The Secretary of the Navy has big plans for alternative energy for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Ray Mabus, Secretary of the U.S. Navy, said at the National Clean Energy Summit 4.0 that the military needed to end its dependence on fossil fuels.
“And it’s costly, but it’s costly in more ways than just money,” he said. “We import gasoline more than anything else – gasoline and water – more than anything else into Afghanistan. For every 50 convoys of gasoline we bring in, we lose a Marine. We lose a Marine, killed or wounded. That is too high a price to pay for fuel.”
Mabus plans to have the Navy and Marine Corps produce at least half of its energy from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2020. He noted that Marines in Afghanistan had been able to reduce their fossil fuel usage anywhere from 25 to 90 percent by using solar panels.
There is the human cost, and then the economic cost. And if there's anyone that knows about the high cost of fossil fuel, it's the U.S. military. In fact in 2006 during the height of the Iraq War, the U.S. Air Force consumed more fuel than American planes consumed during the entire four year span of World War 2.
Even if you are a climate change skeptic, it still makes perfect economic sense to get off fossil fuels. With that said however, I have no doubt it's only a matter of time before Ray Mabus is accused of peddling conspiracy and a "green agenda." Because ya'know, the Right Wing is all about supporting the troops.