Figure 10 is the complete set of capabilities that we
provided to 3/5. I have talked about the GREEN System. The zerobased system was a commercial-off-the-shelf product we bought
from Raytheon; it has done really well. The LED lights have done
well; the Marines love them because it is really easy to go to blackout mode when necessary.
Figure 10. ExFOB Capabilities Deployed with India Company
3/5 in September 2010
We also tested the solar shade and the solar light poles. We
found that one of the issues with the solar shade on a forward operating base (FOB) is that the silicon is woven into the top. To keep it
clean you have to send Marines up there once in a while. They had
to get in full battle rattle and were sniper targets, so we withdrew
it back to Camp Leatherneck, our major base in Afghanistan. We
are not really sure what we are going to do with the solar shade
idea; we are working our way through that. The solar light poles
worked out okay, but the Marines on the forward edge did not like
them because they obviously helped the enemy target the Marine
position. So, we moved them back to Camp Leatherneck too. They
may ultimately have some applicability.
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The Marines set up two patrol bases that operated exclusively
on renewable energy. I was a little concerned when I heard that
because by then the gear had been out there for a while. Some
of it was commercial off the shelf, and some of it was homemade
stuff. When we tried to get it back a couple weeks ago, I asked
my liaison officer in Helmand to bring it back, and he said: “Sir,
3/5 will not give it back. All they have is renewable energy.” I
was really concerned that they were using gear full time that we
had not fully developed. So, we have some generators moving out
there to back it up. But, they have really become dependent on
renewable energy.
The Phase 4 options that are going to be deployed to Afghanistan
this summer are shown in Figure 11. We have direct current (DC)powered air conditioners and DC-powered refrigeration. We think
we are going to make large cuts in the load at the company level,
and we are adding the liners and the lights.
Figure 11. ExFOB Phase 4 Follow-On Deployment for
Summer 2011
So it is clear that our multifunctional team can move out quickly
when we work together. The key is our written requirements documents. We did not just talk about it as a science experiment.
We put our money where our mouth was. We have increased our
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funding for these systems by over 67% from the President’s Budget
for FY2011 to the President’s Budget for FY2012 and have the flexibility to get the right stuff in Marines’ hands.
Figure 12. Key Technology Focus Areas
This is what we are doing on the science and technology side
(Figure 12).
Figure 13. Changing Ethos
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Beyond just buying better toys, we are working hard to get
energy efficiency into the Marine Corps ethos (Figure 13). Toward
that end, we have just added a liaison officer in our shop who works
with the Marines Training and Education Command; I believe that
organization is one of the keys to our success. If we train our young
leaders, and if we train our young Marines, the rest of it will take
care of itself.
Figure 14. Nawa Renewable Energy Project:
Providing Opportunities
As my final point, I think it is important to note that we have
not just been thinking about ourselves in this. We are also thinking about the local Afghanis; we have looked at a lot of different approaches for helping them. To be sure, not everything has
worked. We could not get the Afghanis interested in biofuels, for
example. While they do not have a lot of clean water or good food,
they do have a lot of cell phones. When we went to their markets
to see how we might help, we found out that they are very familiar with solar power; they use it to charge their cell phones. So,
after a 6-month negotiation, we started a renewable solar-energy
project that is under construction right now. Interestingly, there is
a Nawa renewable energy company in Kabul, Afghanistan. We
asked them to come out to Helmand and meet with the local shura
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in Nawa. So now, we have an Afghan energy company helping
local Afghans (Figure 14).
When it is completed, we will be providing renewable energy
in a distributed environment; we will be helping the local Afghanis
in the same manner that we are helping our Marines. The costs for
transporting fuel and building infrastructure are simply too high for
the local Afghanis. This approach will allow them to avoid those
expenses. We really believe this has a lot of opportunity throughout Helmand Province.
REFERENCES
1. Department of the Navy, Marine Corps Vision and Strategy 2025,
http://www.marines.mil/news/publications/Documents/
Vision%20Strat%20lo%20res.pdf.
2. The Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office, United States
Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Strategy and Implementation
Plan—Bases-to-Battlefield, http://www.marines.mil/unit/hqmc/
cmc/Documents/USMC Expeditionary Energy Strategy.pdf.
3. Department of the Navy, 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps
Commandant’s Planning Guidance, 2010, http://www.marines.
mil/unit/hqmc/cmc/Documents/CMC 35 Planning Guidance
FINAL.pdf.
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Colonel David Karcher
As Colonel Robert Charette, Jr., noted, the Commandant has
said go faster and gain and maintain momentum. You have seen
some of the things that we have done. But, it is with your help that
we are going to gain and maintain the momentum that we need
Colonel David Karcher recently retired after more than 31 years as a
United States Marine. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, he served in
various command, staff, and instructor positions across the Marine
Corps. Primarily a field artilleryman, with secondary specialties in
acquisition and joint operations, he deployed to operations including
Urgent Fury in Grenada, security operations and humanitarian evacuations in Lebanon, Sharp Edge evacuation operations in Liberia, Desert
Shield/Desert Storm in Kuwait, United Nations Operation in Somalia II
(UNOSOM II) with Joint Task Force Somalia, Operation Iraqi Freedom
(OIF) in Iraq, and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan.
His acquisition tours included acquisition of command and control systems (Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System, Tactical Combat
Operations system, Intelligence Operations Workstation, and Global
Command and Control System) and tactical software (Command
and Control Personal Computer) and serving as Director of the DoD
Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program and Chief of Staff of the Marine
Corps’ Acquisition Command. Colonel Karcher retired in December
2009. He returned to government service in 2010 and is currently the
Director, Energy and C-IED Systems, Marine Corps Systems Command
in Quantico, Virginia. Colonel Karcher graduated from the U.S. Naval
Academy with a B.S. in engineering, holds a master’s degree in business
from Oklahoma City University, and earned a master of science degree
from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He is a graduate of the
Amphibious Warfare School, the Command and General Staff College,
the Armed Forces Staff College, the Defense Systems Management
College, the Defense Acquisition University, and the National Defense
University. He is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and is Defense Acquisition
Workforce Improvement Act Level III certified in program management.
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to reach the goals we have set for the future. Colonel Charette did
a nice job of laying out our strategy. How are we going to put this
into action? How are we going to have long-term enduring solutions that the Marines and the other services can use? I will show
you some of the challenges that we have; those faced by the Army
are very similar.
The Marine Corps Systems Command (MCSC), where I work,
provides support to both the acquisition community and the
requirements community. One of the things we have done to gain
and maintain momentum is to put a multifunction team together. It
has worked very well. That team is addressing the capabilities that
we want to have in the Marine Corps given our limited resources.
While some of our challenges are the same as those for the other
services, some are different. Thus, we have to get the requirements
right. The bullet points below provide some background:
• MCSC provides long-term material solutions
• We meet the requirements
• We provide life cycle support
• The warfighter must be, and is, an integral part of process
• Materiel solutions must be integrated into the larger
Expeditionary Energy Strategy
Earlier, Colonel Ted Smyth took a shot at defining the term
“expeditionary” from the Marine Corps perspective. I want to
expand that a bit by looking at “expeditionary” from the energy
perspective. In my view, it is a mindset, but it is also more than
that. We have to be able to go at any time to any place, and we
have to win the battles that the country calls on us to fight. So, the
first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word “expeditionary” is that whatever piece of gear that Marine takes with him has
to work exactly as he expects it to the first time he uses it and every
time thereafter.
Obviously, we have to make trades when we consider energy
efficiencies. We have to be very careful when we make those
trades because our material solutions still have to provide desired
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capabilities. Thus, we have a bit of a challenge, particularly on the
engineering side. Our systems have to be rugged, and they have to
work. We have to be able to train on them and be able to do so in
a way that does not add to the existing training burden. Then, we
have to be able to use them. They have to work. They have to fit
into our mission profiles. When necessary, we have to be able to
repair them or get parts for them.
In some ways, the energy efficiency community is fairly new.
While many things have been going on for years, a lot of the
interesting work is still being done by small companies with great
ideas. Managing the supply chain and providing long-term support are not necessarily their strong suit; so, we have to work our
way through that. When we build something, we want it to be as
lightweight as possible. We want it to be agile. And we have to
be able to test and prove that it works, and we have to do all this
preferably by this afternoon, and if not, by tomorrow morning. In
short, it has to be worth taking to “every clime and place.” It has
to be useful to our individual Marines and to their units. It has to
make them better in combat and also in secondary missions such
as those providing humanitarian assistance. It also has to operate
in a Marine Air-Ground Task Force organization (transportability,
training, mission profile, supply chain, weight/space, testing, etc.).
So, we have to be prepared to do all those things, but when it gets
aboard that ship or aboard that aircraft, we have to make very
tough choices. We already have too much of what we sometimes
refer to as GLOP—gear left on pier—because it does not fit aboard
our ships. So whatever equipment or renewable sources we use to
improve energy efficiency have to be worth that prioritization.
So what are we trying to do? To meet these requirements, we
want to do a couple of different things. We want to reduce our
energy consumption for the equipment we already have across
the board (vehicles, aircraft, radios, generators, computers, mobile
command posts, night vision devices, etc.). It is always a challenge
to re-buy or reset, and it is not particularly unusual to have a pilot
or a truck or tank driver who is younger than the equipment he is
using. In some cases, his father may have used the same equipment before him. We want our gear to last for a long time. Given
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our resources, we have to be able to make it last for a long time.
Unfortunately in many cases, when the original program manager
made his design trades, gas was less than $1 a gallon. Fuel efficiency was not that important. Now it is. We seek to supply energy
more efficiently and to supply it in part from renewable sources.
One of the first things we need is the expertise found in this
room and in other rooms like it to make improvements in the gear
we have. In some cases, the production lines are long closed. So,
how do we insert new technology? How do we do it gracefully,
smartly, inexpensively, and without taking everything we have
down? We will still need to be able to use the equipment, or at
least some portion of it, while we refit. We are looking at all our
equipment from top to bottom and from left to right as you can see
in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Recently Deployed Power and Energy Systems
We have seen dramatic proof of the increase in the number of
batteries used by a rifle company. We need to make a difference
not only at company level but at squad level and for the individual
Marine. If we can make that company 10% more efficient, they
can go that much longer without resupply, that much farther, or
operate that much more efficiently. At the same time, we have to
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get a good return on our investment, so we have to take both capability and cost into account.
We also have to change behavior. It is not just training; it is
mindset. Something that makes us more efficient is not any good
if we do not actually use it. We seek to combine efficient behavior
and equipment. How are we going to do this? Well, Marines get it.
Our young Marines clearly understand power consumption if only
from the necessity of recharging their personal electronics. They
do not always know what it costs, so we have to continue to meter
up and show them the energy costs for the equipment that they are
using. The Commandant has clearly said that we need to go faster.
So we are getting very good acceptance. But that acceptance is
based on the belief that what they get will work every time and it
will make them better in combat. So far, what we have delivered
in admittedly small amounts has met those requirements. Now,
how do we transition that across the Marine Corps? We certainly
look for your help in making reliable deliverables of the appropriate material solutions.
So far, some things seem to be doing particularly well. I will not
necessarily say that solar is better than any other renewable, but
for the environments in which we expect to operate, and certainly
in Afghanistan and Iraq, solar is pretty reliable. We can make it
reasonably rugged, and it has a fairly good return. Geothermal and
hydro are not quite as dependable in all the geographical locations
that Marines can expect to visit. Moreover, solar is a technology
that is fairly well understood at least in some installations.
So, the question is how do we take that and have the high
efficiencies and low weight that a small Marine unit can use? As
a simple example, almost every Marine has a flashlight. If we
just made a difference in flashlights between weight and power
it would be a significant difference. Getting to the right kind of
rechargeable batteries and getting to a more unified approach just
on flashlights will make a big difference. There are lots of opportunities for improving technology across all our equipment, and solar
has been a big help.
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While industry is doing a good job making our IT equipment
more energy efficient, there are some things that do not work as
well. Tactical units—infantry, armor, and artillery—have to be able
to pick up and move their gear on short notice, and they have to
be able to operate as part of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force and
more likely than not in some remote location. They may be able
to connect their equipment, say a radar, to the power grid, or they
may have to connect it to its own power supply. When you have to
move often, and on short notice, renewable energy sources do not
always enable rapid movement or provide the high energy densities that they need. Thus, in the short term, although we want to
get out of the generator business, it is a technology we understand.
We want to have energy sources, preferably as dense as
possible, that can come and go with our units and plug into the
commercial power grid when it is available. We need to be both
efficient and effective. In the case of some of our tactical units, it is
a real challenge to fit energy efficiency into their environment. We
want our tanks to be as lethal as possible and to be able to move
their 70-ton weight as rapidly as possible. Energy efficiency was
not important when we first partnered with the Army on the M-1
tank. We have since put an auxiliary power unit (APU) on it so we
do not have to run the tank main engine quite as much. The weight
penalty was small, and we do save some fuel, so this modification
has had a good outcome. That has not been true for everything.
So, we are still looking for technologies that will provide energy
efficiencies for the equipment used by our tactical units.
Now let us look at what we are focused on for this coming year
and what are we looking for in the long term. As Colonel Charette
indicated, this is the year of the vehicle. A lot of our battlefield fuel
is used by our vehicle fleet. As we have added vehicles and as they
have gotten heavier in response to the improvised explosive device
threat, our fuel use has increased further. My sons are 23 and 25.
They are starting to learn exactly what it costs them to fill their car
at the pump and that driving efficiently with a lighter foot on the
pedal is a good thing. We want to put more effort into training our
young Marine drivers to do the same thing. We want to provide
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feedback within our tactical vehicles that shows the driver how the
way they are driving is affecting the vehicle’s efficiency.
To some extent, industry has led the way in efficiency
improvements. However, we are not always able to use some
of the advances they have made. Consider, for example, something as simple as low-rolling-resistance tires. Michelin sells them
for commercial vehicles, but they are not made for the types of
tires that we use on our large trucks. So, we are partnering with
Michelin to see what can be done. In other cases, industry is not
yet looking at the technology that we want to use. What is called
on-board power generation is an example. Today’s military truck
has enhanced vision devices for the driver, radios, and a host of
other electronics to include, in some cases, cameras and jammers.
We are looking at providing a more efficient bus inside that vehicle
so it can use its electricity better and can in fact produce more of
it. We have actually just about reached the physical size limit of
alternators to generate power on board a vehicle. So, we are asking
what can we do to make our vehicles more energy efficient?
We are very interested in what is called concentrated solar.
How can we obtain greater energy density? We also want to establish relationships and partnerships with the other organizations that
are working on energy efficiency. We want to know what they are
doing and, where possible, whether there is some sort of leveraging or trade-off that can occur. We think such collaborative efforts
will help us move from the short term where we have seen success
to the long term. We are interested in meeting with anyone who
may have a path to success. By all means, please let us know.
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Mr. Cody Reese
First off, you might notice that unlike my panel colleagues, I am
not a Marine colonel nor do I expect to be one anytime soon. But I
definitely appreciate the work they are doing. The first commanding
Mr. Cody Reese graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
with a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 2002. Upon graduation, he
served at the Naval Facilities Expeditionary Logistics Center under the
Professional Development Center intern program. Following the receipt
of his California Professional Engineer license in 2005, Mr. Reese took
a position in the Amphibious and Expeditionary Systems Department
at the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NAVFAC ESC). At
the Engineering Service Center, he has worked on projects ranging
from autonomous crane systems for cargo transfer in high sea states
to expedient airfield damage repair equipment. In 2009, Mr. Reese
accepted his current position at NAVFAC ESC as Technical Direction
Agent (TDA) for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Code 30 Logistics
Thrust. As TDA, Mr. Reese assists the ONR Logistics Thrust Program
Manager with the development and execution of the logistics science
and technology (S&T) program. Mr. Reese leads a team of subjectmatter experts who have a broad range of knowledge and experience
in diverse expeditionary logistics disciplines including the following:
expeditionary energy and power, autonomic logistics, water purification and distribution, logistics sustainment support for small-unit
distributed operations, and sea-based logistics. The end users of the
technologies include the Marine Corps and the Naval Expeditionary
Forces. Mr. Reese is highly involved in concomitant duties in support
of the command and the engineering profession. For the past 6 years
he has served as senior staff for the Society of American Military
Engineers, Seabee Engineering and Construction Camp. He has served
for the past 4 years as the command’s Combined Federal Campaign
chair and as a member of the command’s lauded recreation committee. He was recently inducted as a cadre member into the NAVFAC
2011 Leadership Development Program.
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officer I served under at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command
(NAVFAC) Engineering Service Center was Navy Captain Mark
Samuels. He was an excellent public speaker; at the beginning of a
presentation he would always tell a poor joke that would enhance
his presentation. So, I am going to try that technique today and see
how it works. I will tell one related to energy and climate change.
What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh. See? Lame.
As Colonel Ted Smyth said, I work for the NAVFAC Engineering
Service Center. While the Center is doing fantastic things for Naval
facilities engineering across the board, I have been assigned full
time to support the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Basically, I
get to go all kinds of good places. I have the coolest job in the
room, and I think you will agree with me at the end of this. I
am basically a science and technology scout for ONR Code 30
Logistics Thrust. ONR 30 is the Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare
and Combating Terrorism Science and Technology Department,
and as such it is focused on the expeditionary Navy and Marine
Corps, the guys with boots on the ground. Within that, there are
different technology thrusts: maneuver, fires, C4ISR (Command,
Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance
and Reconnaissance). I support logistics, which is everything else
to include energy, water purification, asset transport, and infrastructure. This year, in the logistics thrust area we are managing
over 25 efforts focused on improving expeditionary logistics. In
the remainder of my talk, I am going to delve into some of the cool
technologies that we are looking at.
As my panel colleagues have said, there are several different
ways to reduce energy demand. To start with, there are behavioral
initiatives, which I am not going to go into. The Marine Corps ethos
is driving that pretty hard, and I think that is going to have a huge
impact. Then there are technological options. There are specific
device improvements that have a direct energy benefit, and there
are those where the effect is indirect. A lot has been said about
vehicles and convoys. I am not going to talk about specific vehicle improvements, although rest assured, ONR’s maneuver thrust
has that covered. They are working heavily on Medium Tactical
Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) fuel efficiency and hybrid vehicles.
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The bottom line is that nearly every research and development
effort in the logistics thrust reduces Marine Corps energy demand
in one way or another.
That being said, I get to basically present whatever I want out
of the logistics portfolio, so naturally I will choose my favorites. I
am going to start with power and then move on to water and cargo
delivery. I am going to focus mainly on technologies at the applied
level. We definitely support the basic research that supports these
applied-level things, but it is not quite as easy to see the actual
benefit that a carbon nanofoam is going to have on MTVR energy
reduction. So, I will focus on those that have obvious applications.
Let us start with a hybrid power source with a high energy
density (Figure 1). This is basically the union of an alter-capacitor
and a lithium-ion battery in one box. It has the same form factor as
a BA-5590. It has the potential to double the specific energy of that
battery. So basically you have a battery that has twice the power
of the one that you now have. The indirect energy benefit is that
you now have to bring fewer batteries to the fight. Batteries are
heavy, and hauling them around the theater takes a lot of fuel. In
addition, with fewer batteries we can reduce battery manufacturing and disposal. Although the manufacturing is not quite a Marine
direct cost, disposal certainly is.
Figure 1. Hybrid Power Source with High Energy Density
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Now let us look at power management for military radios. We
are basically adapting a power management integrated circuit that
is found in a lot of commercial laptops, cell phones, and those types
of things. It functions through selective power control to individual
circuits in the radio with no adverse performance effects. Basically
it just shuts down subsystems that are idle and consuming power
within a specific device. It has the potential to reduce the power
consumption of that device by 30%. With that, a radio squad can
reduce its battery requirements for a 4-day mission by 12 pounds,
which again leads to fewer batteries transported around theater
and reduced manufacturing and disposal.
Figure 2. Harvesting Electric Power from Walking
My next concept is a device that harvests electric power from
walking (Figure 2). This has been tried a couple of different ways
before; our approach uses a backpack that effectively oscillates up
and down as you walk. Depending on the load you are carrying
and the speed at which you are moving, you can generate anywhere between 8 and 45 watts—a significant electrical output. As
a secondary benefit, the backpack reduces load-related forces that
cause musculoskeletal injury. I have run around with one of these
on my back; it is actually pretty amazing. So obviously the direct
energy benefit is that the Marine self-supplies his electrical needs.
The indirect energy benefits are the same as reported previously.
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Fewer batteries need to be transported to and around the theater,
and manufacturing and disposal costs are reduced. Since you need
fewer batteries, your pack is lighter than it would be otherwise.
Although the pack weighs a little more, it pays off since you need
fewer batteries. If you couple that with batteries that are twice as
powerful and with radios that need 30% less power, this can definitely provide the guys on the ground with their own source of
self-sustaining power even for the cases where other renewable
energies might not be appropriate.
Now let us turn from power to water purification, which is
something I really like working on. This next one is a platformenabling technology that has applications across the different
scales and levels of water purification systems used by the Navy
and Marine Corps. It is effectively a pretreatment and uses a
continuous-flow clarification process that operates on the sheer
forces within a fluid with a very low-pressure drop (around 3 psi). It
is not a centrifuge; it is basically just a curved rectangular channel
with one input and two outputs.
Figure 3. Small-Scale Fluid Particle Separator
As you can see in Figure 3, it is pretty small. Figure 3 shows
a tank of water that has been spiked with carbon particles measuring from 5 to 30 microns. The water initially goes in dirty, but
by three quarters of the way around, the sheer forces cause the
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carbon particles to band together in one particular region of flow.
The water containing the particles can be diverted out one of the
output ports, while the “clean” water goes out the other port.
This is the closest thing to magic I have ever seen; it is amazing
to watch. Its orientation does not matter; you can shake it while it
is running. We are looking at using this on everything from small
water purifiers all the way up to replacing the prefiltration systems
on shipboard-level systems. The Navy has discovered that when
they operate in remote regions, prefilter fouling for their reverse
osmosis systems can go through the roof. They need six times as
much prefiltration than they currently have. If we could use this
instead, we could save a lot of room on the ship. In the expeditionary environment, we could save a lot of resupply of small filters for
these water purification systems.
Advanced energy recovery is another of our water-related concepts. It takes a lot of power to actually pump water through a plastic membrane to get freshwater out the other side. Typically, energy
recovery systems are optimized for large-scale plants such as
industrial water purification systems that process millions of gallons
per day. Currently, none are really adapted to small expeditionary
systems where you may be operating on fresh- or saltwater in any
climate or place. So the reverse osmosis systems with energy recovery that we are looking at are scalable for the small range (40 gallons per hour). They allow for variable recovery ratio depending
on the specific operating conditions. They have been shown to
improve the efficiency of an actual system by as much as 60%. If
we couple that with some of the less-resource-intense prefiltration,
we can have a huge impact. An indirect energy benefit is that it
reduces fuel transport requirements.
This next concept is sort of a baby step in the direction of autonomous resupply. This is an upgrade to the existing CQ-10 Alpha
SnowGoose unmanned aerial vehicle, which is a parafoil-based
system (Figure 4). The parafoil is launched by towing it behind a
Humvee on a trailer. We are upgrading it by adding a three- or
four-blade autogyro that will prespin the rotors at zero pitch and
then go full collective and launch up in the air. The system autogyros from that point on. It is a very simple autonomous system, and
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it is extremely easy to operate. It can deliver up to 2400 pounds
and can cover a 93-mile radius in 24 hours. How does this save
fuel? Instead of using the parafoil, the alternative would be to send
an MTVR with an armed escort that might have to drive 200 or
300 miles round-trip though the mountains to cover the same
93-mile radius. Thus, it offers an energy-efficient way to provide
direct resupply for small expeditionary units. As a secondary benefit, it reduces maintenance needs for your vehicle fleet.
Figure 4. CQ-10 “Bravo” Cargo Unmanned Air Vehicle System
My next concept is a local favorite. It was originally developed
right here at JHU/APL: it is a self-healing galvanic protection additive called polyfibroblast (Figure 5). It is basically uncured paint in
a zinc microcapsule, and it is compatible with existing MIL-SPEC
paints. It can be mixed in with current paints and applied without
retraining or refitting the equipment. Essentially, when a scratch is
made through the paint surface, it ruptures the zinc microspheres
and the paint resin flows out and fills the cracks. In addition, the
zinc provides a galvanic protection for the actual surface. You can
also add fluorescent dyes to indicate damage so you can tell where
the stuff has been used and where your vehicle has been damaged. While it has no primary energy benefit, it definitely reduces
vehicle maintenance. The cost of corrosion for the Marine Corps
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in 2007 was something like $600 million; a lot of that is due to the
cost of rotating vehicles through maintenance cycles. Anything you
can do to reduce that is going to save energy and dollars.
Figure 5. Polyfibroblast: A Self-Healing, Galvanic
Protection Additive
The last technology effort I am going to cover is the modular composite bridge (Figure 6). The Marines and Army currently
deploy 10 to 15 different types of bridging for theater aspects for
different scenarios. Each bridge has its own deployment issues,
maintenance, and training. The whole process is very energy intensive. What we are looking at is a system of basically giant carbonfiber Legos. This is the bridge that every 5-year-old dreams about.
The kit has five or six basic components: a pier section, a ramp
section, a beam, a bank seat, and a deck. You can combine these
in multiple different ways to make short bridges, long bridges,
pier bridges, or line-of-communication bridges. You can put railings on the bridges. The actual energy benefit of this is somewhat
sneaky. Instead of shipping 15 different bridges to the theater, you
can ship two full bridge kits and save a tremendous amount of
logistics transport. Space is at a premium on our amphibious ships
and on our ground transport vehicles. Shipping the equivalent of
a medium girder bridge will take seven ISO containers instead of
the 20 ISO containers that would be required to ship the existing medium girder bridge. Even though these modular bridges will
Chapter 9 Adapting Expeditionary Capabilities
327
be slightly more expensive to procure, the energy savings and the
overall life cycle cost savings are significant.
Figure 6. Modular Composite Bridging
Rest assured that we are also investing in the fundamental
materials science that lies behind all this stuff. We are conducting
research on nanocarbons. We are looking at composites for large
structures and nanocomposite electrodes for solid oxide fuel cells.
We are investigating self-lubricating coatings and alloys to enable
maintenance reduction. We are looking at solar energy, including
stretchable photovoltaic materials. These materials can stretch and
crumple. They can get shot through, get damaged, and still function pretty well.
In addition, we are looking at ways to optimize the logistics
supply chain. How do we do packaging? Are containers the right
thing? Austere cargo handling is a big issue. Is there a more efficient way to move a 55-gallon drum full of water than to find
enough Marines to lift it? There are opportunities for automation
in the packaging process. We are also working on the micro-grid
concepts that you heard about earlier to include energy storage
buffers and load-source management technologies. The things
we really look for are platform-enabling technologies that can be
scaled across many different systems and become game changers
through their secondary or tertiary logistics effects.
328
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
Q&
A
Session with THE PANELISTS
Robert Charette, Jr., mentioned that the Marines
Q: Colonel
would be working closely with the Army during the upcoming
ExFOB 2011. Could you highlight some of the collaborative efforts with
the other services and with the joint community?
Colonel Robert Charette, Jr.: To answer that, let me say that
we would not have come so far so quickly if it were not for OSD’s
Power Surety Task Force and the work they are doing with the Army
as part of the Net Zero Joint Capability Technology Demonstration
at Fort Irwin. One of the first things we did when we stood up the
E2O was go out to Fort Irwin and see what they were doing. As it
turns out, the Army’s got a lot of things going on. We are partnered
with them on our next ExFOB. We are also working with the Air
Force, especially on the aviation side.
Mr. Cody Reese: I want to mention that the DoD water purification community is one of the most integrated areas of any in
which I have worked. Personnel from the Army, the Navy, and
DARPA attend the meetings. Anytime I get a new idea from a white
paper and abstract, I send it out to the joint team for their input
and review. We have all learned a lot from the Army testing at
Aberdeen and from the really basic research that DARPA is doing.