YRGBSM!! (the “R” Stands for “Really”)
I wish I were, and that this article of mine was fiction. Sadly, I’m not – and it isn’t.
DoD is buying “green fuels”. We all knew that. Hell, it’s one of this administration’s obsessions apparent means of political payback wealth redistribution mechanisms truly stupid ideas pet projects.
But this time, what DoD’s done IMO really takes the cake. Let me assure you – you don’t want to know what DoD has been paying for “green” jet fuel.
You probably need to know. But you don’t want to know.
The article documenting just how badly Uncle Sam is taking it in the . . . ear regarding some of this type of “green fuel” can be found here. It’s so damn bad I’m intentionally omitting some of the details in this article.
If you really want to get p!ssed, follow the link and read it. If you have even two or more working brain cells and pay taxes I’m pretty sure you will be seriously angry after reading it.
And yeah – one of the guys heavily invested in the firm getting top dollar is a big donor to the current Administration’s political party.
Given what else is going on with the DoD budget these days, this is particularly galling to me. But maybe that’s just me.
Sheesh. GMAFB.
(Edited to add: hat tip to the Drudge Report for the link.)
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Defense cuts, Global Warming
Isn’t it amazing that the Democrats, with their compliant media trolls have been able to continue the narrative that Republicans are the greedy, soul sucking and corrupt party. Meanwhile, this administration just comes up with new and inventive ways to pay back political backers and the media says “nothing to see here”. Sickening….
WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!! Didn’t even get past the dollar amount. For a fucking gallon. Talk about full retard.
Lemme get this straight. The government was paying $2.88 a gallon for JET FUEL, while I am paying $3.65 a gallon at the pump for low octane unleaded, yet they want to pay $150 a gallon for the new and improved, “green fuel” jet juice. Are things terribly upside down here to anybody else? We are cutting military pay, benefits and raising healthcare costs, cutting the force back to minimums, getting rid of known top performance platforms, (A-10) and buying into the F35. All the while Obama truly wants us in another war, somewhere, to look good for this year’s elections and 2016. I am upset to the point of taking a blood pressure pill. But then again, why should I be surprised at all. This is classic Obama right down the line. I’m going out to the garage and start an algae farm in an old aquarium I have. I am going to try and sell it to whomever is producing this new “green fuel”. I see big bucks coming my way!
Sparks: Part of the apparent price disparity between gasoline and normal jet fuel is the road use taxes on gasoline, which I don’t think are assessed on aviation fuels. Those vary by state and are typically between $0.30 and $0.50 per gallon (maybe more). Don’t know what those are in your state.
The second issue is that jet fuel is effectively a form of kerosene that’s been filtered and has some selected additives. I haven’t checked recently, but I think kerosene is substantially cheaper wholesale than is gasoline (I could easily be wrong).
A third issue is that jet fuel doesn’t have as much marketing-associated expense. Not a big contributor, but might account for a few cents/gallon.
Finally, jet fuel is often purchased in bulk, which further drives the typical per-gallon price down a bit.
In any case: $150/gallon is absurd and obscene. IMO someone needs to be at the very least removed from their position – and preferably fired – for signing off on that stupidity.
Removed from their position or fired? Has that ever happened to anyone in this Regime?
I paid $48 bucks for a 5 gal can of kerosene back in April. Agreed, $150 for a gal of jet fuel–stupid.
Thanks for the info Hondo. Was not aware of what you wrote.
Fired, nothing! They need to lined up against a wall, any wall, and SHOT. And I volunteer to be in the firing squad.
As usual Hondo is perfectly correct. Jet fuel is basically kerojet and is a less refined product than gasoline so costs less. Road taxes add to the cost as well.
I don’t weigh in very often but feel the need on this issue. One of my last jobs in the Army before I retired in 1993 was the first Director of Alternative Fuels at the then Defense Fuel Supply Command, now Defense Logistics Agency Energy.
We were buying lots of different fuels in small quantities and field testing them in actual equipment. These were alternatives to petroleum fuels because the price of oil had just skyrocketed from $12/barrel to over $40/barrel because Saddam Hussein had just lit up all 603 oil wells in Kuwait. Shamefully, oil is now over $100/barrel.
Some of our projects were conceptual, some were tested on a small scale and others on a larger scale.
An example of a large scale project is oil from shale mined in Colorado in a joint venture with DoE and shipped to Salt Lake for refinement into JP-4 then shipped to Hill AFB, Utah for use in US Air Force aircraft. Just to prove it would work and not damage the aircraft. Back around 1990 it was cost prohibitive to buy shale oil in bulk because it cost over $60/barrel to make. A bargain today.
These alternative fuel tests were done just in case our petroleum supply was cut we could have another emergency source.
In the current case DoD bought 1500 gallons or just under 36 barrels of green jet fuel. Not really a big deal to confirm a viable alternative source…just in case. Just like we develop contingency oplans and put them on the shelf just in case, DoD also does studies of alternative fuels that include the cost of developing the technology to mass produce tested fuels…just in case. Of course through economies of scale, mass production usually reduces cost.
This has been going on for a while. Last year at RIMPAC, they used this stuff in all the planes and some of the smaller ships as a way to show of what they called our “Great Green Fleet”. I saw the dollar per gallon amount, and I think it made me cry.
We featured that here as well, HS Sophomore. As I recall, the cost of that “green” fuel oil was on the order of $22 to $25 per gallon – or about 6-7x the cost of standard fuel oil.
The most costly “green” jet fuel is over 50x the cost of standard jet fuel. IMO, that’s a substantially different degree of stupidity.
Come on, seriously, are any of you really surprised?
Sadly, I’m not.
Has anyone looked at the business entity that supplies that fuel at that price, and how much money they donated to B. Hussein 0bama & Company prior to getting that contract?
Proud: read the article. One of their major backers is a heavy donor to one of the US political parties. I’ll let you guess which party it was.
While bad, this is not as bad as it seems as the fuels purchased at that rate were for “research, development and testing” purposes.
The GAO report specifically states that the DOD is prohibited from buying fuel at exorbitant rates for operations:
DOD may not obligate or expend funds made available for fiscal year 2014 to make a bulk purchase of alternative jet fuel for operational use unless the price of that fuel is competitive with the price of conventional jet fuel. See National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-66 § 315, 127 Stat. 672, 730 (2013), Under agency policy, DOD may purchase alternative jet fuel at prices above conventional jet fuel if the fuels are used for research, development, and testing purposes—not for operational use. (footnote 43, page 22 of the GAO report.)
(http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/663027.pdf)
gitarcarver: I fail to see the need for 1,500 gallons of fuel at $150/gal for RDT&E evaluation at a cost of nearly $1/4 million. I believe it would have been feasible test the fuel’s characteristics in a lab environment using far less than 1,500 gallons – including engine testing at an engine test facility.
Hondo,
You may be right but allow me to quote again from the GAO report:
The requirements for fuel testing and approval under ASTM International and military standards vary by the characteristics of the fuel and the feedstock and production process used, but generally the requirements include a significant amount of fuel, engine, and aircraft testing. Initially, a fuel may be tested in a laboratory using small quantities of fuel (as little as 500 milliliters), but as it progresses through the approval process, fuel quantity requirements could reach as much as 225,000 gallons if extensive engine testing is required. – page 6
Also, to put the number of 1500 gallons in perspective:
According to DOD officials, the department purchased about 1.5-million gallons of alternative jet fuels to conduct the department’s testing and approval activities from fiscal years 2007 to 2013 at a total cost of almost $40 million. – page 15
It appears that the fuel they are looking at has a high number of variables (such as feed for the animals, location of the livestock, etc) so before they dump more research and development of the process or pay off a company, they want to test the fuels.
I am not saying I agree with what they are doing. I am only trying to keep things in context.
So, that means the average cost was “only” $26.67 per gallon – or over 9x the cost of commercial fuels.
Sorry, I just don’t see that as DoD’s best use of limited R&D funding. Unless the product is commercially available, DoD shouldn’t IMO be doing much except lab testing and assessments. You don’t need 1.5M gallons over 6 years (or roughly 250,000 gallons per year) of “green fuels” for lab assessment and limited functional testing under controlled conditions.
What appears to be happening IMO is that DoD is being used as the “cash cow” to build an (allegedly) “viable capability” for green fuels at taxpayer expense. Sorry, but if it’s not economically viable, it’s not the DoD’s (or the Federal government’s) business to “make it so”.
Products and technologies that are viable will succeed in the marketplace. Those that are not are nothing but a money pit.
There it goes.
Blood shooting of out my eyeballs.
Thanks, Libtards.
Bonus for anyone brave enough to click.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/08/white-men-environmental-movement-leadership
That’s OK we’re pulling a 8 pound garbage can off of a 123K pound aircraft to save about 3 gallons per 4 hour sorite to make up for it. The AMC fuel efficiency also likes programs that spend more money than what the extra fuel savings saves. The new bureaucracy cost more than it saves and lost track of the mission of saving fuel was originally to save money.