Hydrogen-powered cars may be the rage in the commercial sector, but the U.S. military is employing the first element of the periodic table to provide energy beyond transportation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is powering stateside installations as well as bases in forward operating locations with fuel cells—electrochemical cells that convert fuel sources into electric currents. The efforts result in money savings, a reduction of the dependence on foreign oil, essentially unlimited power generation and a cleaner environment.

Developers are testing the many pieces that plug into the U.S. Army’s communications networks during the military branch’s annual system-of-systems event. The four-month exercise gives leaders a look at the network of the future. It also offers developers the opportunity to study many of soldiers’ critical assets in an operational venue, enabling experimentation outside of a laboratory. Understanding the real-world interoperability capabilities through these evaluations will help the Army ensure that predictions on paper become reality in the field.

The U.S. Defense Department’s point program for tactical electric power is introducing a new generation of power generators that will reduce the fleet average fuel consumption more than 20 percent. The Advanced Medium Mobile Power Sources generators—the handiwork of the U.S. Army’s Project Manager–Mobile Electric Power—is scheduled to enter production early next year and, once fully fielded, will save the Army more than 50 million gallons of fuel annually.

Coalition forces are on the threshold of attaining one goal they have sought to achieve for nearly a decade: persistent agility and perseverance. The stunning terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, is one in a list of terrorist assaults that occurred prior to that unprovoked assault and unfortunately persist. But it was that horrific event in September 2001 that solidified a multinational determination to fight a tenacious conglomerate of adversaries. Despite this focused objective, however, the challenges to collaborate are not as much about a lack of single-mindedness but rather the natural ungainliness that emerges when countries take on en masse combat.

The push for alternatives to crude-oil-based fuels is as much about greenbacks as it is about greenhouse gases. So for the U.S. military, which spends $20 billion on fuel annually, the benefit of finding viable biofuels can mean saving big bucks. But creating feasible substitutes for good old diesel is only the beginning of the workload for the U.S. Marine Corps. Not only does the service have to determine if swapping feedstock for traditional fuel is cost effective but it also must clarify the impact that doing so would have up and down the logistics road.

Scientists are developing methods to turn green algae into black gold. A research consortium consisting of two national laboratories, universities and private industry is studying a variety of technologies and processes to convert the humble one-celled organism into the chemical building blocks for biofuels and plastics.

By the middle of this decade, a new command and control system will provide U.S. Army air defense forces with an extended view of the airspace over a battlefield. The capability will integrate the service’s sensors and weapons into a single network, allowing each platform to perform to its maximum abilities while minimizing operational weaknesses. Commanders will be able to access data quickly from any sensor on the network and order any weapon to engage a target.

U.S. warfighters may one day have their handheld communications and sensor equipment powered by batteries that are “grown” using biological processes. Researchers are manipulating viruses to create power sources that can be poured or sprayed into containers or woven into uniforms and ballistic vests. By using genetically engineered viruses as templates for semiconductors and metals, scientists are building small, highly efficient batteries that are more powerful and longer lasting than current platforms.

The U.S. Army has become a fount of innovation. Under the leadership of Lt. Gen. Jeff Sorenson, USA, the Army’s chief information officer/G-6, and Maj. Gen. Susan Lawrence, USA, commanding general of the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM), the Army is transforming its LandWarNet to become a global enterprise network fully capable of supporting an expeditionary Army in an era of persistent conflict.

A new website has launched to help keep the public current with the latest information about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of New Hampshire's Coastal Response Research Center were developing an open-source, Web-based, geographical information system (GIS) platform as an internal site so stakeholder organizations could see a common operational picture of an oil spill in near real-time when the recent event occurred.