ReVision Vitality
Amidst the noise, haste, and chaos of contemporary life there are extra constructive developments for humanity than one would possibly assume. Everybody focuses on the disasters of the local weather disaster, and whereas these do encourage our each day work, we additionally really feel it’s necessary to focus on the hopeful – the very actual improvements pushing our clear vitality motion ahead. The aim of this new column on our weblog is to discover noteworthy causes for optimism that we observe from ReVision Vitality’s entrance row seat within the renewable vitality enviornment.
Renewable Vitality Is Homeland Safety for America
by co-founder Phil Coupe
As a result of fossil fuels are finite, and inhabitants development is predicted to extend international vitality demand by 50% over the following 30 years, may it’s argued that our underground reserves at the moment are America’s most respected strategic protection property?
photograph credit score: U.S. Marine Corps photograph by Lance Cpl. Tyler S. Giguere.
At current there are solely two attainable future fossil gasoline situations: they run out, or they turn out to be too environmentally problematic to burn (scientific consensus signifies we’ve already crossed this rubicon). Lengthy-term nationwide vitality safety, resilience, and independence can by no means be actually achieved by means of a method that depends upon non-renewable sources like coal, oil, and fuel. These sources are susceptible to produce chain disruptions, excessive climate occasions, worth volatility, and eventual depletion.
Ahead-thinking protection brass have lengthy been involved concerning the U.S. Army’s over-reliance on fossil fuels as a weak hyperlink within the battlefield provide chain. In 2003, Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis (who later served as Secretary of Protection below President Trump) acknowledged that the army “have to be unleashed from the tether of gasoline.” That’s as a result of Mattis noticed the casualties that resulted from lethal enemy assaults on gasoline convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Military estimated that one in twenty-four gasoline convoys resulted in a U.S. casualty from 2003-2007 within the Center East.
The Vitality-Safety Paradigm in 2022
The battle in opposition to Ukraine, mixed with Russia’s many years lengthy petro-stranglehold on western Europe, additional highlights the energy-security paradigm. As Ukraine desperately tries to fend off Russian air superiority, floor troops, and naval firepower, the unequalled vitality density of aviation gasoline, diesel, and gasoline underscore how treasured these sources are to a nation’s protection. It’s practically unimaginable at this time to defend airspace, borders, and the excessive seas with out liquid fuels to energy fighter jets, heavy artillery, and naval ships.
Armed with this info, Individuals have a possibility to vastly improve nationwide safety by minimizing fossil gasoline use and serving to construct the renewable vitality, storage, and grid infrastructure essential for a societal pivot away from coal, oil, and fuel.
Contemplating all of the above, it’s believable to argue that the final nation standing with the best underground reserves will finally be the strongest on the planet.
If that’s true, then getting 100% of Individuals on board with the clear vitality transition is mission essential. Right now’s actuality – that renewable vitality is essential to nationwide safety – is perhaps the strongest argument to persuade individuals just like the Koch brothers and the fossil gasoline business itself that the U.S. is stronger when its vitality sources are much less susceptible. Collectively we are able to pursue a protection technique that features vitality independence and resilience with out burning fossil fuels besides to guard our nation and to energy essential industries.
Photo voltaic array on the U.S. Air Drive Academy in Colorado,.
Happily, we have already got highly effective allies within the Pentagon. Renewable vitality, battery storage, warmth pumps, and electrical automobiles are being quickly deployed at U.S. Army bases throughout the nation as a result of the Division of Protection acknowledges anthropogenic local weather harm as one among America’s most pressing nationwide safety threats, and since fossil fuels have confirmed to be problematic within the battle theater.
Mockingly, the U.S. Division of Protection is the one largest vitality client on earth. The excellent news is that the DoD is presently pursuing a aim of procuring or producing 25% renewable energy for its facilities by 2025 below a regulation signed into impact by President George W. Bush in 2007.
“We face all types of threats in our line of labor, however few of them actually should be known as existential. The local weather disaster does. Local weather change is making the world extra unsafe and we have to act,” acknowledged Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin.
In a conflict-ridden world that’s anticipated to endure more and more excessive climate because of local weather harm, nationwide protection has turn out to be extra pressing and sophisticated. We’re cautiously optimistic that an American vitality transition to renewables and storage represents a possibility to convey our divided nation again collectively to attain long-term safety, independence, and resilience. And because the largest emitter of greenhouse gases over the previous 175 years, it’s additionally a possibility for the U.S. to be accountable for its out-sized damaging environmental influence on the remainder of the world.
