Bullet Points: Panel: Energy R&D at DoD

Posted Wed, 11/04/2009 - 7:44pm

DOD ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PANEL
Rick Carlin (Director of the Division of Mechanic and Energy Conversion, Office of Naval Research);Tom Hartranft (Army Energy Branch Chief, Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory); Mark Lewis (US Air Force Chief Scientist to Chief of Staff and Secretary of Air Force); Al Shaffer (Director of Plans and Policy, Office of Secretary of Defense/Director, Defense Research and Engineering)

  • Power delivery, distribution, energy storage, and facility energy conservation technology implementations:
    • Focus: installations and deployed bases
    • Main concerns are energy security, affordability, and sustainability
    • Deployed bases: assessing burdened cost of fuel for electrical generators to power Forward Operating Base (FOB) temporary facilities to include Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) and equipment plug loads
      • Developed guidance for sustainable contingency operations
    • Installations in the continental US:
      • Working systems integration of power delivery and building thermal and electric loads; microgrid power architecture to wheel onsite distributed energy resources power anywhere at any time on installation. Facilitates ’islanding’: installation from regional utility power grid during regional power outages lasting hours or months
      • Developed energy conservation specifications for new military construction requests for proposals that ensure 30% better than the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) energy efficiency standard. Corps of Engineers implemented 2008
      • Now developing similar specs for incorporating energy technologies in existing buildings during major retrofits
  • Research and development programs in Office of Naval Research (ONR):
    • Energy is 90% of the entire ONR Research and Development budget
    • Research areas include:
      • Advanced naval power systems
      • Air platform power
      • Power electronic
      • Personal power (e.g. light, compact 250-1000 watt generators)
      • Bio-sensors, materials, processes
      • Manufacturing science
      • Functional materials
    • Many ONR technologies are not available on the commercial market
    • Angles by which ONR looks at energy innovation:
      • Fuel management — (e.g., Marines manage the cost of delivery to the battlefield). Units getting smaller, more agile, and networked make it complicated but potentially cost effective
      • Strategic standpoint — ONR looked at synthetic fuels (e.g., biodiesel; Fischer-Tropsch process). Methane hydrate was found to emit more greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Fuel cell combustion engine in which methane hydrates could be turned into hydrogen
  • Air Force energy crisis:
    • Two central assumptions:
      • Aerospace systems are ultimately energy systems in that they convert chemical energy in liquid fuel to useful kinetic energy for flight
      • Every great advancement in the aerospace sciences has begun with advancement in propulsion and power
    • Systems of flight are systems of energy
      • Improvement begins and ends with energy
      • Air Force is the single biggest user of fuel in the US
      • Entire US government accounts for nearly 2% of the nation’s energy consumption — Air Force alone consumes 50% of that
    • Air Force budget for fuel is $6 billion per year. Every time the cost of a barrel of oil goes up by $10, the fuel budget goes up by $600 million
    • Focusing on facilities is the easiest way to make changes because it is mainly a matter of electricity efficiency
    • The other 80+% of Air Force consumption is in flight (See Figure 3)
    • It is difficult, time-consuming, and costly to make a more efficient airplane
      • Propulsion and power (i.e., energy) is the fundamental input in changing the system
    • Address basic range equation — to improve the distance a plane can travel on a tank of gas, one must do at least one of the following:
      • Produce a more efficient engine
      • Redesign it for a more aerodynamic shape
      • Improve the structural weight fraction of the plane
      • Simply fly less often
    • Possible improvements in lift-to-drag ratios could greatly improve efficiency
    • Increase use of unmanned vehicles

 

Conversation: 
Panel: Energy R&D at DoD