(PatrioticPost.com)- The U.S. Army recently broke construction on the largest-ever clean energy storage project, indicating that the service is becoming more concerned with lowering its greenhouse gas emissions and climate change adaptation than with superior military might.
A ceremony was held on Thursday to launch the Flow Battery Pilot program at Fort Carson in Colorado, which will test out a one-megawatt long-duration battery to store electricity produced on-base from renewable sources. Reorienting the operational strategy of the Department of Defense to emphasize climate change is another little step toward the fundamental transformation President Joe Biden wants to accelerate. He set a national goal for the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Biden has prioritized the issue and made it the focal point of his legislative agenda. During his first week in office, he signed a comprehensive executive order instructing federal departments to examine their internal operations, determine how climate change affects them, and create strategies to cut emissions across the board.
Biden instructed the Defense Department to create and annually update a climate risk analysis outlining the security implications of climate change on military operations.
The DOD published a study on climate adaptation for 2022 last month. The order also instructed agencies to create plans for coping with climate change.
According to the study, the agency routinely “incorporates climatic factors into wargaming.” Five wargames, including ones “evaluating implications of climate change in South and Central Asia” and “exploring climatic vulnerabilities,” received $3 million from the Wargame Incentive Fund in the previous year.
Even more ambitious goals have been established for the federal government by Biden, who has set aims for half of all new vehicle sales to be electric models by 2030 and 100% carbon-free power by 2035.
Each branch has developed plans to implement Biden’s directive, with the Department of the Army being the first to do so in February.
The Army is installing a lithium-ion battery that can store enough energy to power 400 Fort Carson residences for an average day. The battery is the largest U.S. military installation with a long-duration, long-term energy storage technology.
