Analyzing the feasibility of transitioning United States Army vehicles, contingency bases, and permanent bases toward 100% clean, renewable energy
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Creators/Contributors
- Author/Creator
- Katalenich, Scott Matthew, author.
- Contributor
- Jacobson, Mark Z. (Mark Zachary), degree supervisor. Thesis advisor
- Billington, Sarah L. (Sarah Longstreth), 1968- degree committee member. Thesis advisor
- Dabiri, John O. (John Oluseun), degree committee member. Thesis advisor
- Stanford University. Civil & Environmental Engineering Department.
Contents/Summary
- Summary
- The United States Army relies upon energy to maintain its mission readiness and capability to deploy forces worldwide in support of national security. Consequently, a chief priority of the Army's energy policy is to pursue energy security and energy resilience. This dissertation investigates a hypothesis that electrifying all end uses of energy, improving efficiency, and transitioning toward 100% clean, renewable energy generation in all sectors is a feasible means of improving energy security and resilience while simultaneously reducing air pollution, carbon emissions, and battlefield casualties. Three major challenges are identified and investigated: (1) transitioning vehicles from using combustion engines to either battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell systems; (2) reducing diesel consumption at contingency bases with combinations of solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and energy storage to offset generators making electricity; and (3) offsetting all Army-wide energy requirements on a net-zero, annual basis using solar and wind power at permanent bases. The analysis included producing computational and spreadsheet models to identify the potential for transitions, the scale of infrastructure required, the technology necessary, and potential benefits to the environment and human health. The key findings were: (1) vehicles; which include wheeled and tracked vehicles, locomotives, helicopters, prop planes, turbofan aircraft, small watercraft, and large ships; have the potential to transition using technological advancements and/or design changes while, in some cases, maintaining or improving power- (or thrust-) to-weight ratio, range, mass, and/or volume characteristics; (2) using energy efficient buildings made from structural insulated panels and installing battery energy storage, rooftop solar photovoltaics, and vertical axis wind turbines at contingency bases can decrease annual consumption of diesel in generators by upwards of 75% in all major climate zones worldwide while reducing air pollution, carbon emissions, and the risk of combat casualties; and (3) electrifying all end uses of energy and incorporating improvements to efficiency at permanent bases can potentially reduce projected energy demand for the year 2050 by 30%, which would facilitate offsetting all energy on a net, annual basis using locally-available clean, renewable resources
Bibliographic information
- Publication date
- 2020
- Copyright date
- 2020
- Note
- Submitted to the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department
- Note
- Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020
