Energy savings isn’t just an environmental concern

  • Published
  • By Janae' Daniels
  • AEDC/PA
Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn. --  A small focus group made up of Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) and DoD system engineers, system architects, plant and test operations personnel gathered at the Gossick Leadership Center recently to discuss ways energy savings could be increased in the test mission area. 

The participants were chosen from the high energy use areas across the base. While the task at hand was to identify energy conservation projects, the team was advised that the best ideas were the ones that also improved reliability and maintainability, protected the environment and operated more energy efficiently. 

At the end of the meeting there were approximately 200 ideas brought forth for consideration ATA Deputy General Manager Steve Pearson said they all were good ideas with some having significant energy savings potential. 

"Over the next couple of weeks we will organize the list and make decisions on the path forward," Pearson said. "In order to keep the program alive and to win the hearts and minds of every person at AEDC, we will prepare project proposals to even correct some of the less costly suggestions, thus demonstrating our commitment to energy conservation." 

Two projects underway are repair of the Engine Test Facility service air system and Model Installation Building hydraulic system upgrade. 

"Both meet our desired objectives of improving operations, reliability and maintainability, are more environmentally friendly and incorporate energy conservation design features, thus resulting in significant energy savings over the systems they are replacing," Pearson said. 

This effort is largely aimed at ensuring the AEDC mission remains viable for years to come. 

"The cost of energy may well be the greatest threat to AEDC being able to continue to serve our customers and ultimately our men and women in uniform," Pearson said. "Improving operations efficiency in our plants, utilities and offices and outright elimination of energy waste is a responsibility everyone must take as their own." 

AEDC Commander Col. Art Huber believes our nation is living in an unpredictable time, and it is headed for a time when energy may not be as plentiful and cheap as Americans have come to expect it. 

"The energy crisis is a priority of this administration. It's also a priority of our commander at Materiel Command to find ways to conserve energy and find ways to reduce our energy requirements," the colonel explained. "So we have a big challenge ahead of us to help solve this problem." 

Pearson said AEDC's consumption of electricity, gas, potable water, fuel and raw water is high by any standard. More than 50 percent of the cost to test in AEDC's large wind tunnels is energy related. 

"The Air Force understands AEDC will always use a lot of energy," Pearson explained. "What is not acceptable is our apparent lack of initiatives to reduce our energy consumption. This may not be totally fair, since most of our major investment and maintenance projects are designed to reduce consumption. However, we have not been cataloging all of these savings and have not pushed our formal energy program outside the base support areas." 

According to Pearson if AEDC develops an aggressive energy savings program it can help ensure a healthy future for the center. 

"The AEDC work force has always been able to rise to any occasion that threatens our ability to serve our test customers," he said. "We all need to take some time to think about ways to save energy and reduce waste." 

Colonel Huber said the energy program should be "people-friendly." 

"Think about energy savings from 'how do you as a person, given human nature, respond to these kinds of antics,'" he said. "Quite frankly, the more seamless it is, the easier it is to do, the more likely you are to do it." 

The colonel gave an example from his own life to expand on this point. 

"I believe in recycling," he said. "I think it's a good thing to do. It cuts down on energy cost and it cuts down resource requirements for materials. And yet, it's sometimes a pain to actually gather that stuff up and cart it off to some collection agency. But, when they said 'here are the bins that you can put the recycling stuff in and all you have to do is cart it out to your front lawn where it's going to be picked up twice a week,' it all of a sudden became easy. And now, I am a participant and I can make it happen without it being a huge drain on my time or effort." 

Both Pearson and Colonel Huber challenge all employees to think outside the box and start the journey today to enhance the energy savings program at AEDC.