Mar 19 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Eric Wolff North County Times, Escondido, Calif.



Ask the Marines or the Navy, and the case they make for energy and water efficiency isn't just for the planet, it's for financial savings.

Amid rising debate about California's climate change law, which is set to take effect next year, the state Senate Committee on Climate Change invited senior military officials to discuss the issue at a meeting at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on Thursday. The state law will require a variety of industries to sharply decrease their output of carbon, which is produced primarily by energy consumption.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Jackson, commander of Marine Installations West, and Rear Adm. Bill French, commander of Navy Region Southwest, both emphasized the financial necessity of trimming the costs of the military's increasing need for energy.

"Supporting our forces is energy intensive," Jackson said.

 To illustrate, Jackson said the number of radios in a battalion had leapt from 175 in 2001 to 1,200 in today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Powering all those electronics requires generators that run on petroleum, which makes the military very sensitive to fuel prices: A $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil means an extra $1.6 billion in the defense budget, the general said.

As for domestic bases, French said that naval bases spend 32 percent of their non-payroll costs on utilities.

Both services have been aggressively cutting energy and water use for years.

Navy Southwest has four megawatts of solar power and a 272 kilowatt geothermal plant, and it plans to add to both in coming years.

The Marines are investigating a spray coating to better insulate tents, and they have a mobile solar generator that can power all of a Marine company's needs.

Neither officer wanted to directly connect the high energy needs of forces overseas with deaths on the battlefield, but retired Adm. Dennis McGinn, who works with the nonprofit consultant CNA in Virginia, had no hesitation.

He said that many of the more advanced improvised explosive devices in use by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan had been developed in Iran, a nation that relies heavily on its state-run oil company to supply its budget. Some of the money spent on car fuel, which represents the majority of American oil expenditure, goes straight to Iran.

"If we want to see who's funding terrorists, when we pull into the gas station, we ought to turn the rearview mirror to ourselves," he said. "That money is going to fund terrorism."

Call staff writer Eric Wolff at 760-740-5412.

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