Defense energy: small, incremental steps do better than sweeping reforms.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Energy

The Air Force saved $700 million in its five-year fuel budget just by redirecting flights through shorter routes and choreographing more efficient itineraries for cargo deliveries.

Army and Marine Corps troops collectively have shed hundreds of pounds of batteries from their rucksacks and are using solar chargers to power their computers and radios.

At Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, an electricity microgrid was used to replace 22 generators with just four.

Earlier this year, a Marine Corps commander in Afghanistan bought 55 gallons of cotton seed oil from a local farmer and troops used it to power generators on base.

These are all ways in which the military is becoming greener, by necessity rather than by choice. Reducing the demand for both fuel and batteries means there will be fewer supply trucks on the road that enemies will target with bombs and landmines. Three-fourths of the Pentagon's fuel supplies are used by deployed forces.

These initiatives, however, amount to just drops in the Pentagon's gigantic fuel bucket. In 2010, U.S. forces consumed more than 5 billion gallons of fuel in military operations.

Despite grand pronouncements and clarion calls by senior defense leaders on the need for sweeping reform, the U.S. military's dependence on fuel is not likely to decrease, and may in fact grow in the future. During World War II, troops on average needed a gallon of fuel per day. The current demand is between 15 to 22 gallons a day per soldier.

"Combat is inherently inefficient," said retired Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, former commander of U.S. European Command and currently a consultant at Deloitte LLP.

"You can't tell soldiers to shut off their tank and truck engines. Soldiers have to fight and survive, and that requires a lot of fuel," Wald said in an interview.

Military weapon systems, by design, are fuel hogs. "If you have a technology that doesn't use fuel, let me know," Wald said. "The only way to get high performance out of a jet engine is to pump a lot of fuel," he added. "There isn't some magic formula out there that is going to change that" in the foreseeable future.

Before invading Iraq in 2003, the Pentagon spent tens of millions of dollars building a pipeline to ensure supplies for U.S. forces once they entered the country. Securing access to fuel remains a key component of military training.

"We are still training on how to build pipelines," said Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, deputy commander of U.S. Army Forces...