DASN Energy Give Remarks During Energy Efficiency Forum

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS120329-19
3/29/2012

By Lt. Richlyn Neal, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy Tom Hicks gave remarks at the 2012 Energy Efficiency Forum in Orlando, Fla., March 28.

The Alliance to Save Energy sponsored its fifth annual event to bring together professionals around the world to network and share ideas about the future of energy efficient technologies and innovations.

Hicks highlighted the Department of the Navy's energy program and goals and the reason the Navy is taking an aggressive approach at the way it looks at energy during the panel, "The Great Green Fleet and Beyond: Military Adoption of Energy Efficiency."

"The Department of the Navy energy investments are not about advancing an environmental agenda or to be 'green,' said Hicks. "Our energy investments are about improving our combat capabilities, increasing our mission effectiveness, and reducing our vulnerabilities to foreign sources of fossil fuel."

Other speakers on the panel included Thomas Grumbly, Lockheed Martin's vice president of Civil and Homeland Security, and Barbara Humpton, senior vice president, Siemens Government Technologies.

The moderator for the panel was Mark Brunner, national security advisor, Office of U.S. Sen. Mark Warner. During Brunner's opening remarks he highlighted that the Department of Defense uses about 90 percent of all the fossil-fuel energy in the federal government. He noted, by becoming more efficient even in small amounts, about 10 to 15 percent, can save tax dollars and these dollars could be used in other critical areas of the military.

Hicks' other key areas of focus were the Department of the Navy's alternative energy, the Marine Corps' Experimental Forward Operating Base initiative and the Department of the Navy's goal of producing 50 percent of our shore energy from alternative sources, one gigawatt initiative, which was highlighted during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Jan. 24.

The Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was unable to speak at the conference as scheduled when the plane he was traveling on experienced a mechanical problem en route to Orlando, and was forced to return to Joint Base Andrews, Md.

In October 2009 the Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus laid out five aggressive energy goals to improve the Navy's energy security and efficiency, increase the Navy's energy independence, and help lead the nation toward a clean energy economy.