Hauling fuel to remote bases not only puts troops in jeopardy, by sending them on convoy runs through bomb-laden roads. It can cost as much as $400 per gallon to get the fossil juice there. So it's not surprising that the Army is looking for portable wind-powered generators. The real head-scratcher is: what took them so long?
For years, the military has been trudging towards eco-friendliness, dumping some of their gas-guzzling Humvees in favor of greener electric rides, experimenting with trash-powered generators in Baghdad and investing $300,000 into research on wave-driven converters. They’ve also installed wind farms at bases nationwide. So with around $420 million in eco-targeted federal stimulus dollars to play with, it's time for cooler green gadgets.
As with most things tech, cooler means smaller – and the military’s ideas are no exception. They’re asking for prototypes of a compact wind turbine, weighing less than 45 pounds and able to be compressed to 1/8th its operational size in less than four minutes. (In 2007, the Joint Chiefs of Staff negged a "priority 1" request by the head of coalition forces in western Iraq for 183 solar- and wind turbine-equipped power stations. But those were supposed to way, way bigger - up to 40 feet long.)
These more manageable-sized generators should be as tough as a tank. "The system is expected to operate in harsh weather environments including wide daily swings in temperature, sand and snowstorms, hail and rain, and strong winds in excess of 60 mph," according to the request for proposals. The mounted generators would power peripheral systems, like GPS and target acquisition systems (which use 60 to 100W, about as much as a home computer). The Army estimates that the turbines would provide between 10 and 100 percent of these secondary energy requirements – and save the equivalent cost in fuel.
The economic and environmental benefits are puny compared to military initiatives like the solar panel array at Nellis Air Force Base, which generates 30-million kilowatts of energy per year. But, as the army’s proposal points out, easy-to-use, portable wind-generators could have widespread use, including “hybrid vehicles, electrical power for remote locations, backup power for telecommunication devices and computers, and forestry service sensors.”
[Photo: DoD]
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