DOD Energy Use Underreported

DOD’s Annual Energy Management Reports were used to give an overall picture of DOD energy consumption by mode and source. They contained tables on energy use in installations, tactical and non-tactical vehicles. These tables involved information about the costs, site delivered energy consumption by energy type in original units as well as in the Btu equivalent. Besides an estimated source energy equivalent in Btu terms was also give. There was also an estimate of CO2 emissions.

Now things have changed. DoD energy management has become fragmented. We have now two heads, one responsible from facilities energy, and the other from operational energy. This is why the latest DOD Annual Energy Management Report (AEMR) focuses only on facilities energy, even though the title remained the same.

On the cover page of the report it states that “Preparation of this study/report cost the Department of Defense a total of approximately $633,321 for the 2011 Fiscal Year.” This is a huge sum of money in which you cannot see an overall picture of how much energy the DOD used by fuel type and how much CO2 emissions it released by consuming that energy.

DOD officials should make sure that whichever figure they mention in public speeches and reports indeed refer to site delivered and purchased energy only. Or they must mention that the statistics they give are part of the total DOD energy use.

If you care about energy statistics you need to focus on the tables in Appendix B. There you will find some data, albeit less detailed than those in previous years’ reports.

Here are my overall remarks, critics and questions about the DoD energy statistics reported in Appendix B, which is used by every single senior DOD official. Therefore I address them particularly to William Lynn (Deputy Secretary of Defense) and Sharon Burke (Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs) as well as to the people who prepared the DOD AEMR2010.

1.       In the table for “Goal Subject Buildings” given in Appendix B: Why the sum of annual cost and consumption by energy type do not add up to total? Total delivered Btu is reported as 210,691 but the sum of individual components equal to 210,095. Similarly, the sum of total cost gives $3,507,487, and not $3,551,476. As a result, overall total cost and site delivered Btu are incorrect.

2.       Why are energy consumption in original units, corresponding estimated source BTU, and yes, also estimated CO2 emissions not given anymore? 

3.       I understand that AEMR only considers site delivered energy that is purchased. What happened to on site generated electricity? Isn’t it consumed? Or DOD doesn’t produce any electricity on its sites?

4.       Similarly, the DOD doesn’t report any nuclear electricity and heat consumption. I assume it doesn’t report because it is not site delivered and also not purchased. But I do not understand why the DoD neglects electricity consumption in its 11 aircraft carriers and 71 submarines. But how can we ignore the energy produced by its 103 nuclear reactor?

5.       Why does the DOD insist on underreporting its total energy consumption? According to my very rough estimates including nuclear electricity would increased the DoD’s site delivered energy consumption by almost 10% and source Btu by about 20%. If done like that, the share of electricity in DoD’s energy consumption would increase from merely 12% to 33%. And share of oil would decrease from 77% to 58%.

6.       This would be bad for political image I guess. The DoD push for biofuels would be damaged. A senior official would of course be less convincing had s/he said that oil accounts a bit higher than half of DoD energy consumption, rather three-quarters.

7.       In all the previous AEMRs the original unit of category “other” in the “non-fleet vehicles and other equipment” table was reported in terms of Btu. Now it is reported as Btu. Does that mean that DoD does not use anything else than liquids fuels in its non-fleet vehicles (i.e., tactical vehicles)?

8.       Does the DoD consume any in-kind power of fuel (i.e., not paid for), especially overseas? If yes, where is this fuel accounted for in AEMR?

9.       Where does the DoD count the amount of fuel used by generators? Under tactical vehicles?

10.   Does the DoD take into account the amount of electricity used in privatized or contracted buildings in its energy consumption?

I would be grateful if the DOD could enlighten me on these point.

DoD Energy Use in 2010

DoD spent $15.2 billion on energy in (Fiscal Year) 2010. Seventy four percent of this (or $11.2 billion) can be attributed to operations while the remaining 24% (or $3.7 billion) to the Department’s permanent installations and 2% (or $0.3 billion) to non-tactical vehicles.

When we look at the total energy consumption we have a similar picture. In 2010, DoD consumed 872 trillion Btu of site delivered, purchased energy. Seventy three percent of this was operational energy and the rest was facilities energy.

Note that 872 trillion Btu corresponds to site delivered energy. In energy balance terminology it refers to final energy consumption. So, if you want to compare this amount with a country’s energy consumption you better use the estimated source energy, which by the way more or less corresponds to primary energy supply, and which by way is not given in the DoD’s annual energy management report.

According to my calculations the DoD’s primary energy consumption is slightly above 1100 trillion Btu. This is roughly the amount of energy consumed in Nigeria, a country with a population of 150 million.

Two types of energy are dominant in DoD’s energy mix - oil, with a share of 77% , and electricity, with a share of 12%.

In 2010, DoD spent almost $12 billion for the 374,000 barrels of oil it consumed on average each day.  In comparison, Nigeria consumed almost 280,000 barrels per day and Greece 371,000 barrels per day in 2010.

In 2010, DoD consumed 30 billion kWh of electricity. This is equivalent to the electricity consumption Algeria, a country with a population of 35 million. Nigeria consumed almost 20 billion kWh.

This should be not surprising because:
(1)   The DOD’s worldwide infrastructure includes over 539,000 facilities (300,638 buildings and the rest structures) located at more than 5,000 sites around the world, on more than 113,000 km² (bigger than the land area of Louisiana).
(2)   The DOD operates approximately 15,800 aircraft, over 300 non-nuclear ships, some 195,000 non-tactical fleet vehicles, over 300,000 tactical ground vehicles (wheeled and tracked), in addition to over 120,000 generators. And all these machines consume oil, lots of it.

No wonder, the DoD is the largest single end use energy consumer in the world.  

And yet, the DoD’s energy consumption is underestimated at least due to two reasons:
·         First, DoD’s annual energy management reporting system considers only purchased energy. Therefore, if DoD doesn’t pay anything (in kind fuel and power) then it is not counted.
·         Second, the DoD does not take into account of nuclear energy in its energy accounting. So, nuclear energy consumed in 11 nuclear aircraft carriers and over 70 nuclear submarines are unaccounted for.

This is my message for William Lynn (Deputy Secretary of Defense) and Sharon Burke (Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs).

Without having a comprehensive data there is no way to do any meaningful energy analysis. Mrs Burke rightly mentioned on several occasions that the DOD lacks sufficient data on and analysis of operational energy use to manage consumption effectively. The DOD needs better statistics on how much energy is being consumed, where, and for what purposes.

DoD’s energy accounting in its Annual Energy Management Report needs to be revisited. This will be the subject of my next post.

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The DOD Energy Consumption in FY2010

Finally, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment) finally released the DOD’s Annual Energy Management Report for Fiscal Year 2010.

This report focuses on energy used by military installations and non-tactical vehicles. For ease of discussion, this report refers to both as “facilities energy.” In a footnote you will find out that this report does not address operational energy.  This is the first shock you will get on the first page.

What does the report say About DoD Energy Consumption?

“DoD accounts for approximately 80 percent of all Federal energy consumption and spent about $15.2 billion on energy in FY2010. Seventy four percent of total DoD consumption can be attributed to operations while the remaining 26 percent was consumed by the Department’s facilities (Figure 1.1). Operational energy is used for military deployments, direct support of military deployments, and training in support of readiness for military deployment. Facilities energy comprises all other energy used at DoD’s permanent installations and by its non-tactical vehicles. Well over 90 percent of total energy is used by the Military Departments, with about 6 percent used by other DoD Agencies.

Figure 1.1. DOD Energy Use in FY2010

In FY2010, DoD spent $4.01 billion on facilities energy, with $0.25 billion used for fuel for 160,000 non-tactical vehicles. About $3.76 billion was spent on energy for the Department’s 507 permanent installations, which comprise more than 300,000 buildings and 200,000 other structures. These installations occupy approximately 28 million acres of land in the United States and overseas and include over 2.2 billion square feet of facilities space.

 In addition to its high cost, DoD’s use of facilities energy is important for at least two other reasons. First, facilities energy has a significant environmental impact, contributing a disproportionate share (about 40 percent) of the Department’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Second, DoD is heavily dependent on the commercial electricity grid for its facilities energy. The fragility of this grid leaves DoD vulnerable to service disruptions and places continuity of critical missions at serious and growing risk.”

That’s it.

“The Department is addressing its energy management challenges through its facilities energy strategy. Under our strategy, the DoD seeks to reduce energy demand through energy efficiency and conservation, increase energy supplied by renewable and alternative sources, support technology innovation to develop management systems and clean energy technologies and improve energy security to reduce the risks posed by disruption of the electric grid.”

“In FY2010, however, the Department fell short of its goals for energy intensity, renewable energy use, and petroleum consumed by non-tactical vehicles, but exceeded its goal for reducing the use of potable water,” (see page 4) despite “DoD is investing in emerging technologies that hold the promise to reduce and manage energy demand, increase the supply of renewable energy, enhance energy security, and improve energy efficiency in buildings.”

But you will have a lot of details about facilities energy use. “Reducing facilities energy demand, enhancing energy security, facilitating innovative energy research and development, and increasing the use of renewable energy sources are important priorities for the Department of Defense,“ says the report. A bit exaggerated claim if you have an idea about the full picture of DOD wide energy use, costs and CO2 emissions.

“DoD’s facilities energy costs totaled approximately $4.0 billion in FY2010.”

“Facilities energy accounts for 26 percent of DoD energy use, but 40 percent of greenhouse gases.”

Facilities Energy Consumption
“DoD consumed about 211,000 billion British thermal units (BBTU) of energy during FY2010 in facilities subject to the energy intensity goal. As shown in Figure 2.1, DoD facilities energy consumption has been increasing since FY2007.”
 
Figure 2.1 DoD Facilities Energy Consumption Trends FY2006-2010

Figure 2.3 DoD Site-Delivered Energy By Type FY2010

“ approximately 80 percent of the energy consumed by DoD facilities in FY2010 came from electricity and natural gas. DoD also used small percentages of fuel oil, coal, purchased steam and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), propane, and other fuels in its facilities.”

Non-Tactical Fleet Vehicles Petroleum Use

EISA 2007 requires Federal agencies to achieve a 20 percent reduction in non-tactical vehicle (NTV) petroleum consumption by FY2015 compared to a FY2005 baseline. E.O. 13514 extends the reduction goal to 30 percent by FY2020. In FY2010, DoD NTVs consumed the equivalent of 80.3 million gallons of Gallon of Gasoline Equivalent (GGE), which includes gasoline, diesel, and the diesel portion of biodiesel blends (80% of a B20 blend). The mix of petroleum fuel types has remained relatively stable over the past three years.

DoD Renewable Energy Production Baseline and Potential for Growth

While DoD generated 9,950 BBTUs eligible for the 10 U.S.C. § 2911(e) calculation, approximately 5,800 BBTUs (bottom right of Table 3.1) was from on-site generation. The other 4,150 BBTUs are the sum of renewable energy and REC purchases.

If DoD is to reach the estimated 17,000 BBTUs of renewable energy to meet the 10 U.S.C. § 2911(e) goal with on-site production alone (keeping RECs and off-site purchases steady) on-site renewable production must increase by about 7,000 BBTUs. This is equivalent to approximately 1,200 MW of solar, which would cover 9,400 acres (or 67 Nellis AFB solar fields). Alternatively, 7,000 BBTUs could be met with 260 MW of new geothermal generation (equivalent to two China Lake projects).

Table 3.1 DoD Renewable Energy Production FY2010

Figure 3.4 DoD Estimate Of Renewable Energy Production Potential

“DoD conducted a preliminary assessment of renewable energy potential at its installations using FY2009 data (…) the Military Departments, along with DLA and DeCA identified over 33,000 BBTUs of renewable energy project potential”

“Using FY2009 data, the analysis indicated that only 113 DoD installations (about 20 percent) had on-site energy production levels of 50 percent or more of their energy consumption. Of these, only five installations had significant renewable contribution to their on-site production (from 17 percent to 86 percent). This analysis indicates that DoD has minimal renewable production when compared to consumption on installations across DoD and that there is a large gap in the convergence of net zero and renewable energy goals.”

My Remarks

The report gives really a lot of details, by DOD services, by project etc.

On the cover page it states that “Preparation of this study/report cost the Department of Defense a total of approximately $633,321 for the 2011 Fiscal Year.” This is a huge sum of money in which you cannot see an overall picture of how much energy the DOD used by energy source and how much CO2 emissions it released by consuming that energy. And of cost, you cannot see cost details. However, in Appendix B, you will find some data, less detailed than in previous years’ reports.

But in those tables you will not see anymore, consumption in original units, corresponding estimated source BTU, and yes, also estimated CO2 emissions. Why is that? CO2 emissions are not important any more?

Why sometimes totals do not add up?

Will the DOD come up with a similar report on Operational energy? If not, what is the use of that report?

Why the DOD insists on keeping fragmented energy management.

However, I did my homework, below is the figure I produce by using the data provided in AEMR and my own estimations, particularly on CO2 emissions. Enjoy.