Gallery: US military wages green war

Faced with the growing reality that energy insecurity threatens national and international “regular” security, military organizations around the world are working to conserve energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adopt alternative fuels. In the US, the Department of Defense is waging an increasing aggressive “green war” that encompasses everything from solar panels and geothermal heat to synthetic bio-based jet fuels and LEED-certified buildings.

Among the green military improvements pictured here are (click individual images for detailed captions):

• A Skystream 3.7 wind turbine ready to be installed at the Coast Guard’s Station Juneau in Alaska;
• Air Force Staff Sergeant Rusty Jones preparing to fuel an A-10 Thunderbolt with a mix of conventional jet fuel and a synthetic fuel made from animal fats and plant oils;
• Solar panels similar to those going into a new 1-megawatt microgrid at the Army’s Fort Hunter Ligget in California;
• Solar panels that power radios, laptops and other equipment for Marines at a combat center at Camp Pendleton in California;
• Photovoltaic systems on Navy buildings at Pearl Harbor;
• Low-speed electric vehicles already in use at Fort Hunter Liggett, which is the nation’s largest training facility for the Army Reserve;
• The “Prius of Navy warships,” the USS Makin Island, built with gas turbine engines and electric drive;
• Sedum plants growing on a green roof of the headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado;
• The Army’s diesel-electric Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck being tested at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, and
• Contractors installing antennae for a gas-electric AMR (automated meter reading) system at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.