More than 3,000 members of service and civilian contractors have been killed or wounded protecting the long-term supply convoys carry fuel and water through winding roads of Afghanistan, according to the Secretary of Defense Deputy William Lynn. Recognizing that even though the military is becoming more technologically capable, it is more intensive in energy, the Pentagon last month released its first strategy of energy of battlefield (Greenwire, 15 June).
At the same time, fuel costs are affecting the budget of the hard Department - in 2008, when oil prices hit record, the Pentagon spent 20 million dollars in fuel alone. Each $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil cost the Department $ 1.3 billion extra.
"The way to build energy in our operations is a key part of fight and win wars of the nation", said Lynn at the opening of the new energy battleground of the Pentagon report last month. "We need less [energy], the more operationally resistant will be".
But while insiders say outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates understands military energy dependence poses serious security challenge, he stopped participating publicly the issue. And although President Obama talked often geopolitical threats from dependence on fossil fuels, power of the military requirements have not made their way into its national programme of energy.
Now, as Panetta comes to the Pentagon-backed bipartisan, strong, some energy defense insiders expect it will bring the kind of support at a higher level that could break the Department grinding bureaucracy and bring transformational change.
His friends and colleagues say they have little doubt that Panetta understands the importance of energy issues for the Department of Defense and the advantages and disadvantages in the game.
"Get the equation of energy beautifully," said Admiral James Watkins, a Republican who was senior officer of the Navy in the 1980s before becoming Secretary of energy by President George h. Bush and served as co-Chairman of the joint initiative of Committee of ocean with Panetta. "It has long prospects, has reality in the short term, who knows that he has to face and he knows how to deal with the two."
Former Senator John Warner (R-va.), a former Secretary of the Navy and President of the Commission of the Senate Armed Services said that Panetta is the dependence of fuel for the military security implications.
"Given the fuel is as ammunition - one without the other can do", said Warner.
But get nothing in agenda of the Chief of the defence budget and the current wars found that a heavy lift. In confirmation of Panetta hearing month passed there was only a question of energy buried among the flood of consultations on spending cuts, terrorism and the withdrawal of troops.
"This is an area that I want to learn much more about" Panetta told Senator Mark Udall (D - Colo.), who recently submitted a draft law on Defense (Journal on June 9 in E & E) energy. Udall thanked him and then directed the conversation to terrorist havens in Pakistan.
Costs of energy in question
Panetta was chosen largely for his budgetary prowess. As a Congressman from California, he presided over the Committee's budget from 1989 to 1993. During the Clinton administration, he was director of the Office of management and budget and later served as Chief of staff of the White House. Obama calls for 400 million dollars in defense cuts in the next 12 years, and some in Congress want to go even deeper. If energy capture attention of Panetta in his new job, likely to be at the cost.
"When you look at the tax cuts that would have to make, it would be almost impossible not to address energy," said retired air force general Charles Wald, who now works in the main military power of Deloitte DOD business issues. "Different types of energy can have the potential to reduce costs, and you can certainly ensure greater stability [than oil] as regards budgets."
Money saved in energy can be reinvested elsewhere in the army, as Gates suggested other savings this year, said Wald.
But while the savings of energy efficiency measures can return quickly, alternative fuel and clean technology is currently being pushed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and others typically require large initial investments and take years to pay for themselves.
The formulas that the Pentagon used to calculate the return on investment are beginning to take into account these paybacks in the long term and are beginning to incorporate the intangible benefits, such as the security that comes from a base not dependent on the civil power grid. But in the current fiscal environment, Panetta will be under pressure to reduce costs in the short term, and currently the Department is taking all the advantages of financial tools that you can distribute the costs of investment in years (Greenwire, 30 June).
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