Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Breitbart; Over to industry, to develop new environmentally friendly sources of energy which can be used on operational deployments.

Army could phase out fossil fuels to attract ecofriendly recruits, senior general says

 Dominic Nicholls, defence and security correspondent
13 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 1:33AM

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Speaking at a defence and security event in London, he said: “The Army is leading defence on sustainable energy solutions, both at home and when deployed overseas. We may be at the inflection point of how we power our next generation of vehicles. Our current equipment programme is possibly the last to be dependent on fossil fuel.”

Calling on British industry to lead the way on developing new sources of energy for the military, he added: “The challenge, and genuine commercial opportunity, is to aim high and lead the world in the development of military equipment which is not only battle-winning but also environmentally sustainable.

“That gives the British Army considerable operational benefits, such as reducing our logistical drag, and also puts the Army … on the right side of the environmental argument, especially in the eyes of that next generation of recruits that increasingly make career decisions based on a prospective employer’s environmental credentials.”

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Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/13/army-could-phase-fossil-fuels-attract-ecofriendly-recruits-senior/

Fine words, but that new source of energy doesn’t exist.

The US Army invested money into “project dilithium“, a plan to deploy small modular 10MW nuclear reactors to the front line, but there is a lot of skepticism. Those reactors would be very high value targets, if an insurgent attack managed to rupture the core and spray core material all over the base, you’d have to immediately evacuate or die horribly, maybe in the middle of a firefight.

In any case, I don’t think British Gen Sir Mark Carleton-Smith who gave the speech had nuclear power in mind, he wants something renewable and eco friendly.