The Defense Department Is a Significant Driver of New Technology

Biofuels Digest
June 3, 2011
By Brent Erickson, Digest columnist, Executive VP, Industrial Environmental Section, BIO

To carry out military and humanitarian missions around the world, U.S. forces require reliable fuel supplies and secure supply lines. The military is as much at the mercy of high oil and gasoline prices as the average consumer. And, oil often comes from regions of the world that are not U.S. military allies. Energy independence is therefore a national security issue.

U.S. troops, their trucks, ships and airplanes use close to 2 percent of the nation’s energy on an annual basis, making the military a small but significant consumer of fuel. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Defense used about 119 million barrels of oil for fuel.

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