The whole idea is bl**dy stupid. If, being used for real, who gives a damn about emissions, you need something that works, can be refuelled quickly with out having to find the right volts/amps. Petrol or diesel every time!

The first question you need to ask is "what's the carrot"? What would the military gain with widespread use of all electric vehicles?


Environmentally friendly? Seriously, that's a priority for the military? They're going to kill people and blow stuff up in an environmentally friendly manner?
Increased range or rapid refueling capability? No, compared to petroleum electric is nearly always worse.
Flexibility/mobility? Most battlefields don't have a wide spread electrical grid to provide the juice (and if they do, it's going to be a prime target for the opposition). So you need to bring that electrical infrastructure with you (along with fuel to generate that juice) - again, making things worse.
Quiet/Stealth? Ok, here things look promising - electric vehicles can be very quiet with a low thermal profile (although even the thermal profile needs to be worked - rapid discharge or charging of a battery creates a lot of heat). So for limited role scout/reconnaissance vehicles electrical operation may have some benefit - perhaps a hybrid. But anything bigger is a non-starter.
So in short, aside from some specialized roles, Sevarg is spot on.

Environmental
 

MoD UK deals with this in two ways. First, by including in the price the cost of disposal. Second, by having a general policy of using secondary batteries (rechargeable). One or two units use primaries.......

The US, are (or were) the opposite. Use once, chuck them a way. There must be millions of batteries lying in Iraqi and Afghan ditches. You never hear about the environmental effects. They might be told to bring them back, but humping a few useless house bricks around isn't appealing.

We used to have "Safety Plans". These became Safety and Environmental Plans. Lots of hoops, and the focus was on the latter. Never mind that Li-Ions went off in your face like a Roman Candle; demonstrated during 1990 trials. As long as they could be disposed of properly, who cares about providing CSAR or proper kit.

My original post was not intended to suggest that the MOD would go green, but that petrol/diesel engines might become rare, for example Volvo going pure electric.

A similar problem arose in the 80s. At the time the sole supplier of the grade of avgas used by the Shackleton was Venezuela. If global petrol and diesel supplies became limited, then what?

I guess Saudi better invest in solar panels and technology to export wiggly amps :)

So long as the fundamental issues with batteries remain unsolved - energy density, recharge time, weight - the demand for IC engines won't go away. It may well change, and the source of the fuel will likely change to something bio based (while the concept of peak oil has been horribly overblown, the bottom line is that fossil fuel is a finite resource and eventually we'll run low). But imagine the battery you'd need to drive a huge ship across the Pacific, or a 50 ton long haul truck/lorry coast to coast, or a large airliner halfway around the world?
It'll change - likely in ways none of us foresee - but unless someone can invent a battery with similar weight, energy density, and refuel times (or perhaps a fusion reactor that is the size/weight/cost of a comparable liquid fuel engine), the demand for liquid fuel engines isn't going to go way.

tdracer wrote:
Not an ideal example, given that large vessels were crossing the oceans long before engines and electric motors. Wind turbines or water turbines can generate power, and with modern wingsails, they don't need crews to reef canvas either.

http://www.greenport.com/__data/asse...82/page-38.jpg

MV Ashington with an experimental Walker Wingsail.

Over the past few decades, the US military has put much effort into developing combustion engines capable of "multi-fuel" operation for land vehicles. The reason being that they could use any locally available fuel supply such as gasoline, diesel, alcohol, etc. Never figured out a truly practical "multi-fuel" engine design, but all their recip engines now use a standard JP-8 heavy fuel.

One significant issue with military fuel logistics is the cost/gallon to transport it. The cost for transporting JP-8 fuel to Afghanistan is something like $400/gallon.

I see HMG is fully committed alternative energies so expect the MOD to be pushed in that direction regardless of operational necessities.

I suppose solar powered UAV are a possibility as that technology was proven in the round the world flight that concluded last year. Take the man out of the equation and you gain a couple hundred pounds for payload.

Electric vehicles? No chance... not when we are still dependent on constantly running diesel powered electrical generators and lighting rigs. Daily. On MOB flight lines.

The MOD is still nowhere near providing the basics, nevermind EV's.

gr4techie, I was really thinking of the Government going down one path with fossil fuel provision withering on the branch. Where the Services, particularly the RAF, were at the bleeding edge of technology with English Electric, Bristol, Saunder Roe, Supermarine, Avro etc, now we are leaders in historics - Red Arrows, BBMF, Tornado etc.

Of course when it came to MT things were very different - Standard Vanguard, Minis, Montego, Vauxhall

It was really would the Military be left a legacy users of fossil fuels or how could they cope. Certainly, on a main base, at a stroke, the whole lot could be switched to electric vehicles. Could power sets also be reverted to trolley ac style?

Pontious Navigator,

Apparently certain sqns electricity supply/wiring would not cope with the extra load of running aircraft of the mains rather than diesel powersets.

I'm all for renewable energy, but I don't think I've ever seen one solar panel on a raf building for the domestic supply?

Gr4, just think of all that empty space, could turn airfields in solar farms. Great camouflage too wheat with farmers farming solar.

I was thinking of all the space on hangar roofs and barrack blocks that could be used for solar.
So the MOD wouldn't have to moan about "energy saving".

My earlier post about inadequate infrastructure on flightlines that run off diesel generators rather than a mains supply, is a typical example of thinking about short term costs rather than long term savings. I've always wondered how much does it cost to run diesel generators every day for x years because they don't want to modernize the infrastructure?

Another example is using bowser trucks to drive the avtur to aircraft rather than using underground pipes for refueling

Since most vehicles have chargers specifically for the vehicle.

I would think that losing one to the enemy would render it useless in a short period of time unlike a hummer they simply fill with diesel.

I think the M1 Abrahams is multi fuel. They can refill the tank (pun?) with anything they come across.
Having read about the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans knew they didn't have enough fuel for their offensive to succeed and depended on capturing Allied stock along the way.

Is there any truth to the rumour that Soviet Cold War aircraft being built with two styles of fuel connectors...their own style and also the NATO refueling connector. For when they capture NATO airfields in Germany, they could have used our bowsers?

Gr4, hydrant refuelling has had a dismal history in the RAF. All V-bomber bases were so equipped but there were problems. One I heard was contamination, they might have been left empty too long or there was a pressure problem.
Brize had a fuel pipe network but when the USAF pulled out it was abandoned only to become a massive environmental problem years later.

The other problem in the cold war was lack of resilliance and flexibility. Disrupt the network and without bowsers you were fooked. I don't know about HAS sites.

The US Navy would love some viable method to produce a supply of turbine engine fuel using the excess electrical power available on their nuclear powered aircraft carriers.

Rr, better AvGas

I would not be surprised. IIRC ,apparently some mysterious small ventral "aerials" on a few types in the 70's were later identified as matching NATO standard electrical GSE connectors.

Not quite PN. The Brize hydrant system was in use when I was first posted to there in the early 70's and was still in use in the 90's. As far as I know, it's still going. It became an environmental problem when PSA/DOE (remember them?) failed to put a blanking plate on the end of a pipeline spur near the Brit Line "Frying pan" and put fuel through the pipeline to test the pressure. Likewise, Fairford had a "bit of a spill" when a pipeline coupling failed in 1974 - another PSA/DOE triumph.