Christopher Helman has an interesting piece at Forbes.com regarding the military and energy consumption. In addition to other energy consumption issues within the military, he highlights an interesting study that correlates fuel consumption with troop deaths. From Forbes.com (emphasis added):

If President Obama decides to send another 20,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, the Department of Defense will also have to figure out how to send along another half-million gallons of fuel a day to support them. Since the end of World War II, the use of petroleum-based fuels has risen 175% to 22 gallons per solider per day. In 2008 U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan burned through 25 million barrels of oil.

It’s more than a conservation issue. More fuel consumption correlates directly to more deaths. So asserts a new report by Deloitte Consulting on the military’s energy security. “The biggest game changer for reducing casualties is reduction in convoys,” says retired Air Force General Charles Wald, the lead author of the report. Fuel convoys are easy targets for roadside bombs, which have accounted for nearly half of American deaths in Iraq and almost 40% of deaths in Afghanistan.

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It might feel good to use an alterna-fuel, but because most airstrips and harbors are relatively easy to supply it would do nothing to reduce the casualties incurred by trucking diesel to battlefields. If the intention is to use coal-derived fuels to reduce reliance on foreign oil it would be far more cost-effective for the government to open up coastal areas to oil drilling. More domestic oil isn’t something the Deloitte report recommends, though Gen. Wald concurred in an e-mail exchange that it would help. “Any measure that decreases our nation’s dependency on imported oil is positive,” he says.

Frankly, the greatest emphasis should be on reducing fuel consumption on land, not just to power humvees and tanks, but also electric generators. During peacetime, generators powered by liquid fuels burn 26 million gallons a year. In wartime, figures Deloitte, that has jumped to 357 million gallons (roughly 8.5 million barrels) a year.

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