Weaning the Navy from Foreign Oil
By Donald Wilkins
Liquid hydrocarbon fuel is a convenient carrier of high-density energy and, despite research on hydrogen (H2) fuel, electric batteries, and other touted replacements, will likely remain the preferred fuel for transportation for the time being. Aviation and ship propulsion, where the low-energy densities of the proposed alternatives are completely unsatisfactory, will have an insatiable thirst for liquid hydrocarbons into the foreseeable future. At the same time, fuel costs are crimping already tight budgets, and costs are expected to continue to rise as demand increases and supplies tighten.
Debate on the size of petroleum deposits centers on 2010 to 2020 as peak production years, after which declining output is expected to fall past upward-surging demand. ExxonMobil, as one example of an oil producer that believes non-OPEC production will peak in 2010, will construct no more refineries.1 Whether we view production as being limited by physical depletion or by political mismanagement, few maintain that the days of secure and inexpensive hydrocarbon liquid fuel will continue.
Increasing industrialization of former agrarian nations is building demand faster than new sources can become available. Complicating the supply picture, many petroleum resources are controlled by nations that have policies hostile to the United States.
Prudent, innovative adversaries will avoid the tremendous military strength embodied in a carrier battle group and exploit our weaknesses wherever a small investment of resources could yield major rewards. One of these weaknesses is the long, fragile link from refinery to fuel bunker that provides energy to naval air and conventionally powered ships. Loss of any segment of the logistics line would hamper operations as effectively as would sinking a carrier.
In response to a worsening supply picture, the Department of Defense began the Assured Fuel Initiative to develop secure domestic sources for military energy needs. The hope is that half of military aviation fuel can be derived from alternative sources by 2016.
The Air Force is working with Syntroleum, a company that transforms natural gas into liquid fuels using a modified Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process.2 On 15 December 2006, a B-52 took off from Edwards Air Force Base, its fuel a 50-50 blend of JP-8 and FT. The seven-hour flight test was considered a success, and the FT blend is approved for use by the B-52H.3 The C-17 and B-1B are undergoing evaluation testing for the blended fuel.
Maximize Navy Nuclear Energy
The Navy can, with its nuclear-powered vessels, match the goals of the Assured Fuel Initiative. Modern alchemy employing the energy from nuclear reactors could transform water and air—or rather components of water and air—into liquid fuel. Carbon dioxide (CO2) stripped from the atmosphere or from sea water can, with sufficient energy inputs and the addition of hydrogen and split from water, be processed into gasoline, sulfur-free diesel, and aviation fuel.
Support for this approach is evident in a comment by George A. Olah, professor of chemistry and 1994 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He observed: "The final solution to the shortage of hydrocarbons will come only when mankind can produce cheap energy through safer atomic energy (or even fusion) and other alternate sources. With abundant cheap energy, hydrocarbons will be produced from carbon dioxide of the atmosphere and water."4 Two German chemists in the early 1930s provided the foundation for the manufacture of liquid fuels. The Fischer-Tropsch or synthetic gas (syngas) process converted plentiful German coal into liquid fuels when Germany had none. In traditional syngas production, coal or natural gas serves as the feedstock for the conversion operation. Nuclear power offers an opportunity to change radically the way liquid fuel is produced. Rather than cooking coal or transforming natural gas into the necessary elements for synfuel production, nuclear power produces liquid fuels by harvesting CO2 from air or water and splitting water for hydrogen.
How to Make Fuel from Air and Water
The carbon dioxide feedstock could be harvested from either the atmosphere or sea water. A variety of technologies are in development to cheaply and effectively remove CO2 from air and water.
CO2 in the atmosphere, whatever its source, is propelled by the winds into a rather uniform mixture. The major challenge in collecting CO2 from air is the effective and inexpensive processing of large masses of air.5
The CO2 content of air, 370 parts per million (ppm), is small—only 0.64 cubic inches in a cubic foot of air. At 14 miles per hour (12.18 knots), the air stream carries approximately 317.6 cubic feet, or 3.12 pounds, of CO2 every hour through an area of one square foot. If an absorber leaches 50 percent of the CO2 from the air passing by, a collector of 1,282 square feet could harvest every hour one ton of carbon dioxide.
Hydroxide, Ca(OH)2 , is a suitable absorber; the energy to release one ton of CO2 from its embrace is 280 kiloWatt-hours (kW-hr). Carbon dioxide could be out-gassed from sea water simply by heating the water or flowing it through a partial vacuum. Once CO2 is available, the gas could be combined with water, or hydrogen separated from water in one of several processes, to produce fuel.
In one approach, a fuel cell operates in "reversed mode" (electricity is applied to a fuel cell) as carbon dioxide and water are fed into the device. Methyl alcohol, which some vehicles can burn as a fuel or it can be modified to higher-density fuels, is produced.6
Another approach uses the Reverse Water Gas Shift (RWGS) process to produce synthetic fuels.7 Established technologies (RWGS and FT) can thus be integrated into a novel system.
A third technology would react water with a metal such as aluminum to produce hydrogen. The resulting oxide would be smelted back to aluminum and returned to the process. This method has the advantage of low capital costs.
Logistic Considerations
Integration of the appropriate technologies should be wrung out on land before deploying the system to sea. Under a new directive, half of the Fleet will be deployed for six months, then return to home ports. This means that a tremendous amount of electrical power capability is available for other uses:
- 5 Nimitz (CVN-68)-class carriers, each with 194 MW
- 24 Los Angeles (SSN-688)-class submarines, each with 26 MW
- 9 Ohio (SSGN-726)-class submarines, each with 44.7 MW
- 1 Seawolf (SSN-21)-class submarine with 26 MW
- 1 Virginia (SSN-774)-class submarine with 29.8 MW
In aggregate, that is around 2 gigaWatts of electrical power. If 100 MW produces 100,000 gallons of liquid fuel a day, then employing the ships in home port will yield about 2 million gallons of fuel a day, worth about $2 a gallon, for approximately $1.46 billion a year.
Once the processes are proven in land-based facilities, the systems can be integrated into ships. Further cost savings will result as the Fleet becomes less dependent on natural fuel sources.
Looking Back to See Ahead
This would not be the first time the Navy was involved in energy production.8 A long drought in 1929 significantly reduced the electrical power generated by dams on nearby rivers used in Tacoma, Washington. Business began to lay off workers, and energy rationing affected Fort Lewis. After negotiations with federal officials, the carrier Lexington (CV-2) was diverted to the port. For almost a month, the Lexington provided 25 percent of Tacoma's electricity. Finally the rains came, filling the reservoirs. Tacoma was once again able to draw power from the dams, and the Lexington left a grateful city to resume her normal duties.
The Navy's nuclear-powered assets, combined with recent technological advances, can significantly reduce the Fleet's dependence on foreign petroleum sources, reduce its vulnerability to interruptions in the logistics chain, lower expenditures on fuel, provide an income source to supplement congressional appropriations, and in the bargain reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
1. Alfred Cavallo, "When the Oil Supply Runs Out," Letters, Science 316 (18 May 2007): p. 980.
2. "Fischer-Tropsch Fuels," R&D Facts, U.S. Department of Energy, April 2008, http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/rd/R&D089.pdf.
3. Marti Zamorano, "B-52 Synthetic Fuel Testing: Center Commander Pilots First Air Force B-52 Flight Using Solely Synthetic Fuel Blend in All Eight Engines," Aerotech News and Review, 22 December 2006. Jason Hernandez, "SECAF Certifies Synthetic Fuel Blends for B-52H," Aerotech News and Review, 10 August 2007.
4. Dr. George A. Olah, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/articles/olah/, 6 September 1999.
5. Klaus S. Lackner, Hans-Joachim Ziock, and Patrick Grimes, "The Case for Carbon Dioxide Extraction from Air," Sourcebook 57, no. 9 (September 1999): pp. 6
10.6. Ibid.
7. Dr. Robert E. Uhrig, Dr. Kenneth R. Schultz, and S. Locke Bogart, "Implementing the ?Hydrogen Economy' with Synfuels," The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, summer 2007, pp. 18-22, http://www.tbp.org/pages/publications/Bent/Features/Su07Uhrig.pdf. S. L. Bogart, K. R. Schultz, L. C. Brown, and B. Russ, "Production of Liquid Synthetic Fuels from Carbon, Water, and Nuclear Power on Ships and at Shore Bases for Military and Potential Commercial Application," Proceedings of the 2006 International Congress on Advanced Power Plants (ICAPP 2006), 4
8 June 2006.8. David Wilma, http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5113, 24 January 2003.
Time to Reevaluate Rapid Decisive Operations
By Major Sean Griffin, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
Six years after Millennium Challenge 2002 officially validated effects-based operations (EBO) as a joint warfighting operational concept, Marine General James N. Mattis said to the U.S. Joint Forces Command: "I am convinced that the various interpretations of EBO have caused confusion throughout the joint force and amongst our multinational partners that we must correct. . . . We must stress the importance of mission type orders that contain clear Commander's Intent, unambiguous task and purpose, and most importantly, links ways and means with achievable ends."1
General Mattis did not specifically address rapid decisive operations or joint interactive planning (JIP) and effects tasking orders (ETO). But the aim of his guidance was to "change course and provide the joint warfighter with a more balanced and understandable framework in which to plan, execute and assess operations."2 General Mattis's call for a critical reassessment of EBO implies the need for a reevaluation of rapid decisive operations (RDO), particularly RDO's implications for leading Marines.
The Rapid Decisive Operations Experiment
In a press conference held on 18 July 2002, General William Kernan, then commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, described the four key Millennium Challenge 2002 concepts that contributed to RDO as "effects based operations, operation net assessment, standing joint force headquarters, and the joint interagency coordination group." 3 RDO was defined as a means to "integrate knowledge, command and control, and operations" toward objectives reached through asymmetrical actions that target an enemy "in dimensions against which he has no effective counter."4 This definition resembles the maneuver warfare philosophy that Marines first institutionalized in 1989 with Fleet Marine Force Manual 1 Warfighting.
Millennium Challenge's RDO experiment encompassed JIP and ETO. Both are radical alterations of the centralized planning—decentralized execution relationship which is at the heart of Warfighting and Marine air ground task force (MAGTF) operations.
To replace the previous hierarchical process, JIP substituted a parallel collaborative process among all elements of a networked joint force. Information technology was expected to facilitate collaborative planning by creating the capability to extract relevant facts from voluminous databases and conduct modeling and simulation of proposed courses of action.
The network of joint force planners had access to continually updated mission information to "allow dynamic, continuous plan modification, and mission rehearsals prior to and during execution."5 The purpose was to help the joint force commander decide on a course of action and issue "mission-type effect tasking orders"—orders intended to produce a debilitating effect on the enemy. The subordinates were given specific responsibilities to accomplish this, and the challenge was to allow them creativity at the same time.6
In the pre-experiment training, the Marine expeditionary brigade (MEB) staff came to expect that they would be able to influence the higher headquarters' ETO as well as applying their own initiative in executing the MAGTF's portion of the ETO. But as the experiment proceeded, the MEB found that collaborative planning used too much of the available time deciding what effects it ought to achieve. Inadequate time was left for the MEB to reach a creative solution for how to achieve the desired effect, other than to execute only one facet of its tactical repertoire: the vertical ship-to-objective maneuver.
The repetitive use of the MV-22 Osprey and CH-53E Sea Stallion package allowed the enemy to gain insight into our tactics, and that made it increasingly difficult to achieve desired effects.
After the Experiment: Causes for Concern
The JIP used in Millennium Challenge was silent on time-management issues. Before we had the information technology to plan collaboratively, we planned sequentially, and leaders applied the one-third/two-thirds rule throughout the hierarchy. That is as follows: Upon receipt of an order conveying decisions made by the next higher echelon, a leader immediately assessed the time remaining until he was expected to execute the order. That leader then had to plan and issue an order in one-third of the time remaining, thereby reserving two-thirds of the available time for his subordinates' use. But proponents of collaborative planning assert that networked collaboration saves time—with several caveats.
- Without strictly enforced information management protocols, the numbers of networked planning participants can create a plan-while-acquiring-more-data loop that tended to postpone a decision in favor of producing a perfect plan.
- Collaborative planning saves time only for echelons involved in the process. How far down into the depths of the force will the collaborative network extend?
If your particular portion of the joint force is not part of the network, you are effectively part of sequential planning that begins on receipt of a decision from the networked hierarchy.
- The idea that JIP permits dynamic and continuous plan modification means a leader can be engaged in planning up to the moment he executes the order. For the leaders at the lowest tactical level those not involved the network continuous plan modification means having to execute a familiar course of action that most closely resembles one necessary to achieve the desired effect. The more times we repeat a familiar course of action against an adaptive enemy, the more familiar that course of action becomes to the enemy.
How can Marines ensure the preservation of subordinate creativity and decentralized execution at the tactical level of RDO or any successor operational concept, when advances in information technology lead inexorably toward centralized planning and execution? The answer to this dilemma lies in our readiness and ability to influence future joint operational concept experimentation.
Future Experimentation
Achieving General Mattis's intent necessitates future experimentation with operational concepts, but these should be considered validated only if they contribute to tactical success. We need to experiment to learn how deeply into the joint force organization collaborative planning can occur before it collapses into an unwieldy cacophony. Once we determine the cutoff point for this process, we need a new rule of thumb for time management, so the lower echelons of the MAGTF not involved in collaborative planning have adequate time to prepare.
We must experiment with the full range of MAGTF capabilities that will exist when the information technology network becomes a reality. This will ensure that the operational concept supports all our operations, including what is arguably the most complex in the future joint warfare repertoire: the combined vertical and surface ship to objective maneuver.
Finally, the experiment must incorporate live maneuver, fires, intelligence, C4, and logistics forces. One can learn a great deal from computer simulation, but the real value of maintaining subordinate creativity in the execution of tactical engagements is in the ability to deal with disorder. Our warfighting doctrine is predicated on the Marine leader's ability to "cope—even better, to thrive—in an environment of chaos, uncertainty, constant change and friction."7
Marine leaders have an obligation to remain well informed on both MAGTF doctrine and emerging joint operational concepts. It is only by exploring the potential ramifications of an operational concept and its associated enabling concepts that we can assess their impact on the way we train, organize, equip, and fight the MAGTF.
Leading Marines tomorrow requires aggressive engagement in joint experimentation today. This will ensure that once an operational concept is pronounced validated as a capability, it represents a MAGTF force multiplier rather than a source of friction in the planning and execution of expeditionary maneuver warfare operations.
1. Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command, Memorandum "Assessment of Effects Based Operations," 14 August 2008, p. 1.
2. "USJCOM Commander's Guidance for Effects-Base Operations," 14 August 2008, p. 1.
3. "Special Pentagon briefing on Millennium Challenge 2002," July 18, 2002. Available at: http://mc-02.blogspot.com/
4. U.S. Joint Forces Command, J9 Joint Futures Lab, Toward a Joint Warfighting Concept: Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO Whitepaper Version 2.0, 18 July 2002), p. 9.
5. Ibid., pp. A-12
A-13.6. Ibid., pp. A-14, C-2.
7. USMC, MCDP 1 Warfighting, (Washington, D. C.: Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, 1997), p. 80.
Operational Analysis Can Maximize Coast Guard Assets
By Vice Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr.; Joe DiRenzo III; Lieutenant Laura Decena; and Lieutenant Fred Bertsch, U.S. Coast Guard
The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.
-Sun Tzu
The men and women of the Coast Guard "are working longer and harder than ever before," said Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen in his March 2008 address to the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard. In a speech focusing on our need to meet increased threats, sophisticated systems, and mission demands, Admiral Allen said our readiness is "continually challenged by. . . reliance on outdated, rapidly aging assets, systems, and shore infrastructure." As this situation intensifies, optimizing the use of Coast Guard resources will be critical for mission success. After almost 220 years of service to the American public, refining our performance and efficiency is a challenge that demands careful and continual analysis combined with intuition and operational experience.
Start with Operations
The Coast Guard's ability to conduct analysis at the operational level has long been stymied by a culture within the organization that values and fosters tactical thought. But a focus on operations is not a new concept for the service, and other military branches have had remarkable success with it. In 2003 those capabilities were extended through establishing the Joint Center for Operational Analysis at the U.S. Joint Forces Command.
Coast Guard efforts seem in their infancy by comparison but are starting to progress. Our efforts to modernize include a new Operations Command
which presents an excellent opportunity for us to accelerate the role and capacity of operational analysis.Additionally, in summer 2009 a division dedicated to operational requirements and analysis is expected to be formed as part of the Coast Guard's modernization process. This division will need to establish meaningful performance measures that define success. Further responsibilities will be to define mission requirements, understand cost and return on investment, prioritize missions based on risk, and optimize force apportionment through efficient force packages. Through quantitative and qualitative analytical efforts such as optimization techniques, regression analysis, and systems dynamics, this division will provide improved information to decision makers.
How Strategy Develops
The operational level cannot be successful without an understanding of how mission performance and execution translate into strategic objectives. Despite the Coast Guard's established set of measures that tactical commanders report quarterly, many do not see the link between operational activities and strategic objectives.
Operational analysis can help tackle this problem through specifically designed experiments to identify factors that affect the strategic objectives. Testing the interactions between the factors and Coast Guard activities will establish the link between conducting mission execution and achieving the strategic objectives.
The operational commander can then provide clear measures and improved direction to the tactical level of the Coast Guard. Improved measures that link operational activities to strategic objectives will increase the service's accountability and focus our resources on activities that have a clear return on investment.
Use Simulations for Cost-Benefit and Risk Analysis
Return on investment becomes especially relevant in Coast Guard operations as mission demand increases. Clear measures are a good start, but they must be followed with optimizing our resources through improved force packages and apportionment. Modeling and simulation have already proven helpful in this area.
In recent years, our patrol-boat capability around the southern tip of Florida has diminished at the same time as immigrant and counter-drug operations have increased. To fill the gap, the service pulled resources from other areas. The effects of these changes are being analyzed through modeling and simulation.
Models are developed to represent the environment and interactions of a system, then simulated over periods of time. This simulation provides a basis for comparative analysis of force-package alternatives and provides decision makers insight on potential impacts of various resources in regions where they are either applied or removed.
Thus, commanders can conduct rigorous and defendable analysis that supports resource-apportionment decisions. As the Coast Guard expands this ability at the operational level, modeling and simulation will allow operational commanders to test and evaluate performance impacts in one region versus another. Proper operational analysis can yield more productive force packages
and more efficient national apportionment throughout the Coast Guard.Modernization will establish a single operational commander responsible for Coast Guard operations across the nation as well as around the world. This expansion to an international view presents the challenge of assigning limited national assets to missions and regions. Ideal force apportionment maximizes return on investment by applying resources to missions in which they mitigate the greatest amount of that risk for the least amount of cost.
The challenge at the operational level then becomes understanding risk enough to objectively compare the different Coast Guard missions, such as Living Marine Resources (Fisheries) and Alien Migration Interdiction Operations. Taking the concept one step further, the operational commander needs to be able to compare risks within a mission across different regions, for example fisheries in Alaska against fisheries in New England. Considering the shortage of Coast Guard resources, understanding, quantifying, and comparing these risks is critical to determining optimal return on investment.
The service has already made great strides in developing a framework for understanding risk through the National Maritime Strategic Risk Assessment and the Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model. The former provides a baseline for quantifying the risks in each mission at the strategic level, while models such as the latter are tactical. The Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model considers threat, vulnerability, and consequences to establish comparable risk profiles across coastal ports for potential terrorist attacks at the tactical level.
Combining and expanding on these concepts, the operational level needs to build a framework that allows evaluation across multiple missions and diverse regions. This will allow our Operations Command to distinguish between operational activities that are significantly decreasing the risk factors of a mission from those that have little effect. In this way, priorities can be properly established and well-informed decisions made.
Acknowledging those activities with minimal impact and eliminating them will help the Coast Guard ease the burden on its people and assets without sacrificing mission success. In a service that must do more with less, senior operational commanders need to focus their subordinates' activities and resources on areas that provide the best risk reduction.
Create a New Division
The Atlantic Area Commander's operational priorities specified that success for the Coast Guard involves sustaining multi-mission excellence, modernization, effective allocation, and balanced resources. If we integrate an Operational Requirements and Analysis division into the new Operations Command, this will move the Coast Guard closer to success and will establish an expectation for rigorous analysis supporting operational decisions.
Operational analysts will use operations research techniques such as optimization, stochastic and deterministic modeling, simulation, regression analysis, experimental design, and forecasting to define meaningful performance measures, understand risk across mission sets, and determine capability and capacity requirements. Through these efforts, better decisions can be made for specific force packages within a region as well as at the national level across all missions and regions.
Thus, in its capacity as a steward of the United States, the Coast Guard can ensure the American people that through the use of operational level analysis, we will continue to achieve a more effective apportionment of resources.