{"id":1862,"date":"2011-06-24T10:13:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T14:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/energy-as-a-national-security-challenge-col-dan-nolan-solar-summit.html"},"modified":"2011-06-24T10:13:38","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T14:13:38","slug":"energy-as-a-national-security-challenge-col-dan-nolan-solar-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/energy-as-a-national-security-challenge-col-dan-nolan-solar-summit.html","title":{"rendered":"Energy as a National Security Challenge &mdash;Col. Dan Nolan @ Solar Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his morning keynote at the sold-out<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/06\/last-day-for-advance-rate-at-solar-summit.html\"><br \/>\nSouthern Solar Summit,<\/a><br \/>\nCol. Dan Nolan (U.S. Army ret.) asked the musical question:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;When did our Marines become Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers?&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was after some Marines asked for solar power so they wouldn&#8217;t<br \/>\nhave to haul fuel in long convoys, which were among the most dangerous missions.<br \/>\nMost of that fuel was going into very inefficient generators to run<br \/>\nvery inefficient air conditioners in tents in the desert.<br \/>\nDealing with that got the military thinking about energy security:<br \/>\nassured access to mission-critical energy.<\/p>\n<p>\nLooking up, he asked:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/sabot6\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/media.linkedin.com\/mpr\/pub\/image-MrdnA_v0HIEd4B3lLkYwAfxyJsnh4fal9ZK7APQ9H6pLFhrN\/dan-nolan.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\n&#8220;What is it we as a nation need to understand about our own energy security?&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He identified America&#8217;s strategic center of gravity as its economy.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s very resilient but has vulnerabilities open to attack.<br \/>\nSo how do we secure those vulnerabilities?<\/p>\n<p>\nThe main vulnerabilities are:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\nPetroleum for transportation (99% of oil used in this sector)<br \/>\n<br \/>\nU.S. is world&#8217;s largest oil consumer 25% of world usage,<br \/>\n11 million barrels\/day, 51% net imports, $1 billion\/day imported oil,<br \/>\nmuch of that money going to fuel foreign authoritarians and their militaries,<br \/>\nplus spending on our military to defend it.<\/p>\n<li>\nElectricity for homes, businesses, industry<br \/>\n<br \/>\nNot a supply problem: an environmental problem,<br \/>\nwhich can be replaced by renewables (solar, wind, tides).<br \/>\nAlso the brittle grid.<br \/>\nWouldn&#8217;t distributed generation be more secure?\n<\/ul>\n<p>Both are mostly unprotected.<br \/>\nEspecially oil: production, transportation, refineries, storage.<br \/>\nForeign oil dependence is U.S. greatest strategic problem:<br \/>\ndirect cost, drain on economy, vulnerability.<\/p>\n<p>\nLooking at the military again, technology is the U.S. military&#8217;s<br \/>\ncenter of gravity (COG), and that is powered by electricity,<br \/>\nwhich is its critical vulnerability: remember those supply convoys.<br \/>\nHe said the military tends to be environmentalist because they have to<br \/>\nuse the same terrain repeatedly.<\/p>\n<p><p>\nDoD employs more than 3 million people: nation&#8217;s largest employer<br \/>\nand largest energy user.<br \/>\nMany buildings (307,000, mostly old) and many acres (28.6 million,<br \/>\nas big as Pennsylvania).<br \/>\nMany opportunities for retrofitting for efficiency and conservation<br \/>\nand for energy generation.<\/p>\n<p>\nDoD has 252 solar PV initiatives (and many other types).<\/p>\n<p>\nDoD FY2007 energy bill: $3.4 billion.<br \/>\nPlenty of opportunity to reduce that, and to lead the entire U.S.<br \/>\neconomy to renewables.<\/p>\n<p>\nElectricity drives the rest of the economy.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn 2001 U.S. military realized it had to reduce dependence on the<br \/>\nbrittle grid.<br \/>\nOf 584 U.S. bases, 90% now have local renewable energy supplies which<br \/>\ncan take them off the grid and export power to local communities.<\/p>\n<p>\n$1.9 billion DoD renewable energy market by 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\nDoD is helping drive the U.S. economy towards renewable energy.<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq<\/p>\n<p>\nPS: These notes summarize points from throughout Col. Nolan&#8217;s<br \/>\ntalk, not necessarily in the order he gave them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his morning keynote at the sold-out Southern Solar Summit, Col. Dan Nolan (U.S. Army ret.) asked the musical question: &#8220;When did our Marines become Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers?&#8221; This was after some Marines asked for solar power so they wouldn&#8217;t have to haul fuel in long convoys, which were among the most dangerous missions. Most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,40,14,264,265,2,570,21,32,23,73,289,74,24,4250,449,36],"tags":[1239,4310,4305,4300,4306,586,4301,8704,2061,4307,4311,1069,397,4303,2421,8782,4309,8713,4308,8732,8714,4304,4302],"class_list":["post-1862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-economy","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-government","category-military","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-science","category-security","category-solar","category-southeast-solar-summit-24-june-2011","category-transportation","category-wind","tag-army","tag-brittle-grid","tag-convoy","tag-dan-nolan","tag-dangerous","tag-distributed-generation","tag-dod","tag-economy","tag-electricity","tag-energy-security","tag-environmentalism","tag-fuel","tag-grid","tag-marines","tag-national-security","tag-oil","tag-petroleum","tag-renewable-energy","tag-resilient","tag-security","tag-solar","tag-tree-huggers","tag-vulnerability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}