This is the slide I used for my part of the renewable energy panel at the Contested Logistics Industry Week today.
The intent was to give an overview of the contested logistics problem to see if academic and industry partners see approaches we haven't considered.
Contested logistics is primarily about the transportation requirements and risk of delivering what soldiers need to fight, and fuel dominates the transportation volume. A lot of people are surprised that power generation has been the biggest fuel consumer on the battlefield in wartime. Generators are widely dispersed and constantly running, plus a large proportion of power generation has been wasted due to poorly matched loads, lack of distribution, etc. Gains in efficiency won't save us though as many new energy demands are emerging, including AI, additive manufacturing, water production, directed energy, robots, etc. All of these offset human labor/risk or deliveries of materiel from outside using energy inside the contested environment.
Solutions cannot trade reducing fuel delivery with the need for increased ongoing delivery of something else. Soldiers also need to be able to move within the contested environment and often need to move on short notice.
