U.S. Navy Cutting Fuel Costs

The United States Military Apparatus is one of the World’s largest consumers of fossil based petroleum in the world, spending roughly $13 billion a year simply to fuel up their rides. Fortunately, they are getting serious about cutting that number down. A program instituted by the U.S. Navy called the Energy Conservation Program (i-ENCON) that encourages ships to save fuel whenever possible has already accounted for about $79 million dollars in savings over the first two quarters of the fiscal year 2009. Over that span of time, the Navy burned about 14.83 less than the average burn rate, which means about 682,000 fewer barrels of oil. The program runs on a voluntary incentive basis that can reward a ship up to $67,000 for improving their efficiency. The Navy is also conserving fuel by using more renewable sources of energy on bases. With Solar PV, wind, geothermal and ocean thermal, the Navy has declared a 12% decline in total energy consumption for 2008. The military as a whole is looking to save money by using electric vehicles on bases, which could save upwards of 11 million gallons of gas each year.