Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) recently had a chance to question General David Petraeus about the wars we are fighting in the Middle East. One of her questions was about the use of alternative energy by the military. Think I am making that up? Watch this:
I am a believer in the expansion and development of alternative energy sources. Having done my own investigation, my analysis leads to the conclusion that we should expand our use of solar power, wind power, hydro power etc. A cost/benefit analysis mandates a move to alternative energy.
HOWEVER (!!) people such as Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) do damage to the movement toward alternative energy when she asks such questions. My friends should not that we must seek to implement alternative energy every place we can; my friends should not argue that as the largest user of energy (according to Congresswoman Giffords, anyway) that the military has a responsibility to increase its use of alternative energy.
Too many of the proponents of alternative energy are – in my opinion – tone deaf. They either do not care or do not understand that by asking questions such as this in a forum such as this that they invite ridicule and derision. The cause is not advanced at all. Instead I wish that if the Congresswoman felt the need to raise the issue of alternative energy at a hearing about the prosecution of two wars she had asked about the use of energy by the military and stressed the need for new energy sources here in the States while allowing the military to worry only about winning the war(s) and not about engineering social policy.
There are bad people in Afghanistan that want to hurt my children. I want General Petraeus and his troops to kill those people. I do not even one of them distracted by making useless gestures such as changing the sources of energy that have proven effective in powering the military to date.
I have no problem with R&D aimed at reducing even the military’s dependency on oil. But such experimentation and development should NOT take place in a war zone. I think that is self-evident to anyone who puts even a little thought into it.
h/t to RedState.com and Cubachi.com
This is an example of why Alternative Energy proponents cannot get traction
– June 22, 2010
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The military has actually been leading the way for alternative energy R&D. With today’s high-tech weapons, recon, etc. they rely on a huge amount of power being available in some pretty remote areas. A lot of this is being tested in the battlefield simply because they need the power and need it now.
See this article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Solar-Power-and-the-Military&id=2249283
And those areas of Afghanistan are very remote. They need the power and testing it there with traditional methods is the way it is done.
I have a question that I have asked several people and have gotten various answers. How do you all feel the war in Afghanistan will play out?
With the discovery of Lithium there, we will be in Afghanistan for the rest of our lives certainly, probably longer if we don’t completely collapse.