Pentagon announces plans to reduce energy use

In the most significant step the Defense Department has yet taken to address its substantial thirst for energy, the Pentagon yesterday released its first strategy (pdf) for changing the way it uses energy on the battlefield.

Problem is - while they do know how much energy they use, they don't know where they are using it. Specific energy data have proved a major hurdle for the Operational Energy office. Although Burke said that the military keeps good data on energy purchases -- where it is being sold and moved -- it does not have consistent data on how it is being used.

"You can't manage what you can't measure," Burke said yesterday.

Many of us may be in exactly the same situation as the Pentagon. We know how much we are paying for energy, but not where it is going.