A.T. Kearney Partner Jeff Sorenson Discusses Pentagon's Mandate on Efficiency, Renewables on E&ETV

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney's vice president and partner Jeff Sorenson recently shared his insight on the Pentagon's mandate on energy conservation, efficiency and renewables on E&ETV. Lieutenant General Sorenson also discussed the "Net Zero Initiative" and explained why the military should devote resources to the effort.

When asked to comment if he views environmental threats as a national security risk, retired Lieutenant General Sorenson responded, "I think if you begin to look at even today as we deploy forces, the Army alone, we have 93,400 deployed and about another 90,000 in sort of tactical operations of 150 countries. We have to get energy and capability to them and, as it is right now, in terms of all that we do to support them, we're spending about $65 to $85 billion a year just moving and securing those particular lines of communication from the standpoint of energy."

Addressing concerns that the military should spend its money on tanks, drones and wartime equipment, not an energy conservation campaign, Sorenson said that "in many cases, in order to support our forces we can talk about having all this great capability, but if you can't operationalize it, it's not going to be of value. We're going to need more renewable sources of capability in terms of energy."

Sorenson also discussed the energy costs associated with using the latest military technology.  "You begin to look at what we have in a battalion today, the advent in terms of communications technologies and IT capability; I mean it's gone up 400 percent. And, as a result, that is drawing a lot of power and where are you going to get that power? And so when you had, if you will, some solar panels that you could lay out to power up that equipment, that reduced, again, the fuel trucks, the soldiers being exposed and so forth.  I think from an operational standpoint it's going to be an important thing we need to consider in the future."

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