New report: alternative energy methods key to securing troops on battlefield

Does the military's need for fuel put military personnel in danger?

That's the take from a new report from Deloitte, Energy Security: America's Best Defense.

Gen. Charles Wald is the former deputy commander of US European Command and co-author of the report.

He is now the director and senior advisor to the Aerospace & Defense Industry for Deloitte and said imported energy has been a major issue for the past 30 to 50 years, and, more recently, things have come to a head, especially with regards to the military.

"It's more than just national security from a strategic standpoint -- we have to import oil from places that don't like us, but, also the energy we use on the battlefield is significant. In 2008, when {oil} went to $145 a barrel, in the Department of Defense, every $10 increase in a barrel was the equivalent of $1 billion of increase in spending."

When looking at what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the amount of fuel that's carried to remote places is significant.

The report examines a number of factors.

Wald said numbers from the military show that most of what's carried to the troops on the battlefield is liquid. 80 percent is either water or fuel.

Additionally, in Afghanistan, 80 percent of casualties are caused by roadside bombs hitting convoys.

"So, you combine the fact that a lot of that fuel is taken by convoys, with the fact that a lot of the casualties are caused by IED's, you say to yourself -- we need to do something different here. Part of it is we're always going to have to patrol on the road, but we need to cut back on the requirement to get our fuel forward."

On top of this, forward operating bases in Afghanistan use about 300 gallons of fuel a day to operate.

Wald said the most important aspect of the report is that the numbers show that something has to change.

"Our troops in Afghanistan are not only threatened in what we traditionally call combat, but because we're having to do such resupply, we've got a new paradigm here. So, our contention is, unless we do something different, the casualties over the next five years will increase by about 125 percent based on roadside bombings; and, we've also found that, since the Viet Nam War, we've increased our fuel use per soldier by 175 percent."

Reducing the fuel needed at forward operating bases is one solution. Wald said most of that fuel is used for generators, which are necessary to keep the troops comfortable during temperature extremes. They do not, however, necessarily have to run on fossil fuels.

"If we could start getting alternate type energy four our generators. There's a lot of sun in Afghanistan and Iraq -- solar panels would be nice. Other types of locally generated energy of some sort -- we can do that. We have the technology to do that type of thing for our troops."

Wald said this is not about 'going green' or even the economy. It's more about saving lives. The report makes additional recommendations as to how to go about this.

There is, for example, the subject of using alega for fuel.

"When you look at the energy problem, it is so multi-faceted and there isn't any silver bullet. It's a bunch of silver BB's and buckshot. But when you look at algae . . I've been to several places around the United States where they're actually producing algae fuel in different methodologies. . . . That algae-produced fuel is actually is actually going to be comparable in price to what we're paying for oil today. . . . We can produce it in America, rather than have to import it and depend on somebody else that could disrupt the flow. It has the same characteristics as regular fuel, or JP-4 as they call it in the military . . . but you still would have that fuel weight to the battlefield."

What's most important, Wald reiterated, is that a variety of technologies need to be combined for the military to move forward.