Defense and Energy and Climate Change(?) Oh My!
With all the back and forth over climate change and national security, one issue has been lost in the debate: there are a lot of reasons to look hard at our dependence on petroleum for energy supplies–global warming is just one of them.
Consider that in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the largest cause of casualties have been IED’s–many of them on supply routes used to transport petroleum and other vital supplies. That’s not a criticism of the supply routes or the military–it’s just reality.
I was reminded of it this morning when I read an account in The Guardian about U.S. Marines in Afghanistan conducting an energy audit.
The audit was ordered by General James T. Conway, the Marine Corps Commandant. According to The Guardian,
Conway, who led the marine invasion of Iraq in 2003, said he was motivated by the high costs — as well as the risks to troops – of getting oil and water to combat zones. For land-locked Afghanistan, the nearest port at Karachi in Pakistan is more than 400 miles away from marine bases, and maintaining those long supply lines has become an increasingly dangerous proposition.
But it’s not just about supply lines–it’s about the cost of operations, too. Again, from the Guardian:
The costs of shipping water and fuel to the troops is also becoming unsustainable. The price of a gallon of petrol in a war zone can cost up to $100. “It is a shocking figure to compute what it costs by the time you pour that gallon of gas into a Humvee or an aircraft in the place you are operating,” Conway said.
You can read the whole Guardian story here.
