Many in Congress were incensed when the US Navy used $26 a gallon bio fuels during an exercise last month (the regular naval fuel costs about $5 a gallon.)
Not to be outdone by anything the Navy does, the Air Force purchased some synthetic jet fuel at $59 a gallon.
Reuters:
The Air Force bought 11,000 gallons of alcohol-to-jet fuel from Gevo Inc, a Colorado biofuels company, at $59 a gallon in a program aimed at proving that new alternative fuels can be used reliably in military aircraft – once, that is, their pricing is competitive with petroleum, which now costs $3.60 a gallon.
The cost of the Air Force demonstration – $639,000 – was far less eye-catching than the $12 million the Navy spent for biofuels to power a carrier strike group on alternative energy for a day.
But it was part of the same Pentagon push, which has escalated under the administration of President Barack Obama, to adopt green solutions to rising fuel costs.
Some Republican lawmakers have criticized the high price-per-gallon paid by the Navy as wasteful Pentagon spending at a time of significant budget cuts and a shrinking fleet.
They have also blasted Obama for making green energy a cornerstone of his agenda, with federal funds flowing to alternative energy companies that may not make economic sense, as in the case of bankrupt solar-panel maker Solyndra.
Jeff Scheib, Gevo vice president for fuels, said the alcohol-to-jet fuel made for the Air Force was expensive as it came from a small demonstration plant in Silsbee, Texas, which makes only 7,500 to 8,000 gallons of biofuel a month.
Once the company builds a commercial-scale refinery, expected around 2015, “we believe we can be cost competitive on an all-in basis with petroleum jet fuel over the life of a contract,” Scheib said.
Mr. Scheib is a good salesman for his company, but he’s lying. No doubt he is salivating at the idea that he could supply the fuel needs of the Air Force if the government goes “all in” for his scheme.
But that won’t happen for years — if ever. So taxpayers will be stuck paying 5 or 10 times more for jet fuel all to prove that even the Air Force can go “green.”
In the immortal words of Harry Callahan: “That’s a helluva price to pay for being stylish.”
For $12 million we could save the Cruiser Olympia and put her at the Washington Navy Yard for the benefit of the mids and public. Such a museum was the dream of FDR, and would go far in redeeming the opportunities lost when the Hartford and Enterprise (CV-6) were not saved. For as Chamberlain said “In great deeds something abides, on great fields something stays.” Great ships too.
But it would win you no fans among the stylish set or libs in Congress. Which is seemingly the only thing the Navy responds to. Certainly not just plain old American heritage things. Nope. It seems only DNC desires move the United States Navy to effective (and expensive) action.
The energy available for work in any engine is in direct proportion to the kilojoules of energy available in each kilogram of fuel. That number for automobile gasoline [heptane - C7H16 plus additives] is 47,300 kJ/Kg. For kerosone used as aviation fuel [C12H26 plus additives] the number is 46,200. For ethanol [C2H5OH] the number is 29,700. So, it will take about 50% more alcohol/ethanol to produce the same thrust of an equivalent weight of jet-A.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-higher-calorific-values-d_169.html
This would mean several things–ship and aircraft range would be reduced. This would also mean the logisitics chain becomes greatly increased, due to the need to carry greater amounts of less-efficient fuel supply to forward units, fuel whose volumetric bulk will not have been proportionally reduced, while presumably burning the same less-effcient fuel to do so. As anyone who has ever played around with the rocket equation knows, the situation would quickly collapse upon itself if the same radii of action were attempted as a standard course, and it would be akin to trying to supply armies off of horse-drawn wagons only. You could only go so far from rail or water lines of communication, because the amount of forage the horses needed to eat along the way would eventually equal the carrying capacity of the wagon, with nothing left over for actual cargo.
So, without doing the maths, it seems you would get decreased operational ranges while overall greatly increasing your fuel burn to get the fuel forward to get those reduced ranges. This is beyond the operational impact of more frequent fuelings.
Once again, just ask anyone who has ever played around with launch vehicle design. Fuel efficiency greatly matters.
Presumption is same optempo.
The transistors and other early semiconductors that were used in military and space programs in the 50s and 60s were also very expensive. They also required complex arrangements of these components to match the functionality of a common vacuum tube. There were many hurdles to their use but in the end its seems to have all worked out for the better (although some audiophiles may quibble with that). There are cases were government’s front-running of technology has actually worked out.
New technology is always expensive but the price comes down if the technology can find popular commercial applications. I don’t like the idea of burning food (ethanol) but the idea of burning algae does appeal to me. Algae eat bacteria, bacteria eat sludge and other human waster by-products. Sounds like a win-win.
On one hand we wonder why the world believes the right is in the pocket of the oil companies and then, on the other hand, rail against anything that might cut our dependence on hydrocarbons. I’m all for drilling but at $80+ per barrel the price is getting out of hand.
The difference is that vacuum tubes couldn’t meet the requirements of those military and space programs in the 50s and 60s, so turning to expensive semiconductors was the only option. We have perfectly suitable (and far cheaper) conventional fuels available so we don’t need those “green” but costly fuels.
There are cases were government’s front-running of technology has actually worked out.
I don’t actually know of any.
The closest thing I can think of is the air force sponsoring the development of jet engineed bombers in the 1950s, leading to commercial jets. But it’s not clear if that was necessary, or just convenient.
People talk of spin-offs from NASA and the Apollo program, but once you get beyond Tang and velcro, I’m not sure what that comes to, and a one-off use isn’t front-running, the spin-offs are accidental.
The archetype for this has to be DARPA and the Internet, but the commercial version actually took off a decade before the military got around to using it for anything, so the focused DARPA R&D contracts were never really front-running, and one can argue that the real enabler was the thirty-year development of IC technology that happened first in the commercial areas (look up the term COTS).
So, this is very nearly a myth, as far as I can tell, unless you’d like to offer some examples.
There’s a big difference between new technology that adds something to capability, and buying the same or a worse product for many times the cost because it was produced differently. The comparison between transistors and bio diesel is plain silly. Seems to me that what these stupid projects do is simply waste scarce defense dollars- which, while from the left’s view isn’t as good as transfering them to welfare, still weakens that nasty military, meanwhile transferring wealth to it’s cronies in the green movement.
This is an old trick from the Dems- spending DOD money on various social causes with earmarks and still claiming to support national defense.
Well, to keep up the green dream, and thereby bend the cost curve down, perhaps conscription is in order? A conscripted military should achieve a 50 percent reduction in personnel costs, wage costs that make up 90 percent of the military budget. Besides, no one wants to get overpriced, over-educated, expensive soldiers killed for oil, so draft those GED qualified economic zeros to die for those green energy inputs.
might as well arm them with pepper spray as well while we’re at it
It takes $59/gallon jet-one to fly around those $1,000 toilet seats.
If it’s green energy we’re after, I suppose we could put the navy back under sail.
But it was part of the same Pentagon push, which has escalated under the administration of President Barack Obama, to adopt green solutions to rising fuel costs.
Only in the hallowed halls of government can buying fuel at ten times its normal cost be considered the solution to rising fuel costs. Yowza.
Wait until some device fails because of that new fuel, and an airman or sailor is killed or injured.
Oh, can’t happen, we have safeguards in place, blah, blah, blah.
I suppose the next move will be,Pres Obama giving Gevo Inc. half a billion dollars to build a plant in Sweden to make this green fuel.