The greenest Marine company ever is going to war, as they prep to deploy with a new collection of solar-powered equipment that could reduce their fuel consumption in Afghanistan by 30 to 50 percent.

India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Pendleton, California, will be the first to make a concerted eco-push in the war zone. Despite the Pentagon's ongoing talk of curbing reliance on fossil fuels, significant progress has lagged. Especially in Iraq and Afghanistan: Combat areas were exempt from a recent Pentagon goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent within three years.

The company recently completed about a week of drills relying entirely on solar power, National Defense magazine is reporting. In Afghanistan, officials anticipate that solar panels, along with solar-powered generators and tents, will minimize reliance on batteries and gas.

Combined, the two entail significant logistical challenges, not to mention their environmental and financial toll. A single soldier in Afghanistan uses 22 gallons of fuel a day, and delivering each gallon to the war zone costs between $300 and $400, according to estimates released last year.

"A lot of commanders in the field want to do this for operational benefits," Christine Parthemore, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, tells Danger Room. "There's no operational benefit to these huge fuel convoys, and they're also a significant security risk."

Other services are reportedly looking to mimic the initiatives, which also include training troops how to use the devices. That's one fundamental that, combined with easy-to-use solar-power equipment, might make a major impact in how quickly the gear becomes a mainstay.

Take the ground-renewable expeditionary-energy system, or Greens, for example. Each of the solar-powered devices can generate 300 watts of power, making them a viable alternative to fuel-based generators. The Marines will deploy with seven Greens systems, and because they can be set up and recharged easily, officials anticipate a seamless transition.

“It reduces the requirements on the Marines,” Maj. Patrick Reynolds, an officer with the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, tells National Defense. “They don’t have to be checking fuel levels and turning generators on and off."

But for all their forward thinking, the company's yet to solve some major dilemmas. Even after testing a handful of water-purification devices, they didn't find one fit to deploy, which means continued reliance on bottled-water deliveries. For every fuel truck, the Marines rely on around seven water trucks. Not to mention that – thanks to the power of the sun – troops are stuck drinking warmed-over aqua.

And a community's water supply can be a sensitive issue, Parthemore points out. "It gets a lot more touchy when these are resources within a region that you're looking to tap into," she says. "Water can become very political."

India Company's deployment will no doubt yield valuable data to help other services introduce green technology overseas. Assuming, that is, they come away ready to learn from the initiative's successes, or failures.

"I hope they're asking 'what next,' because there might be operational benefits we've never dreamed of, or some of the projects might not work quite as they'd hoped," Parthemore says. "Whatever their 2.0 ends up being, there are going to be important lessons in this for the Defense Department as a whole."

Photo: U.S Air Force

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