March/April 2013 Issue

14 Weird Ways the US Military Is Becoming a Clean, Green Fighting Machine

Solar blankets, hybrid Humvees, and other green projects pushed by armed services—and the mad scientists of DARPA.

Illustration: Frank Stockton

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DARPA

Project Aquaman: The “Materials With Novel Transport Properties” (MANTRA) program seeks to create a 75-gallon-an-hour water desalination plant small enough to fit into a “man-portable backpack system…allowing decentralized water sustainment for increased troop agility and mobility.”
DARPA or Derpa? Pretty realistic, so long as you’re not fighting in a desert. Er…

The Butterfly Effect: Why load up live insects with backpacks that absorb the energy from their fluttering wings? To power the microscopic systems that turn them into “hopping and swimming” drone aircraft. Also under consideration: nuclear-powered cyborg insects and full-size robots powered on the grasses they eat.
DARPA or Derpa? Glenn Greenwald will never look at a mosquito the same way.

Pocket Rockets: Four words: handheld nuclear fusion reactor. What could go wrong?
DARPA or Derpa? Must invent fusion first.

Dirigible Deployment: The Walrus blimp could haul 2 million pounds of gear halfway across the world in about a week—doing the work of 50 C-130 cargo planes. Old is the new new!
DARPA or Derpa? Totally feasible, but sadly scrapped in 2006.
 

ARMY

Hybrid Humvee: “Fuel Efficiency Demonstrator-Alpha” burns 70 percent less fuel than the standard Humvee and is so cool-looking, Michael Bay could have designed it.
DARPA or Derpa? It’s gotten a lot further than the first hybrid tank design (scuttled in 2009).

Night Mission: The Army is testing an “Eco-Enhanced Mattress Unit” made of recycled material that is easily washable and could last four to five times as long as a standard mattress.
DARPA or Derpa? Low-tech but practical as hell. A half million soldiers use a lot of mattresses.

Waste? Not! At New York’s Ft. Drum, one of the Army’s largest bases, animal and plant waste could soon light up the parade grounds, and that’s no crap.
DARPA or Derpa?? If you can power a time-traveling DeLorean on garbage, why not a military base on tree trimmings?
 

AIR FORCE

Eat Your Heart Out, Solyndra: At Nevada’s Nellis AFB, the largest photovoltaic solar array in North America saves $1 million annually, and is equal to taking 185,000 cars off roadways.
DARPA or Derpa? Next up: solar drones?

Legalize the Draft: Surfing Aircraft Vortices for Energy, a.k.a. convoys of heavy aircraft drafting off each other in frighteningly close formations, could SAVE fuel use by 10 percent.
DARPA or Derpa? Autopiloting 290-ton cargo jets seconds away from each other? Eep!

Big Brother in Your Tank: 30,000 vehicles are being outfitted with gas cap rings that track fuel consumption and identify needed maintenance, saving more than a million man-hours needed to check odometers. (Wait, what?!)
DARPA or Derpa? I feel the need for speed…governors?
 

NAVY

Water World: “The US Navy is surrounded by seawater and the Navy needs jet fuel,” a Navy research scientist says. “In seawater you have CO2 and you have hydrogen. The question is how do you convert that into jet fuel?” The search for fuel cells continues.
DARPA or Derpa? Alchemy FTW!

Thar She Blows: The Navy boasts the world’s largest diesel/wind hybrid power plant…in Gitmo. It’s part of a broader initiative to green the prison base, including bicycle MPs and solar-powered floodlights.
DARPA or Derpa? Gray-waterboarding? (Sorry.)

 

MARINES

Experimental Bases (“ExFOBs“): Both the Army and the Marines want self-sufficient, net-energy-zero bases that use hybrid solar generators, solar fridges, and microgrids.
DARPA or Derpa? For the Army, a work in progress. The Marines have ExFOBS in Afghanistan.

Green Grunts: In Afghanistan, Marine bases use “ground renewable expeditionary energy systems” (GREENS), foldable solar panels. On patrol, solar “blankets” power communications gear, cutting 20 pounds of batteries per pack.
DARPA or Derpa? The Marines learned from the pros—at Burning Man.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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