Comments on: Air Force Jet Takes Off with Sustainable Fuel Source

By: U.S. Army To Use Solar Backpacks In Afghanistan | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:40:45 +0000

[...] U.S. military is increasingly embracing renewable energy, whether it be utilizing biofuel in the Air Force or creating tanks that run on hydrogen fuel cells. In it’s most recent effort, the U.S. Army [...]

By: U.S. Coast Guard to utilize wind power | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:48:09 +0000

[...] in the footsteps of the U.S. military’s embracing of renewable energy, such as fighter jets running on biofuel and hydrogen fuel cell powered tanks, the U.S. coast guard has decided to use wind power by [...]

By: WBrooke

WBrooke — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:44:15 +0000

To Troy,

You are right, the Air Force probably doesn’t care about hugging trees. But if an organization like this, with no mandate to protect the environment, can go fossil-fuel free, in a strange way that gives me more hope than a hand-full of do-gooders riding their bikes to work with the intention of saving the planet (by the way, I’m a do-gooder who rides a bike to work).

Think of this as a laboratory for all of society. If the most energy intensive endeavors, like fuelling an air-force, can be done through renewable sources, then the kinks in the system will be worked out and released to the public in an optimised form.

We fight bitter wars over fossil oil right now. When our tanks and fighter-jets are powered by dandilions, maybe it will demonstrate that the fight is now moot.

The only down-side I can see to this is that there is no mention of how much energy is used in growing, harvesting and refining the camelina oil. If you need 1.5 gallons of fossil oil to produce 1.0 gallons of camelina oil, then we will still be fighting wars for oil, vegetable or otherwise.

By: AngerOfTheNorth

AngerOfTheNorth — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:26:33 +0000

The plant used may not be a food source, but surely it takes up land that could be used to grow crops? Okay, so as a “weed” it can be grown on poor quality soil, but if you want to create enough of this stuff, you’ll eventually use arable land.

By: Troy Horn

Troy Horn — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:48:47 +0000

I’d like to think this is about environmental concerns, but being able to power military components without the need for foreign resources was probably sold more to the brass by concerns about being able to fight if someone cut off our oil supply rather than giving two chits about the trees and those who hug them.

And on another very loosely related note… never noticed how much the A-10 resembles a mechanical Mickey Mouse from the forward view before.

By: Michael Janzen

Michael Janzen — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:36:29 +0000

Well… if the (oil) wells run dry you now know who will still be able to shoot their guns. Yeah… yikes.