Do It Yourself

. Currently the US military has policies and procedures in place to interact with allies or sympathetic local populaces to help its forces within the field get their required energy and clean water when engaged in a foreign military campaign. Nonetheless, this just isn’t wholly dependable, as the US may possibly well come across itself facing unilateral military activities, or have itself in a scenario where its allies can not aid it with the resources it requirements to conduct its military actions successfully.

The US military is very interested in particular option energies that, with the correct analysis and development technologically, can make it energy independent, or at least a great deal a lot more so, on the battlefield. 1 of the things that greatly interests the military along these lines is the development of tiny nuclear reactors, which might be portable, for producing theater-local electricity. The military is impressed with how clean-burning nuclear reactors are and how energy efficient they’re. Making them portable for the typical warfare of today’s highly mobile, small-scaled military operations is some thing they’re researching. The most prominent thing that the US military thinks these small nuclear reactors could be useful for involves the removal of hydrogen (for fuel cell) from seawater. It also thinks that converting seawater to hydrogen fuel in this way would have less negative impact on the environment than its present practices of remaining supplied out within the field.

Seawater is, actually, the military’s highest interest when it comes to the matter of alternative energy supply. Seawater could be endlessly “mined” for hydrogen, which in turn powers advanced fuel cells. Making use of OTEC, seawater can also be endlessly converted into desalinated, potable water.  Potable water and hydrogen for power are two of the things that a near-future deployed military force will require most of all.

In the cores of nuclear reactors-which as stated above are devices highly interesting, in portable form, to the US military-we encounter temperatures greater than 1000 degrees Celsius. When this level of temperature is mixed with a thermo-chemical water-splitting process, we have on our hands the most efficient means of breaking down water into its component parts, which are molecular hydrogen and oxygen. The minerals and salts which are contained in seawater would need to be extracted via a desalination process to be able to make the way clear for the water-splitting procedure. These could then be utilized, like in vitamins or in salt shakers, or simply sent back to the ocean (recycling). Using the power of nuclear reactors to extract this hydrogen from the sea, so that you can then input that into fuel cells to power advanced airplanes, tanks, ground vehicles, and the like, is clearly high on the R & D priority list of the military.