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08 Apr 10. Lockheed Martin announced new green initiatives to reach its 140,000 employees, their families and communities. The orchestrated effort is rolling out in conjunction with National Environmental Education Week (EE Week), the largest organized environmental education event in the United States. Held each year during the week before Earth Day, EE Week coordinates environmental education outreach nationwide to increase Earth Day’s impact. Lockheed Martin will celebrate EE Week and Earth Day by introducing several new company-wide employee initiatives to encourage environmentally-friendly behavior at work, at home and in local communities. “At Lockheed Martin, it is our goal to raise awareness of natural resource conservation and to help our employees take an active role in their communities,” said Dr. David J.C. Constable, vice president, Lockheed Martin Energy, Environment, Safety & Health. “With the reach of our organization’s network, we have the opportunity to inspire hundreds of thousands of individuals – starting with our employees, their families and communities – so that as a corporation, we can make a big impact one small action at a time.” A program of the National Environmental Education Foundation, EE Week reaches millions of students with environmentally-themed lessons and activities. Lockheed Martin’s employee-based initiative surrounding EE Week is just a portion of the corporation’s overall Go Green business strategy.
06 Apr 10. The US Army has awarded a contract to Versar Incorporated to support range cleanup of military munitions and explosives at the National Training Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, California, USA.
Under the $29.5m contract, Versar will locate, identify and dispose a wide variety of munitions and explosives so that NTC range operations can continue to be conducted safely and efficiently. The NTC is the only instrumented training group capable of handling brigade-sized units and the centre conducts live force-on-force training exercises that can involve 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers every month.The five-year contract has been awarded by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District. (Source: army-technology.com)
30 Mar 10. While the world searches for more efficient ways to fuel automobiles and create usable energy, Air Force scientists are looking for cleaner, more efficient ways to fuel the military’s aircraft. An A-10 Thunderbolt II flew March 25 solely on a blend of biomass-derived fuel and conventional JP-8 jet fuel; the first flight of its kind. Air Force Materiel Command fuels experts Jeff Braun, the Air Force’s alternative fuels certification office director; Tim Edwards, a senior chemical engineer with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s propulsion directorate; and Betty Rodriguez, the chief engineer for the alternative fuels certification office, direct the research and certification of synthetic and biomass-derived alternative aviation fuels from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, participated in a “DOD Live” bloggers roundtable and offered their perspectives on the history-making demonstration flight. The A-10 was powered by a blend of conventional JP-8 and a biomass fuel derived from camelina, a nonfood rotation crop similar to soybean and mustard. The alternative fuels certification office is preparing to test fuels made primarily from plant oils and animal fats. They are part of a family of fuels Mr. Braun said are called “hydro-treatable renewable jet,” or HRJ, fuels. He and his colleagues hope to create biomass fuels that the Air Force will certify for use across its spectrum of aircraft and support vehicles. The A-10 flight is the latest phase of a long research and development process evaluating candidate biofuels from various industry sources. Part of that process, Mr. Edwards said, is testing different kinds of biomas