Navy buys biofuel for $16 a gallon

Hot Air ^ | December 11,2011 | J.E. DYER

[Hojczyk]

Teaming up with the Department of Agriculture (which has a cheery Rotary Club ring to it), the Navy has purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for about $16 a gallon, or about 4 times the price of its standard marine fuel, JP-5, which has been going for under $4 a gallon.

You won’t be surprised to learn that a member of Obama’s presidential transition team, T. J. Glauthier, is a “strategic advisor” at Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy. Glauthier worked – shock, shock – on the energy-sector portion of the 2009 stimulus bill.

The Navy sale isn’t Solazyme’s first trip to the public trough, of course. The company got a $21.8 million grant from the 2009 stimulus package.

Solazyme’s partner in the biofuel sale is Dynamic Fuels, a Louisiana company owned jointly by Tyson Foods and Tulsa-based Syntroleum. Tyson and Syntroleum are distinguished by having profitable lines of business that do not rely on government grants to unprofitable “green” projects. This does not make their biofuel product price-competitive with fossil fuels, however. (They were induced to develop biofuel manufacturing processes by a combination of subsidies and tax breaks.)

The Dynamic Fuels plant was opened for business in Geismar, LA in 2010, becoming by far the largest biofuels plant in North America – and reportedly, in combination with a plant in Finland, a producer of 94% of the world’s biofuels. This is great boosterism stuff, but the biofuels produced by Dynamic Fuels are still considerably more expensive than the fossil-fuel alternative. Dynamic Fuels has begun supplying aviation biofuel to KLM, the Dutch flag carrier, but of course, the use of more-expensive biofuels by commercial carriers has to be subsidized by governments.

[neodad]

What a joke. And DFM is cheaper than JP-5. Green energy is going to kill us...

[fhayek]

There is so much wrong with this, I barely know where to start...

[maxsand]

Can you say “Teapot Dome?”

[digger48]

$16/gallon is right about where Obama wants our gas prices to be.

Of course they see nothing wrong in this.

[C210N]

If it’s politically infeasible to cut the military by 75% (as if 50% is not enough), well the next best thing is to make the dollars they do spend only go 25% of the way they do now.

[GlockThe Vote]

Bfl.

[WellyP]

They cut back on money for the USNA and then p-ss what they “save” on $16 fuel! I can’t wait for Obama and his scub to be thrown out of office!

[HiTech RedNeck]

If this is some of the fuel that has to be shipped precariously at a hundred times its from-the-refinery cost to a war zone, it makes it a lot easier to hide the initial expenditure as the difference in ultimate expenditure will be within 1%.

[SumProVita]

I bet the fuel they have to FLY IN to Afghanistan now is REALLY expensive (delivery cost, etc.).

[Signalman]

What a shrewd use of taxpayer money./s

[SumProVita]

It’s much worse than the Teapot Dome...

[rdl6989]

Words fail me.

[Chode]

and America takes another one in the........

[Dogbert41]

I’ll be looking for this story on all the networks and newspapers tonight when I go home...

[Sequoyah101]

Well good luck with that. Let me know when you find it.

I won’t wait up.

[SVTCobra03]

“Words fail me.”

I have one you can use. FUBO.

[MarkL]

Unfortunately, for far too long, far too many people have been elected or appointed by those elected, who see government as nothing more than a conduit for funds from the useful idiots to themselves. It all starts with greed. This is different than "self interest." Greed is self destructive. It starts with people who are thrilled to learn they can vote themselves other peoples' stuff. Then they work to elect people who claim they'll get them even more of the other peoples' stuff. At some point they become addicted to those they've elected, and believe that they can't live without the largess promised by those they elected. They gladly allow themselves to be shackled by those who own them. But the elected know they can just claim it's other peoples' fault that they're not doing as well as they believe they should. And they promise more.

This sort of greed used to be anathema to Americans, and it still is to many. But we're nearing a tipping point, where the looters and the moochers will be in the majority. At that point it will be too late, and the Republic will be over.

Mark

[fight_truth_decay]

Energy & Government Experts:

R. James Woolsey previously was the Director of Central Intelligence and the Under-Secretary of the Navy, and pioneer in the clean energy sector; TJ Glauthier [you know] & Donald Kennedy, former head of the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] all on Solazyme's Strategic Advisory Board

But hey, Newt, Inc. hires out as a government expert/ paid adviser..and he's described across the media as on the take.

Your "whole world is an oyster" when the US Government welcomes you into the fold.