By the Numbers
Here’s what it takes to get the President to and from an Earth Day event:
It’s 895 miles from Washington to Des Moines, so a round trip brings the fuel consumption for the fixed-wing portion of the President’s trip to 8,950 gallons.
The trip also put President Obama on Marine One for round-trip flights between the White House and Andrews AFB and between Des Moines International Airport and Newton, Iowa, site of his Earth Day speech. It totaled about an hour of flight time. The VH-3D that serves as Marine One consumes about 1200 pounds of fuel per hour which comes out to about 166 gallons consumed flying the President today.
My needs are a bit simpler. I drive a ’97 Wrangler, which gets a pathetic 17 MPG on average. (You could probably get better, but with its short wheelbase and rear-wheel drive — until you drop the transfer case into 4-wheel — the Wrangler is a kick in the pants, just tossing it around town. And off road it’s even better, and the mileage even worse.) The tank needs a refill every two weeks or so, to the tune of about 15 gallons. At that rate, it would take me more than 12 years to consume as much gas as the President did yesterday. By the time I’ve caught up, my three-year-old will have his learner’s permit.
Oh, and the Wrangler is perfectly happy drinking 85 octane. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume Air Force One and Marine One use a slightly higher grade.
Yeah, I know, it can most of us 12 years or more to boost our public approval score by one-half of a point.
Actually, it’s much worse than reported.
They mentioned that Obama rode in Presidential vehicles while he was in Iowa. And how do they get those vehicles from DC to Iowa? They fly them in on military transport planes!
And when the President is flying in Marine one, there are always at least 3 helicopters in the group, IIRC.
And on top of that, the empty Air Force One (or whatever its called when the POTUS isn’t on board) practices touch and goes at various airports around the country on a regular basis. They seem to swing through my area 4-5 times a year. It’s quite a sight to behold, but a model of fuel efficiency it is not….
You get 17mpg in yours? I get maybe 16 mpg in mostly highway driving. I have a 2000 Wrangler. Is nice that it drinks the 85 stuff. My harley wants premium. I am so not looking forward to the $4/gal days.
I’m driving a ’03 Chevy S-10 extended cab (perfect for a suburbanite with a limited need to haul medium loads) that is averaging around 18mpg and that I fill with 17 gal or so three times every two months.
Given the take-off requirements to reach cruising speed, additional equipment being hauled, possibly Air Force 2 and/or a communications jet trailing, cars on both ends, *and* a useless contingent of MSM, let’s be generous and say such a trip burned only 20,000 gals of aviation fuel.
I’d love to live long enough to burn that much. By my calculations, I’d have to live another 65 years at my present rate of consumption.
Er, you also have to consider the fuel used for the positioning of the VH-3 fleet into Iowa (whether they’re flown, or whether they’re disassembled and flown on C-17s) and its return to its home hangar near Washington.
And yes, the Presidential vehicles fly in as many C-17s or C-130s as it takes.
Air Force One and Marine One, like most Jet/Turbine aircraft, burn a kerosene derived fuel with additives to prevent mold and icing.
It’s similar to diesel fuel.
But your analogy still applies…
Per gallon, Jet A produces more BTU’s and more pollutants than gasoline.
He shoulda stayed at home and called it in.
Greybeard,
Yes! A web based meeting would have created a real story, and demonstrated true leadership.
But I doubt he or most of his staff even know what a web meeting is…..
“Wrangler is perfectly happy drinking 85 octane”
Actually they use Jet A, which is more like diesel.
You forgot the fuel to get Marine One to the Des Moines International Airport so that it would be there to ferry the President (and probably two choppers went so that there would be a spare in case of some catastrophic failure) and then to return it to Andrews AFB; AND the fuel requred to transport the advance and support staff for the Presidents visit. Your number is probably 10-20% of the actual total.
While I’ve got no objection to government being impressive at times, or to spending extra to make sure that someone as busy as the President of the United States can work more efficiently, the part where they cloak it in environmental rhetoric is nonsense. But then, asking a politician to explain himself truthfully in a way the public will understand and respect is asking for at least two impossibilities, so I shouldn’t be surprised that this sort of nonsense keeps rearing its ugly head.
So what you’re saying is that Bush should have resigned rather than go back and forth from vacations in Crawford and just let Cheney rule inexpensively from his undisclosed location/mancave? From a carbon footprint standpoint, I guess it would have been an improvement.
And since it seems to be car confession time, I drive an ’03 Windstar that gets 18 (20 on the highway.) Someday my postal jeep (not postal Jeep, as it is made by AMC, the purists tell me) will be converted to plug-in electric status and become my in-town vehicle. I look forward to finishing that project and getting that ugly thing around town. Then I have to get a passenger seat and an extra steering wheel so one of my sons can drive along with their old man.
Jon-
I’m sorry. I thought this post was about the hypocrisy of Obama talking green while acting otherwise. Can you tell us what the hell the BDS comment about Bush proves?
“Can you tell us what the hell the BDS comment about Bush proves?”
That Jon can’t “Move On” …
Greybeard, Bush went on vacation often, which wasn’t green. Cheney just hid places, which I can imagine was greener. And the whole argument is ridiculous anyway. Whenever anyone travels, it should be either by walking or by train or it’s not the greenest option. Horses fart too much. Maybe camels are better, but I haven’t seen any studies (though my experiences with Middle Eastern cuisine suggest there might be a problem.)
On the whole, anyone who claims to be green and has a car, a home larger than 800 square feet that isn’t entirely built according to ridiculous standards, reads newpapers printed on newsprint that isn’t recycled, and a host of other things can’t be called “green” by one standard or another. I think all politicians who promote Earth Day stuff are generally full of sanctimonious grass-fed bullshit, but I forgive them their sanctimonious bullshit when they actually do things that promote better policies on energy, land-use, conservation, and the rest. I want to see more nuclear energy, work toward more wind and solar too, and better efficiency, and I think we’re very slowly getting there. The woowoo fringe and the rape-and-pillagers have too much hold of the two parties, but I think Obama has much less woowoo than his critics contend.
Obama is supposed to be greener than Bush was, Jon. Just like Republicans are supposed to be more “family-values”-ish than Republicans, which so often leads to Republicans being attacked for minor indiscretions while Democrats are lauded for committing much worse.
Apparently hypocrisy is a charge that can only ever be applied to those right-of-center, as the feminists demonstrated when they defended the Serial-Sexual-Harasser-in-Chief for eight years during the ’90s.
And actually jon, Bush’s house in Crawford is only about 4800 sq ft, as opposed to the 20,000+ sq ft for both John Kerry and Al Gore. There was an environmentalist who wrote an article about it. His home was much more environmentally friendly than the goebbels-warming-scaremongerer in chief.
I’ve got no objection to the amount of stuff that has to go along with the president, just don’t go calling it environmentally friendly. Sort of like AGW scaremongerers who fly around in private jets to tell us how to live.