With more advanced technology in development, there are new needs for energy: from AI, drones and vehicles. When these technologies are deployed for with our men and women in uniform, our forward operating bases require continuous energy sources but it’s often in places that are incredibly difficult to resupply.
Getting fuel or batteries to those locations is dangerous, expensive, and increasingly what adversaries target first.
This contested logistics problem, one of the greatest and underdiscussed national security challenges the U.S. faces.
Right now, the solutions are mostly diesel generators and lithium batteries, but diesel requires constant resupply convoys, which are vulnerable and costly
What we need is a power source that doesn't run out and that doesn't need a convoy to refuel. A type of power that can operate for years in remote or hostile environments without human intervention.
That's not a fantasy because the physics exists. Radioisotope power systems (nuclear batteries) have been doing exactly this for decades on deep space probes.
Voyager 1 has been running on one battery since 1977 and is still transmitting data from interstellar space. The question is why we haven't industrialized it for the applications that need it most.
You run out of energy before you run out of bullets.