AngelaJean, founder of Military Community Members of Daily Kos, gave me the heads up on this great program for creating jobs for our verterans, sponsored by Senator Sherrod Brown, (D-Ohio), in the fast growing solar energy installation industry. First, let's take a look at a short description from Senator Brown's website Solar for Soldiers’ Helps Clean Energy Fight. This shouldn't be surprising as Senator Brown seems to be one of the most progressive, and smartest of our Senators on a whole range of other issues as well. Let's make a note somewhere that Senator Brown is a keeper, we should support at every opportunity.
Solar for Soldiers, Flannagan’s Dublin solar installation
Earth Techling – A new program is taking former American soldiers and training them in the fight for clean energy. The Solar for Soldiers program, launched earlier this month, helps train and employ American veterans in clean energy installation.
The first solar installation built through the Solar for Soldiers program was at Flannagan’s Dublin, a restaurant and bar in Columbus, Ohio. It’s estimate that the establishment’s new solar installation will save $238,260 on utility bills over the next 25 years. Tipping Point Renewable Energy runs the Solar for Soldiers program and is currently looking to hire additional veterans.
Although, this program is small, it is an encouraging step in the right direction. We need more programs like this and scale them up by a factor of 100,000 or so.
Let's look at more details, and another article on foldable solar arrays, in suitcases, for our soldiers, below the folds.
Kristy Hessman, of Earthtechling, wrote the original article, ‘Solar for Soldiers’ Helps Clean Energy Fight
The program was launched as a way to ensure men and women returning from military service have jobs in a growing field. The unemployment rate for veterans between the ages of 20 and 24 is at 27 percent, according to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who helped create the program.
Brown is working with veterans in his area to connect them to jobs in the renewable energy field. He said Central Ohio alone has more than $20 million-worth of solar projects waiting to be added. Brown hopes to make Ohio the Silicon Valley of clean energy manufacturing. Solar power is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States, according to Tipping Point CEO Eric Zimmer.
While I was looking around the EarthTechlong.com site, I found this fun article about solar power for soldiers, in a suitcase, published by Pete Danko, August 10, 2011, Solar-In-A-Suitcase For U.S. Soldiers.
Image via SkyBuilt Power
We’re talking power-management and power-production gear that a lone soldier can tote, and it’s what the U.S. Army is getting from SkyBuilt Power, the Virginia-based manufacturer announced.
The two products the Army is buying are the SkyCase and the SkyPAK, which work together. The SkyCase is the power storage and management module, all contained in a “weatherproof, crushproof and dustproof” case than can be wheeled around like a traveler’s luggage. (And, in fact, SkyBuilt says it’s airport checkable.)
The SkyCase includes “one or more lithium-ion or other batteries for system power storage and backup,” SkyBuilt says. The battery “is equipped with sophisticated power management and safety features, including graceful degradation, and short circuit/overload protection.” An LCD read-out panel on the case’s exterior of the lid provides information about status of the battery system during charging and discharging.
Working in tandem with the SkyCase are the SkyPAK Portable Array Kits. These fold-out crystalline solar arrays are said to be at least twice as powerful as a traditional solar blanket, and just as importantly, have an accordion design that makes them rapidly deployable.
The military deserves great credit for realizing that replacing liquid fuel generators with solar and wind power saves lives. A few years ago, General Richard Zilmer in charge of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, noticed the consistent and high fatality rates for soldiers running fuel trucks, on the supply lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. One soldier dead for every 24 fuel conveys, of which there are many.
General Zilmer initiated these programs to design back-pack solar collectors, in record time, by sending his team to Home Depot for off the shelf parts, and deserves a medal, in my opinion. I wrote him up in a diary here a few months ago. I'll retrieve his name, as soon as I can. (Obviously, Updated) It's running late so I want to get this up for Angelajean before most go to bed. (See update)
In the article I wrote up a few months ago, we called them "backpack roll-up solar collectors, and the Army revealed they were able to take up to 40 pounds of batteries out of the backpacks with an earlier version of this technology. The original version did not have this nifty case on wheels, nor, as far as I could tell, as sophisticated of a power management system. But, it was good enough for field use, and seemed to get this product launched into the market where it seems to be evolving quickly.
It's funny that Sherrod Brown's program is for training veterans on how to install solar panels. Given how much of the innovation in the solar industry is occurring on the battlefield, it seems like we should be having our returning veterans giving training for the rest of us, on what is happening in the state of the art of this fast growing and changing industry.
It's about time we start initiating more programs to help our returning soldiers, reintegrate themselves back into civilian life here at home, where we want them to be, as soon as possible.
Thanks Angelajean, for calling our attention to these encouraging articles, and what is a new website for me.
Cheers
7:50 PM PT:
Here is a link to an artile I wrote on June 10, describing the heroic vision of General Richard Zilmer, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, who I'd like to nominate for a medal, and/or award, if anyone knows how to facilitate this please let me know. We need to get General Zilmer into the DOE to acclerate our domestic US conversion to sustainable and alternative energy generation.
Here's part of that diary you may find interesting,
Marines Carry Flexible Solar Collectors Into Battlefield In Backpacks to Replace Heavy Batteries." And, save lives.
Marine Lance Cpl. Dakota Hicks connects a radio battery to a solar array quickly hung on the side of a wall in Sangin District, in Afghanistan. AP Photo, From WSJ Keith Johnson
Marines from India Company, a component of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, have taken up to forty pounds of batteries out of the backpacks and replaced them with flexible, roll-up, solar collectors, says Keith Johnson, from the Wall Street Journal
Also, these new roll-up collectors are replacing fuel for generators that has been shipped to front lines in highly vulnerable helicopters and fuel trucks - favorite targets of our enemies. The Marines now wish to reduce per-Marine fuel use by 50% by 2020.
By allowing the troops to recharge their radios, GPS devices and other equipment, the green technology freed the Marines of India Company from constant resupply by road and air. And by carrying fewer batteries, they carried more bullets.
Batteries make up as much as 20% of the weight of the 100 pounds of gear a Marine infantryman typically carries. A Marine uses four times as much fuel as his counterpart did in the early 1990s—due to, among other things, laptops and other electronic gear that use electricity pumped out by portable generators.
General Richard Zilmer, then commader of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force initiated this push for non-fuel based renewable energy in reponse to a casualty rate of 1 US Service member wounded or killed for every 24 fuel convoys, reports Johnson.
"The Marine commandant made it clear—he'd rather have an 80% solution today than a 100% solution somewhere down the road," Col. Charette said. In less than nine months, scientists at the Office of Naval Research cobbled together a solar-and-battery combination small enough to be transported on Humvees, big enough to power the gear at a combat outpost, and rugged enough to withstand tough field conditions.
It also created smaller solar panels for individual Marines. Each can be unfurled to recharge equipment at the base or on the march. Some bits were jury-rigged, including power meters bought at Home Depot.
Col. Charette said the gear "has surpassed our expectations." Keeping extra batteries out of packs means the Marines can move faster and farther than before. Fuel use is down at the company's patrol bases, because the solar equipment replaces generators, the military says.
In some remote places solar power is the only power available.
This application was such as success, Marine officers are planning to meet the power needs of larger formations expected to be in place this summer.
Talk about quick implementation. When the US military decides it can achieve tactical battlefield advantages with solar power look how fast it happens. Maybe we should put these folks in charge of converting the US energy systems to modern, reliable, clean, renewable energy sources?
Let's convert the US to clean, efficient, reliable renewable energy, now.
Make it so!
8:41 PM PT:
Hypnotoad says you will support solar, wind, and other alternative energy, And, rec HoundDog's diary!
Hypnotoad, also declares this to be a Saturday Night Open Thread!