The Ways in which the Military is employing Alternative Energy

The USA military witnesses that its branches must revamp their planning on the best way to engage in “the theatre of war” from the new, post-Cold War realm of the modern day. The one thing how the military leaders stress may be the wish to have the forces deployed inside the theater to be more energy-independent. Currently the US military has policies and procedures in position to interact with allies or sympathetic local populaces to assist its forces inside field obtain needed energy and clean water when engaged within a foreign military campaign. However, this isn't wholly reliable, as the US could find itself facing unilateral military activities, or have itself in a situation where its allies cannot help while using the resources it requires to conduct its military actions successfully.

The united states military is extremely thinking about certain alternative energies that, while using the right research and development technologically, causes it to be energy independent, or perhaps a great deal more so, about the battlefield. One thing that greatly interests the military along these lines will be the development of small nuclear reactors, that may be portable, for producing theater-local electricity. The military is impressed with how clean-burning nuclear reactors are and the way power efficient these are. Causing them to portable with the typical warfare of today's highly mobile, small-scaled military operations can be something they may be researching. The most prominent thing that this US military thinks these small nuclear reactors would be helpful for involves the elimination of hydrogen (for fuel cell) from seawater. Furthermore , it thinks that converting seawater to hydrogen fuel in this manner can have less negative influence on environmental surroundings than its current practices of remaining supplied out in the sector.

Seawater is, in point of fact, the military's highest interest in terms of the challenge of renewable power supply. Seawater could be endlessly “mined” for hydrogen, which in turn powers advanced fuel cells. Using OTEC, seawater may also be endlessly converted into desalinated, potable water.  Potable water and hydrogen for power are two of the things which a near-future deployed military force will require most of all.

Inside cores of nuclear reactors—which as mentioned above are devices highly interesting, in portable form, on the US military—we come across temperatures greater than 1000 degrees Celsius. If this degree of temperature is when combined a thermo-chemical water-splitting procedure, we have on our hands the most efficient methods of becoming worn water into its component parts, which can be molecular hydrogen and oxygen. The minerals and salts which might be in seawater would have to be extracted with a desalination process to make the way in which clear for your water-splitting process. These could then be utilized, including in vitamins or even in salt shakers, or perhaps delivered back for the ocean (recycling). By turning water to nuclear reactors to extract this hydrogen from your sea, so that you can then input that into fuel cells to power advanced airplanes, tanks, ground vehicles, etcetera, is clearly excellent for R & D priority list of the military.