America's military feels rise in fuel price

20-03-06

Tens of thousands of US military vehicles, ships and aircraft are guzzling fuel every day around the world and with the bill rising the Pentagon is trying harder to conserve.
The US military consumed 144.8 mm barrels of fuel in 2004, spending $ 6.7 bn, according to the Defence Energy Support Centre (DESC). Last year, it consumed only 128.3 mm barrels, but spent $ 8.8 bn, as the average price per barrel rose by almost 50 % to more than $ 68.

For 2006, DESC estimates the military will need 130.6 mm barrels and pay more than $ 10 bn for it, at a price of more than $ 77 per barrel.
As oil prices hit a record $ 70.85 per gallon last year and have hovered around $ 60 ever since, the Pentagon realized the only way to soften the blow would be to consume less.

Fears of shortages after Hurricane Katrina gave the issue new urgency, prompting Deputy Secretary of Defence Gordon England to send a wide memo last September asking all military departments, defence agencies and employees to conserve fuel. Amid the measures England suggested were increased training on combat simulators instead of actual war machines and shutting down engines instead of idling.
Two months later, the Pentagon also ordered all defence facilities to cut their energy consumption each year by 2 % and to increase their use of renewable energy to 7.5 % of total demand by 2013 and 25 % by 2025. Even as the White House repeatedly said the jury was still out on whether industrial emissions caused global warming, the Pentagon ordered facilities to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 % from 1990 levels by 2010.

The biggest gas guzzlers are heavy armoured vehicles like tanks and humvees and aircraft like the massive B-52 bomber. They were designed decades ago, when gas prices were not an issue. But they have remained a vital part of combat missions.
A case in point is the Abrams tank, designed in 1979 for rapid assaults across Europe against the Soviet Union. Its massive armour can survive vicious direct hits and its turbine engine can propel it from zero to 20 miles per hour in seven seconds. But it weighs 70 tons and consumes 56 gallons an hour at full clip and 10 gallons an hour while idling.
 

 

Source: USNews & World Report