In the attic of a pre-World War II building, located on an Air Force base in the western desert, a group of specialists sequester themselves to discuss the nation’s energy challenges. They strategize on ways to utilize natural resources for fuel, ways to polarize the efforts of the private and public sectors for a common good, ways to break down barriers that have often existed between the nation’s defense system and the populace it strives to protect.

This is not, however, science fiction. It’s science fact. And it’s happening right here in Utah, at Hill Air Force Base.

Known simply as The Energy Project, it’s the collaborative effort of a team of both military and civilian experts—engineers, product managers, a finance specialist, and a graduate student—working toward not only addressing the energy demands of Hill, but those of the nation as a whole. Their task is daunting, but their passion is infectious.

“Energy security is one prong of the project’s triumvirate—along with national security and environmental security for Hill Air Force Base,” says Mary A. Enges, the project manager heading up this team. She was recruited to HAFB in August of 2008 by Jim Sutton, plans and programs director at the base, for what he calls development of “energy independence.”

“That’s a term that can be construed in a lot of different ways,” Enges says. “So we’ve morphed toward more of an energy security direction.”

With good reason. The state’s largest single-site employer, with more than 23,000 employees, Hill AFB has astounding energy demands. During peak energy usage times in summer months, base operations can consume 45-47 mega-watts of electricity, equivalent to that of a small city. Hill aircraft and ground vehicles use more than 40 million gallons of fuel a year, most of that jet fuel.

“We get our fuel from a variety of sources, but not all are domestic,” Enges says. “We get some of it from our friends in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and other places around the world. In the summer of 2008, the $4 a gallon occurrence really put us in a difficult situation. If you have energy security on the fuel side alone, you’re a long way toward being independent of particular acts or occurrences outside our country. And we’re all about national security. We never forget what the mission is…to secure our nation.”

The goal of the project is to become a “net zero energy producer—that we produce more than we use,” Enges says. As the base expands, she says it will need more resources, and the project’s goal is to provide those resources for both the base and the communities surrounding it.

Paving the Way

This isn’t Enges’ first rodeo at Hill. A former Air Force officer who was called back to active duty during the Iraqi Freedom mission and who had served as an environmental attorney at Hill for six years prior to that, she came back to Hill at the encouragement of Sutton, and for the opportunity of working with Bruce Evans, the chief of environmental law at HAFB. Tragically, Evans passed away in January of this year after a battle with cancer, but “this whole team, and this project, is going to be his legacy,” Enges says.

The team includes Lt. Col. Rudy Tessnow, IMA to the Director of the Plans and Programs Directorate at the Ogden Air Logistics Center; Steven Phibbs, a retired Naval officer who is financial manager for the center’s Enhanced Use Lease program management office; Tom Holland, a graduate student from Utah State University who is interning as a program analyst; and David Lund, a project engineer. Together with Hill’s civil engineers, the project team is charting new territory and creating new alliances between the military sector and the private sector.

The project has certainly been aided by the Enhanced Use Lease program, a relatively new tool in the military’s arsenal of real estate properties. EUL is an alternative to traditional military approaches of acquiring, constructing or upgrading its lands or facilities. It allows the military to receive rent, either in cash or through in-kind services, for at least the fair market value of its assets.

Hill AFB is already in the midst of a dynamic EUL program known as Falcon Hill. Approximately 550 acres of land on the west side of the base next to I-15 will be commercially developed into office and research space, along with supporting retail establishments, restaurants and two hotels. When Air Force officials announced the Falcon Hill project in August of 2008, the news was met with enthusiastic support from base officials and leaders in surrounding communities.

“Falcon Hill paved the way with ‘trust’ with the Air Force and this team,” Tessnow says. “We’re affiliated with the EUL program management office, and this project fits in nicely with the Air Force’s efforts to expand the program.”

Support for the Energy Project is widespread, even to the highest four-star levels of the Air Force. Tessnow says that “because we have the largest EUL in all of the DOD [Department of Defense], they are just amazed at what we are working toward.” So amazed that the project team was honored with the Chief of Staff Team Excellence Award last September, presented during the Air Force Association’s annual convention in Washington, D.C.

The Art of the Possible

The E-Team really took birth in January 2009, when it sponsored an internal energy summit that brought together key on-base personnel and members from the state energy offices, along with experts in academics and utilities.

“We were able to look at some of the art of the possible where people were saying, ‘I don’t think you can do that,’” Enges recalls. “Well, we can. Falcon Hill is an excellent example where we’re creating a co-generation plant. That will mean taking eight boilers that are 50-plus years old out of service and replacing them with turbine engines producing our own electricity. By the end of the day at the summit, the base stake holders who were involved realized we were looking at whole new approaches.”

That summit enabled the team to establish baseline perimeters that guided their second gathering—the Hill AFB Energy Forum on April 22, 2009. Held at the Salt Place Convention Center in Salt Lake City, it brought together more than 140 energy experts in industry, government and finance. Enges says the group worked in six different breakout discussions, and “put flesh on the bones” of energy alternatives and options.

“We looked at feasible, achievable projects that Hill could do,” Tessnow adds. “That was the goal of the forum. Between looking at solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, nuclear and co-generation, we were able to identify potential partnerships, and of course opportunities.” The Governor’s Office of Economic Development is one partner that’s behind the efforts of Enges and the E-team.

“These guys are leading the way,” says Samantha Mary Julian, energy and natural resources cluster director for GOED. “There’s a ripple effect here that clearly benefits the communities surrounding Hill Air Force Base and many others.”

Julian says her office’s Military Installation Energy Collaborative, a group that meets every other month, is supporting the team and its utilization of the EUL concept.

“We felt the best place for this effort to start was at Hill Air Force Base,” she says. “The potential for developing efficiencies as well as alternative fuels is very exciting. We see them eventually adding more community players as well, which helps with the state’s economic growth. When a potential partner realizes that the military has the money and the manpower, that helps take away a little of the risk from the communities and others who might want to get involved.”

It also helps GOED in its recruiting efforts for new business coming to Utah, she said.

In the Works

One of the lab’s largest studies is on algal-based biofuels made from algae. Those fuels would create a much smaller footprint than traditional bio-fuels like soy beans and corn. Plus algae is not a food source.

The study has looked at some of the more than 400,000 different types of algae that grow throughout the world, and narrowed down a list of those algaes that would survive the processes necessary to making them into fuel. Several of those varieties are located right next door to Hill—in the Great Salt Lake.

“Imagine the savings if we could defray the costs of bringing fuel to the base,” Enges said. “Rather than coming from across the globe, it could come from across the freeway.”

In addition to cost savings, such alternative fuel sources add to the base’s green environmental initiatives. Already, the E-team has created a recycling program that over a four-year period will save the base $750,000. The neighboring waste-to-energy plant on the base’s east side, operated in Davis County for more than two decades, already provides some steam-generated power, and that program will be expanded to include the new developments at Falcon Hill. Co-generation plants alone could save the Air Force, over the next 50 years, between $30 to $130 million in goods and services and actual cash returned to the military. “That’s money that can be spent on defense, which is our number one priority,” Tessnow reiterats.

E-team member Steven Phibbs’ role is to create the financial mechanism to make these concepts realities. He’s met with numerous stake holders—utility companies, surrounding government leaders, etc.—as well as with financial institutions on Wall Street and beyond.

“The nation’s in an energy crunch, and the Air Force is certainly in an energy crunch,” Phibbs says. “The approach we’ve taken is to look at the vast resources at our command, whether they’re land, natural resources, personnel resources or expertise in the Air Force. Then, we want to leverage those and utilize those to address some of these energy needs.” One of the team’s biggest supporters is four-star AF General Donald Hoffman. He has traveled to Hill from his headquarters at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio several times, and Phibbs says “he’s amazed as well” at the potential of the project.

“We meet with all of these entities and make the inroads necessary,” he says. “Cities and towns, power companies, the Air Force Real Property folks in San Antonio—we’re very fortunate that the time is right for this, that things are ripe to be picked. The players are out there already. Industry, venture capitalists, regulatory agencies and state and local governments—our office provides that nexus to coordinate everybody’s efforts.”

A Greener Tomorrow

Going forward, the E-team’s focus will be mainly on four energy production initiatives. Development of the co-generation and waste-to-energy facilities for the base are being fast tracked. An industry day has been held and the team hopes to select partners for development as early as this July.

Geothermal exploration will involve initial research and site evaluation. The team will rely heavily on the expertise of the Air Force’s China Lake project in California, where a geothermal plant returns $1 to $3 million a year to Air Force coffers.

Continued research will also be done toward development of algal-based bio-fuels. Technical and feasibility analyses will be initiated and interest from both industry and academia is expected to increase.

Solar and ground-source heat pumps technology is also being studied and analyzed. The team has received a grant from the Department of Energy for technical assistance with this segment.

From this vast and aggressive program, the E-team not only hopes to strengthen the security of the base and the nation, but blaze new trails in the continuing collaborative effort of meshing military and commercial enterprises. The environment benefits every step of the way as well.

“If you’re taking old, antiquated stuff that has a fairly high emissions rate and put in clean, efficient sorts of turbines, then you’re going to be reducing your potential to emit and of course the actual emissions,” Enges says.