From Garbage to Gas: Today’s Military Goes Green

This blog post was shared by the Weapons Systems Technology Information Analysis Center.

These days, most people like going to the gas station as much as going to the dentist. With the cost of gas slowly creeping upwards, consumers are starting to feel the pinch at the pump.

Now imagine filling up a military vehicle that weighs nearly 10 times your average family car with a much larger fuel tank. Many of these vehicles are currently in Afghanistan with our deployed forces, where fuel is even harder to come by.

The U.S. military uses fuel not only for its vehicles, but also for power generation at forward operating bases. Transporting fuel through the rugged, mountainous country adds enormous security, cost, and logistical considerations. However, just as your car and house require energy to sustain your way of life, our forces cannot carry out their vital mission without fuel for vehicles and power for facilities.

As such, they are necessities. Since our forces literally cannot live without these resources, they have made significant efforts to use them more efficiently, and are actively seeking alternatives that reduce dependence on petroleum.

Another major consideration of forward locations is what to do with all the trash they generate. Typically, it is either buried or shipped out – both of which can be expensive and take resources away from other aspects of the mission. Fortunately, there may be a way to get rid of much of this waste while partially solving this energy problem. How? Engineers working with the Advanced Materials, Manufacturing, and Testing Information Analysis Center (AMMTIAC) have been developing technologies that can manufacture fuel and energy from waste and other renewable products, such as garbage and organic wastes (known as biomass).

Such technologies are capable of processing and converting plastic, paper, food waste, and biomass into usable fuels, which can power electric generators, essential equipment at forward operating locations. By offsetting the petroleum-based fuels used to run them, more is available for vehicles.

AMMTIAC is continuing to research alternative and renewable fuel technologies and provide important technical information on renewable energy to enable our military to carry out their mission more efficiently, safely, and independently from petroleum-based fuels.

The Advanced Materials, Manufacturing and Testing Information Analysis Center (AMMTIAC) is the DOD Center of Excellence responsible for acquiring, archiving, analyzing, synthesizing, and disseminating scientific and technical information related to Advanced Materials, Manufacturing and Testing (AMMT).

Interested in learning more or working with AMMTIAC on an upcoming effort? AMMTIAC can be reached via the IAC website at http://iac.dtic.mil/.