Posted on 07/03/2012 8:47:48 AM PDT by kingattax
A U.S. Navy oiler slipped away from a fuel depot on the Puget Sound in Washington state one recent day, headed toward the central Pacific and into the storm over the Pentagon's controversial green fuels initiative.
In its tanks, the USNS Henry J. Kaiser carried nearly 900,000 gallons of biofuel blended with petroleum to power the cruisers, destroyers and fighter jets of what the Navy has taken to calling the "Great Green Fleet," the first carrier strike group to be powered largely by alternative fuels.
Conventionally powered ships and aircraft in the strike group will burn the blend in an operational setting for the first time this month during the 22-nation Rim of the Pacific exercise, the largest annual international maritime warfare maneuvers. The six-week exercise began on Friday.
The Pentagon hopes it can prove the Navy looks as impressive burning fuel squeezed from seeds, algae and chicken fat as it does using petroleum.
But the demonstration, years in the making, may be a Pyrrhic victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com ...
I’m sure this is one of those “follow the money” deals.
You know the outfits with these contracts are supporting Dems.
But you have to give the Chicago Mob credit, they do a full court press of corruption.
I wonder if they did a study on the effects this fuel has on the life of ship and aircraft engines? We know the garbage we use in cars in some parts of the country affect their engines.
Has anyone checked Pelosi’s plastic surgeon’s appointment book? She may have extra money to blow.
It's so strange how some people look at something like this, $3.60 vs $26.00 and try to make a big deal out of it. We're only talking about 900 thousand gallons, $3.24 vs $23.4 million dollars total cost. That's only 7.22 times as much. Cheese whiz...
The expression of these views aren't an example of a human brain on crack. They're the expression of a human brain on 'save the planetitis', essentially Marxism. What a wonderful filter for the human brain Marxism is. /s
Navy Takes Biofuels Campaign Into Uncharted Waters
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/January/Pages/NavyTakesBiofuelsIntoUnchartedWaters.aspx
Since 2006, the Defense Logistics Agency has procured more than 36 million gallons of ethanol-and-petroleum blends for the military. The Navy in September ordered an additional 150,000 gallons of algae-based fuel from San Francisco company Solazyme. The new agreement is seven times the size of the initial 20,000-gallon contract awarded last year. The Navy is paying big bucks for these fuels.
The service consumes an average of 1.2 billion gallons of petroleum each year at a cost of $3 billion — about $2.50 per gallon. The service paid Solazyme $8.5 million to provide just 20,000 gallons of algae-based fuel —
$425 per gallon.
At that rate, it would cost the Navy some $142.8 billion for the 8 million barrels of biofuel needed to meet its 2020 goal.
Camelina-based fuel is a bit cheaper but still more expensive than petroleum. In September 2009 the DLA’s defense energy support center paid Montana’s Sustainable Oils $2.7 million for 40,000 gallons of camelina-based fuel. That comes to about $67.50 per gallon.
I wonder how long it will take for stories to start appearing about these ships suddenly needing emergency engine overhauls?
Not sure, biodiesel from soybeans has good lubricity, and works really well. It’s not cost effective though.
That’s probably one of the things the fleet is collecting data for.
No better way to find out if these biofuels are going to work, than trying it out in real-time.
I cannot fault the DOD for prudently looking for secure fuel sources. However, they fought a war against a German army that was powered in part by diesel made by converting coal to liquid fuels (CTL). This technology has been refined to the point that its break-even is less than $100/bbl equivalent. While fuels made from algae and alternatives are quaint, the difference in maturity of the process and the cost is night and day different from that based on proven CTL technologies.
Based on the other excursions this administration has made into “green energy”, this stinks of buying off the greens, and this just plain stinks when the waste is paid for by borrowing money from China.
Green Power?
overpriced, overhyped,oversubsidized?
what’s not to love?
Key findings of the new study are that diesel fuel produced from coal:
Is economically viable when crude oil prices reach $95/bbl or $98/bbl for the recycle and poly-generation scenarios, respectively. This equates to diesel prices in the range of $2.70 to $2.80 per gallon of petroleum diesel.
from:
Updated U.S. Study Evaluates Coal to Liquids Economics (Green Car Congress Update)
http://www.americanfuelscoalition.com/2012/05/15/netl/
More than just the cost of the fuel (which is totally stupid) I worry more about some of the biofuel reaching its cloud point in a jet fighter at 40,000 feet and turning the thing into a lawn dart!
First Obama cuts the budget of the military, then the military pisses away that budgeted money buying fuel that costs ten times what regular fuel costs.
Does this make any sense at all to anyone?
This country is turning into a looney bin.
Both Hitler's and Tojo's war machines basically ran the last six months of the war on biodeisel, wood alcohol or whatever else they could find. What little petroleum was available was reserved only for high-end applications like aviation.
An acquaintance of mine with more money than sense told me that, rather than replacing a failed oil pump in his Honda Accord, he just decided to dump an occasional quart of whatever lubricant he had into the crankcase (used motor oil, fat, grease, whatever) just to see how long the engine would last. He drove it for more than a month before one day, the engine just seized up and died.
That’s fine. Do it in a 10-50K diesel car or truck in the government fleet..
Not a billion dollar navel ship.
Or just make it an ‘individual mandate’ for leftard’s vehicles and boats in Pelosi’s district.
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