Nine years ago, Robert J. Nowak, an electro-chemicals expert for the Defense Dept., learned that senior generals weren't happy with their troops' electronic gear. While the night-vision, laser, and GPS devices worked well, the batteries that powered them weighed some 25 pounds per soldier, heavy enough to hurt some of the troops.
So Nowak, who worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Dept.'s famous research branch, solicited bids for a new device that would power a soldier's gear at a tenth of the weight and a fraction of the $100 cost of the batteries. Today, the original 18 companies that took up Nowak's challenge have been whittled down to two: Livermore (Calif.)-based UltraCell and Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor, Mich. Their solution: small, sturdy fuel cells that can power a soldier's clutch of mobile devices for a week on a gallon or so of methanol or propane. Battle-ready versions of the fuel cells will be available this year.
DARPA regards the result as a game-changer for the military—akin to the potential shift in the automobile market from gasoline-driven to hybrid or electric cars. Before the fuel cells, "If you were in Afghanistan and had a battery, you basically had to go to another country to get it recharged," says Nowak, now retired.
U.S. consumers and businesses might someday gain as well. Both companies are testing models for the U.S. commercial market. First targets: city police forces and makers of recreational vehicles.
Can the Military Find the Answer to Alternative Energy? - BusinessWeek
The US military has 3000 classified energy technologies. All snatched by militardy contractors.
To quote National Security Advisor, retired Marine General James Jones: "technologies have been kept out of the public realm for over six decades while secretly developed by military-corporate entities. It is going to take an act of Gawd to get them out" and I don't think he is suffering from Borderline militardy complex.
The truth is that if US corruption would end today within a month the continent would be more wealthy than ever before.
BusinessWeek cant even tell us what that war is all about, the topic is much to complicated and shocking to explain.
You cant fix a problem without talking about it. It is that simple.
Classified Technology, Dylan Touhey and Graham Stevenson
Air Force aims to 'rewrite laws of cyberspace'
Obama administration to promote antigravity technology