August 12, 2021 | Foreign Policy
The Hidden Dangers of a Carbon-Neutral Military
If the U.S. military goes electric, it could be good for the planet—and bad for national security.
Alan Howard
U.S. Naval Postgraduate School
Dr. Brenda Shaffer
Senior Advisor for Energy
Washington has encouraged the electrification of wide swathes of the U.S. economy as a way to encourage greater use of renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. The U.S. Defense Department, the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. federal government, is now considering pursuing its own wide-scale electrification. Such a step would have profound strategic effects that should cause policymakers to proceed far more cautiously.
In recent months, the Pentagon has launched studies to examine increased use of electricity by the military, including in battle for vehicles, tanks, ships, and planes. The Pentagon has even studied the deployment of small nuclear reactors in the battle space to provide power. NATO is also promoting increased electrification of its allied militaries. According to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, “it makes little sense to have more and more electric vehicles on our streets while our armed forces still rely only on fossil fuels.”
What Stoltenberg said sounds intuitive but may not be true. Each time a military makes a major change to its energy system, it inevitably has immense geopolitical implications. When former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the decision to transfer the main source of fuel for the British Royal Navy from coal to oil, he understood the decision had significant strategic implications. Fueled by oil, the British Royal Navy could cover larger distances without refueling and at quicker speed. Yet, through this decision, London would be dependent largely on foreign-produced oil versus homegrown coal.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2021/08/12/hidden-dangers-carbon-neutral-military/
