News release: “The Defense Department’s current reliance on expensive, difficult–to-transport and finite fossil fuels affects cost-reduction efforts as well as war-fighting operations, a senior Pentagon official said. “Certainly, for current operations and for the future, one of the things we’re really focused on is reducing demand, [which is] reducing our consumption, because no matter what kind of energy we’re using, the amount of energy we’re using causes us problems in practice — particularly in the kinds of fights we’re fighting today where so much of our logistics train is in the battlefield,” Sharon Burke, director of the department’s operational energy plans and programs, said in a recent DoDLive Bloggers roundtable. Operational energy is the energy used to move, train and sustain weapons, forces and equipment for military operations, said Burke, who discussed the Pentagon’s plans to reduce and reform operational energy consumption. In her recently created position, Burke’s job, she said, is to look into current operational energy usage and find ways to lower total fossil fuel consumption, and to work toward incorporating alternative and renewable energy sources into the fighting force.”