ENERGY CHALLENGES IN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT Featuring Nina French, PhD, PE
Energy Portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit By Jeff Decker, PhD, program director, Hacking for Defense, Stanford University
Hacking for Defense and the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University recently hosted Nina French, PhD, with The Defense Innovation Unit, for an informative talk on energy challenges in the Defense Department. Dr. French is the technical director of the Energy Portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit and is responsible for technical due diligence and assessments of the commercial technology. She is also a senior advisor to DIU’s director and is responsible for DIU’s relationships with National Laboratories and academic institutions.
Dr. French’s work with the U.S. DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit helps the DoD engage with the commercial sector, accelerates and adopts technologies that can help solve energy challenges we are currently facing. She shed light on how DIU is optimizing energy generation, storage and delivery, as well as looking at installation infrastructure and enhancing the range, duration and efficiency of military platforms in different environments and extreme conditions. She also spoke about how academia and industry are coming together to help solve problems with operational readiness, by using new technologies to improve the fuel supply chain, the use of onsite power generation, energy storage and power beaming. Dr. French also shared some exciting insights on tactical vehicle hybridization, electric search and rescue vehicles, micro-grids and advanced batteries.
This was the first presentation given by the Defense Department on energy at Stanford University. Defense energy events will occur quarterly as Stanford’s Hacking for Defense Initiative at the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Defense Innovation Unit’s Advanced Energy and Materials portfolio continue to partner.
