As a supporting plan of the President’s 2005 National Strategy for Maritime Security (NSMS), the Global Maritime Intelligence Integration (GMII) Plan called for the creation of “a single-integrated lookout (SILO) list of all vessels of domestic and global intelligence interest.”
The National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office (NMIO) funded the development of the SILO. SILO allows the sharing of Vessel of Interest (VOI) information between Government Departments, our Allies and Coalition Partners. SILO is instrumental in enhancing Maritime Domain Awareness.
Continue Reading →The U.S. Navy’s Liquid Fuel Board in 1904 decided to transition the fleet from coal to oil, as engineers and operators alike had come to believe that oil-fired propulsion would greatly enhance the Navy’s fighting trim. Three years later, the ‘round-the-world voyage of the Great White Fleet underscored coal’s logistical and operational challenges and the need for change.
Today the Navy has embraced a far-reaching energy-efficiency strategy and is pursuing a broad spectrum of “technology insertions” that include alternative fuels for its ships and aircraft. This is already promising across-the-board enhancements for today’s as well as tomorrow’s fleet, not unlike the Navy at the turn of the previous century. And in that, the Service is focused on a game-changing target: the 2016 deployment of a “Great Green Fleet,” first announced by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus in his October 2009 Navy Energy Forum address. The nation’s energy vulnerability clearly has military and national security implications, he explained.
“We do not have operational independence, and we are tied to a vulnerable logistics tail,” Mabus said. “[I]n the drive for energy reform the goal has got to be increased warfighting capability.”
At the 2010 Navy Energy Forum, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughead said the Navy’s path to a Great Green Fleet was not a “public relations gimmick” but epitomized the Service’s new energy-security research, development, policy and operations.
“It’s more than simply how ‘green’ can we be seen,” said Roughead. “It really is an operational issue for us.”
The Green Fleet concept signals the Navy’s strategic embrace of a dramatic sea change that could break dependence on fossil fuels for powering the future surface ships and provide an alternative energy model for the United States. In short, it’s a strategic and operational imperative that cannot wait.
Continue Reading →The Creating Climate Wealth Summit took place May 3-4, 2011 at the Nationals Park Conference Center in Washington, DC. The workshops were attended by executives, investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders from the private and public sector. The purpose was to identify specific U.S. pathways to accelerate deployment of green solutions in the face of low expectations and weak mandates.
The Carbon War Room, a non-profit organization created by entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson focused on market-driven solutions to address climate change, convened the summit and assembled leaders from the finance, transportation, energy, agriculture industries, as well as government in an effort to jumpstart efforts that will have immediate impacts on global climate change.
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