Navy spending $26.75/gl for biofuels

Everyone’s favorite Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, was on the Hill this week getting yelled at by some House Republicans for putting Obama’s political considerations before his Department’s war fighting considerations. But what else is new? Most of the Politico article’s premise, the Navy’s “green energy” program, is old news for TAH readers but a few specific things caught my eye.

The U.S. must move away from its dependence on foreign oil, and the Navy’s clean-energy projects, including investments in algae-based biofuels, “have made us better warfighters,” Mabus said, explaining that for every $1 increase in oil prices per barrel, the Navy pays and additional $31 million in fuel costs.

“That means that our sailors and Marines steam less, train less, fly less,” Mabus said. “For these reasons, we have to be relentless in our pursuit of energy goals that will continue to make us a more effective fighting force and our military and our nation more energy independent.”

And yet the article goes onto explain that not only is the Navy spending about 600% more on bio fuel that’s not economically viable but it’s doing so for non-military related reasons.

The efforts for a greener Navy don’t come cheap. In December, the service purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuels at $26.75 per gallon, POLITICO Pro reported. The biofuels were then mixed with petroleum-based fuels, typically costing just a few dollars a gallon.
One of the reasons behind the Navy’s investment in the more-expensive biofuels is to promote domestic alternative-energy production. Navy leaders contend that a vibrant clean-energy industry in the United States could protect the fleet from spikes in fuel prices.

Last I checked that’s what the Strategic Oil Reserve is for. At least when it isn’t being tapped into to lower needlessly inflated gas prices during an election year.

It’s truly Orwellian to have the Secretary come out and say that the Navy needs to use these biofuels to save money during budget cuts and improve their ability to fight wars then immediately concede that not only is the program increasing costs, but it’s being pursued in the context of the White House’s heavily politicized (and corrupt) strategic energy policy. I mean the guy was raising a fuss over a fuel type fluctuating by a dollar a gallon and then turning around and spending $20 more a gallon to replace it. They tried to hedge a bit by saying that the Navy needs to “be ready” for when these fuels aren’t heinously inefficient and expensive. But we’ve been hearing for 15 years how biofuels and other alternate energy sources are “just a few years” away from being economically viable. Fast forward to 2012 and the Navy is shelling out $26 bucks for something it could be paying about $4 for.

In case you’re not sufficiently offended by the intellectual dishonesty, here’s a moral outrage to ice the cake: Mabus finished off his political dance by invoking the memory of past, and the specter of future, Marine casualties.

Leaders of the Marine Corps also have focused more on energy in recent years — a result of the high cost of moving huge volumes of fuel to U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. Currently, the corps consumes more than 200,000 gallons a day there.
“For every 50 convoys we bring in in fuel, a Marine is killed or wounded,” Mabus told lawmakers last month. “That is too high a price to pay.”
In all, about 3,000 U.S. troops or contractors have been killed or wounded protecting convoys, POLITICO has reported. Roughly 80 percent of convoys carry fuel.
The Marine Corps has set two major energy goals: to cut its battlefield requirements for energy by half by 2025 and to have half its bases produce as much energy as they consume by 2020.

Now I’m all for creating renewable sources of power for bases overseas to cut usage if the systems make sense. But if you’re going to start using my dead friends to push your boss’s energy policy on behalf of good vibes for his political base you better make damn sure you’re not doing so while spending an extra $12 million a year on fuels with lower BTUs than traditional petrol and so actually INCREASING the number of convoys required to meet our military’s energy needs.

Category: Defense cuts, Marine Corps, Navy, Politics