Army Contracts to Study Its ‘Carbon Bootprint’

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WASHINGTON — As the federal government prepares to regulate greenhouse gases, the U.S. Army has contracted a firm to evaluate the military’s “carbon bootprint,” a balance sheet of its emissions.

Besides accounting for emissions such as carbon dioxide, the analysis of 11 bases across the country will recommend how the Army can cut those gas levels, creating a blueprint for reductions throughout the nation’s military.

As the country’s largest energy buyer, opportunities for alternative energy and efficiency contracts abound. Some of the largest solar arrays in the country, for example, have been contracted at U.S. military bases.

The study’s recommendations “can deliver important benefits to our forward deployed forces,” said Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health for the Army. “By reducing requirements for resupply, we are able to reduce the number of convoys, a primary target for ambushes taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example.”

Enviance, the company contracted to measure emission levels and make the recommendations, has already piloted a project at Fort Carson, Colo., home of 23,000 military personnel. According to the firm, Fort Carson emits about 200,000 to 220,000 tons of greenhouse-gas emissions a year. Multiply that carbon bootprint by nearly a dozen bases, and those bases have the greenhouse-gas profile equivalent to that of a small coal-fired power plant.

Calculate that across the entire military, and U.S. forces have one of the largest carbon balance sheets in the world, providing business opportunities for a raft of clean-energy companies.

Enviance said its assessment not only tracks emissions, but sequestration of emissions, or long-term storage of greenhouse gases. For example, at the Army’s Fort Benning, Ga., base, forests can help to offset a portion of the facilities’ emissions through their respiration process, turning carbon dioxide into oxygen and sequestering the carbon in their leaves and needles.

The study follows a Bush administration executive order mandating that the federal government strengthen its energy and transportation management.

Write to Ian Talley at [email protected]