In an afternoon Bloggers’ Roundtable today, Dr. Kevin Geiss, Program Director, Energy Security, talked about the U.S. Army’s work in his area.

The Army was allotted about $1.5 billion in the recent Stimulus Bill. Of that, about $700 million was designated for energy related projects.

The Army’s goal is to have about 25-30% of its energy use, 1.5 gigawatts of energy, in renewable energy sources by 2017. That goal is separate from the reductions imposed on the Army, and all Federal agencies, by recent legislation.

At Army installations, the reduction in BTU’s is on target. With respect to the non-tactical vehicle fleet, Dr. Geiss felt that they were about half way to the target. The Army’s leasing of neighborhood electric vehicles (NEV’s), discussed in a BRT on January 12, 2009 and the intended acquisition of 502 hybrid sedans will help a great deal in that regard.

Tactical vehicles and combat installations are also being examined for energy savings and better use of existing energy sources.

Tactical vehicles such as tanks or personnel carriers have had system after system added with little regard to an overall design concept. Some vehicles have as little as two minutes of operating time when on their batteries alone. Geiss talked about vehicles that used nearly double the amount of energy for non-movement systems than for moving the vehicle. Cooling, communications and targeting systems all take power that was not designed into the original vehicle.

Combat bases, forward operating bases (FOB’s), currently have a private with a can of fuel as their control on energy use. In order to tie in renewable sources such as wind or solar, and to manage fuel used for energy, tactical grids will have to be created and managed. A computer will manage the grid, just as they do the electrical grid in the United States.

The big project for the Army is the proposed 500 megawatt solar farm at Fort Irwin in California. This is a massive project and Geiss announced that the developer would be named next week. The Army is looking for other partners, both in the private and public sector, for other such projects.

Here are some examples of the military reporting I’ve been doing:

• Power Projection: The Expeditionary Strike Group – America’s Worldwide Reach
• Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine – Prospects for Tissue and Limb Regrowth
• Africa Command: The U.S. Army in Africa – A Team like No Other
• The United States Army Reserve – The Army’s Operational Reserve
• Electronic Warfare Becomes an Army Speciality – Bringing Control of the Electromagnetic Spectrum to the Battlefield

Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable was with Lt. Col. Pam McArthur, the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command-South Command Judge Advocate. We discussed the status and progress of both the military and police training regarding Constitutional rights and justice in Southern Afghanistan. The region is under the Afghan 205th Corps.

The Colonel described a judicial structure for the 205th that was modeled on that of the United States military. The major difference is that the Afghans have three sitting judges and no visiting judges.

Training is conducted at all levels of the Army, from the common soldier on up. Often the training is combined with other training such as weapons familiarization, since that is a point where a large number of troops are assembled.

This was a difficult BRT because McArthur seemed a little disconnected from the field. Perhaps we were expecting something different than the intent of the BRT.

In the United States, we have a legal history and philosophical foundation that dates back 2500 years and more. The Afghanis have their own history and legal foundation but it is nothing like ours.

The Colonel emphasized that the Afghans she works with share the same values that we do. I can accept that but I have to continue to suggest that their values come from a different base than ours. She told us that the Afghan constitution is similar to ours and that their military justice system is modeled on ours.

Given that, I would suspect that a Western framework has been grafted onto Afghan institutions. We were not able to determine how the man in the street or the PFC in the squad relates to concepts such as “rule of law”, fairness and justice. The ANP are noted for their corruption, and corruption in the ANA is not unheard of. The roots of these fundamentally unfair practices are not addressed by a lecture on the Afghan Constitution.

The expectations of the people in the ANP and ANA are not being changed by this training. When the mentors leave, the non-coms still shake down the recruits and the cops still take bribes. The concept that this should not happen is not widespread or accepted in either institution, or in the general population.

Lt. Col. McArthur seemed a bit naive. What is even more disappointing is that we have been doing this same task for eight years with relatively little progress.

Afghanistan remains a disappointment. Its Army is vastly undermanned. Its police forces are an embarrassment to the government. Vast segments of the population remain out of touch with provincial and central government services. Provincial Reconstruction Teams vary in capabilities and willingness to engage without any sort of direction and support from above.

We are often told that Afghanistan is not Iraq. It sure isn’t and we ought to be ashamed about that.

Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable took us to the edge of science fiction, and perhaps a few steps beyond.

We had the opportunity to speak with COL Robert Vandre, Program Director, Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM). Col Dr. Vandre talked about the very, very cool things his agency is doing with regenerative medicine. Growing pieces parts for people.

AFIRM is:

two multi-institutional consortia, one led by Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C., and the University of Pittsburgh; and one led by Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., and the Cleveland Clinic. The U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio, Texas, will work with these academic consortia to provide key guidance on military medical needs and conduct trials of new therapies.

Just what are all these learned people working on?

• Using a spray-on application of adult stem cells to speed wound healing and replacement of skin cells
• Using the goo around the cells of a pig’s bladder to regrow a fingertip that has been amputated
• Finding a drug that prevents burns from forming scars as they heal
• Using Chimerism to prevent potential organ rejection or the need for immuno-suppressant drugs
• Using dermal stem cells to loosen constricting scar tissue

They have a method to grow human skin that can produce an entire adult’s body cover in two weeks. Imagine how that will help burn victims. Grafts are a long and painful process. Extensive burns often prove fatal because the body cannot recover fast enough. It may soon be possible to grow a burn patient new skin, from a few of his own cells, and do a graft that covers the entire burn all at once.

They’re working on regrowing amputated limbs. As the medicine and the technology evolve, a new arm might be regrown in a year.

If you don’t want to wait, DARPA is working on implanting prosthetics into the bone and connecting the patient’s nerves up to electronics in the prosthetic. No more straps and a stump. The implanted device will work almost like the amputated limb.

To avoid that whole titanium look in your implanted limb, well… how about we cover it with human skin?

Yeah, we’re getting in to some deep medicine here. Much of this work involves adult stem cells, cells each and every one of us have in our bodies. There are treatments and processes now being used with adult stem cells that benefit people every day.

The research is also looking into the stems cells in placental and umbilical tissues. No babies are hamed to obtain these stem cells. They seem to have a greater ability to adapt than adult cells do but do not seem to have the serious issues that fetal stem cells have.

The doctor told us that fetal stem cells seem to create tumors since their “shut off” mechanism does not work or does not exist yet.

Here are PowerPoint slides [5 MB file] of some of the topics we talked about. Copyrights remain with the organizations credited, I presume.

Many of these topics and far more will be covered at the 26th Army Science Conference (ASC) in Orlando Florida. ASC takes place December 1-4, 2008.

Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable was with Army Col. Thomas McGrath, commander of the Afghanistan Regional Security Integration Command-South. Our questions focused on the jailbreak in Kandahar on June 16 and the situation in the Arghandab district following that incident.

No NATO personnel were on site in Kandahar at the time of the jailbreak. Col. McGrath reports a truck bomb exploded at the main entrance, and a number of Taliban then attacked with RPG’s and small arms. The prison is not like those in the West, more of a compound and less of a fortress.

McGrath cannot state the number of attackers but suggests that it would not be impossible for it to have involved less than 50. He reports that the situation inside the prison has not yet been clarified and that it is possible that doors were unlocked prior to the attack.

The prison did not keep very good records on its inmates. Col. McGrath estimates that about 900 prisoners may have escaped, nearly all on foot. Of that number, perhaps 2-300 were Taliban.

The Afghan government responded quickly and an Afghan Army commando unit was in Kandahar within hours. Within the next three days, thousands of Afghan troops would be moved to the region.

Media reports at the time indicated that the Taliban had moved into the Arghandab district in force, occupying 18 villages, setting mines and blowing up bridges. Those reports were untrue.

A Canadian Army unit is stationed in the Arghandab region and the Taliban did not and do not have freedom of movement in the district. By June 18, two days after the breakout, Afghan Army and National Police units had moved into Arghandab itself and had pushed out into the district. In heavy fighting, 80 Taliban were killed and 25 captured. Ground troops were supported, for the first time, by Afghan helicopters.

In related fighting south of Kandahar, an additional 25 Taliban were killed.

Col. McGrath characterized the Afghan response as “decisive” and “overwhelming”. He stated that the national government and the security forces could not have conducted this operation last year, perhaps not even 6-7 months ago.

It has been a difficult week for ISAF forces in this region. 12 soldiers and Marines have been killed in the last nine days. McGrath reports that these losses are mourned by their comrades but that morale is high.

McGrath is very pleased with the current state of the Afghan security forces. There remain logistical challenges. His embeds, mentors, are only at 50% strength so he could do more if he had more personnel.