The U.S. military’s drive to replace fossil fuels with sustainable energy could result in an interesting twist: the military could wind up being a net supplier of energy to the U.S. electricity grid, in the form of geothermal power tapped from land owned by the Department of Defense (pdf alert).
Since 2004, Fort Drum in upstate New York has been installing geothermal systems in 19 buildings in various stages of completion. Across the country in Texas, Fort Bliss is looking to geothermal for achieving net zero carbon emissions in ten years. There are many more examples in between, and a study by the the Engineer Research and Development Center of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suggests that that the Department of Defense has enough geothermal resources to produce electricity for the national grid as well as its own bases.