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$26 a gallon?! Navy's 'Green Fleet' meets stiff headwinds

GPS_Flex

GPS_Flex

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Some Republican lawmakers have seized on the fuel's $26-a-gallon price, compared to $3.60 for conventional fuel. They paint the program as a waste of precious funds at a time when the U.S. government's budget remains severely strained, the Pentagon is facing cuts and energy companies are finding big quantities of oil and gas in the United States.
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LINK: MSNBC

You elected Obama and now you know what four more years with him in the White House will look like.

The US Navy, under Obama, is now more concerned about global warming and “going green” than it is with defending the United States. We are about to gut the defense budget but our navy can afford $26 a gallon (bulk) for fuel while WE pay ~ $3.60 a gallon at the local gas station?

Obviously Obama has picked his “’yes’ men” military leaders carefully. If he wanted to test this out on the post office or other civilian government agencies like the EPA, I might groan about it but I wouldn’t be as outraged as I am over this because the US military isn’t supposed to be an experimental playground for Presidential politics that have nothing to do with national security.
 
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GPS_Flex said:
LINK: MSNBC

You elected Obama and now you know what four more years with him in the White House will look like.

The US Navy, under Obama, is now more concerned about global warming and “going green” than it is with defending the United States. We are about to gut the defense budget but our navy can afford $26 a gallon (bulk) for fuel while WE pay ~ $3.60 a gallon at the local gas station?

Obviously Obama has picked his “’yes’ men” military leaders carefully. If he wanted to test this out on the post office or other civilian government agencies like the EPA, I might groan about it but I wouldn’t be as outraged as I am over this because the US military isn’t supposed to be an experimental playground for Presidential politics that have nothing to do with national security.
Click to expand...

The military understands what world peak oil will mean for not only our economy but for their future operations. They are smart to begin planning now so that they are not held hostage to future oil prices when world demand for cheap oil exceeds world supply as it did in the US in 1971.

Their warning in 2010:

"The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact."

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015 | Business | The Guardian
 
Catawba said:
The military understands what world peak oil will mean for not only our economy but for their future operations. They are smart to begin planning now so that they are not held hostage to future oil prices when world demand for cheap oil exceeds world supply as it did in the US in 1971.

Their warning in 2010:

"The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact."

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015 | Business | The Guardian
Click to expand...

From your own article:

"The Energy Information Administration (of the department of energy) has been saying for years that Peak Oil was "decades away". In light of the report from the US Joint Forces Command, is the EIA still confident of its previous highly optimistic conclusions?"
Click to expand...

Like I said, Obama installed a few yes men and put the thumbscrews on them to do his political work.

I know you deal more in ideology than rationality catawba but even you can’t explain a scenario where oil based fuel reaches $26 a gallon. Please try if you can.
 
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GPS_Flex said:
From your own article:
Click to expand...

And your point is?


Like I said, Obama installed a few yes men and put the thumbscrews on them to do his political work.
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Yeah, that is what you said, with absolutely no proof to back it up. From your article:

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the program's biggest public booster, calls it vital for the military's energy security."

"The biofuels effort is one of the most ambitious Pentagon energy programs since then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set up a task force in 2006 to find ways to reduce the military's fossil fuels dependency, involving more than 300,000 barrels a day.

"The reason we're doing this is that we simply buy too many fossil fuels from either actually or potentially volatile places on earth," Mabus told a conference on climate and security last month.

He says the Pentagon can use its buying muscle - it is the largest single consumer of petroleum in the world - to guarantee the demand needed for biofuel businesses to produce at a scale that will eventually drive down costs.

"We use 2 percent of all the fossil fuels that the United States uses," Mabus told the conference. "And one of the things that this means is that we can bring the market. And to paraphrase the old 'Field of Dreams' line, if the Navy comes, they will build it."

Mabus, a former Mississippi governor and ambassador to Saudi Arabia, aims for biofuels to supply about half of the Navy's non-nuclear fuel needs by 2020, about 8 million barrels a year.

His main tool in pushing the effort is the Defense Production Act, a measure passed in 1950 in the early stages of the Korean War to help the president mobilize the civilian economy for the war effort.

The act lets the Pentagon provide funding or loan guarantees to ensure production of critical defense needs. Since the 1970s it has been used to do things like bolster beryllium production and develop a specialized integrated circuit."


I know you deal more in ideology than rationality catawba but even you can’t explain a scenario where oil based fuel reaches $26 a gallon. Please try if you can.
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You have no concept do you, that when things are first developed that they cost more than they will later?
 
Catawba said:
And your point is?
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The point was obvious. “Decades away” means a long time from now. Things changed with the DOE overnight once Obama took office and now $26 a gallon gas is ok by you because you think it is good for the planet. Fact is, biofuels have always been more harmful to the planet than petrol and they will always cost more than petrol.


Catawba said:
Yeah, that is what you said, with absolutely no proof to back it up. From your article:

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the program's biggest public booster, calls it vital for the military's energy security."
Click to expand...

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is a politician,appointed by Obamma, and a shill for Obama. Obama might as well have Eric Holder telling us that the world will be a better place if we gut the US military budget and demand it pays $26 a gallon for gas.


Catawba said:
"The biofuels effort is one of the most ambitious Pentagon energy programs since then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set up a task force in 2006 to find ways to reduce the military's fossil fuels dependency, involving more than 300,000 barrels a day.

"The reason we're doing this is that we simply buy too many fossil fuels from either actually or potentially volatile places on earth," Mabus told a conference on climate and security last month.
Click to expand...
Mabus was a guest speaker at conference on climate and security? Imagine that. A green political hack who does and says what Obama tells him to say and do and in exchange, he gets a really cool job where he isn’t even asked to think about anything important other than name ships after John Murtha and Cesar Chaves.

Catawba said:
He says the Pentagon can use its buying muscle - it is the largest single consumer of petroleum in the world - to guarantee the demand needed for biofuel businesses to produce at a scale that will eventually drive down costs.
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I read the article. Unlike you, I understand that United States Secretary of the Navy isn’t appointed to office because he has any expertise on global fuel prices now or in the future so I challenge you to explain why this idiot knows fuel prices will be so high tomorrow that $26 a gallon today will do anything other than give Obama political points with the greenies.

Catawba said:
"We use 2 percent of all the fossil fuels that the United States uses," Mabus told the conference. "And one of the things that this means is that we can bring the market. And to paraphrase the old 'Field of Dreams' line, if the Navy comes, they will build it." This is great for a hollywood tear jerker but in the real world, it won’t change anything but the escalating taxes here in the USA.
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Catawba said:
Mabus, a former Mississippi governor and ambassador to Saudi Arabia, aims for biofuels to supply about half of the Navy's non-nuclear fuel needs by 2020, about 8 million barrels a year.
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Isn’t that nice of him? I wonder where he got that idea. Obviously he doesn’t have a clue what it costs to produce bio-fuels in the way he imagines but hey, he is just a politician so he is entitled to Obama’s opinion, right?

Catawba said:
His main tool in pushing the effort is the Defense Production Act, a measure passed in 1950 in the early stages of the Korean War to help the president mobilize the civilian economy for the war effort.

The act lets the Pentagon provide funding or loan guarantees to ensure production of critical defense needs. Since the 1970s it has been used to do things like bolster beryllium production and develop a specialized integrated circuit."
Click to expand...
I see, he has his excuse and has the power but has no common sense. $26 a gallon is not justifiable. If we were at war and refineries were being blown up regularly, that might be a different story but we have oil and gas and coal here in the USA that we can use so there is no excuse for $26 a gallon.

Catawba said:
You have no concept do you, that when things are first developed that they cost more than they will later?
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Sure I do. More than you will ever know. Hate to burst your bubble but the Secretary of the Navy isn’t developing anything here. He is simply raping the tax payers and the US Navy in the name of environmentalism and Obamaism.
 
The military should be looking for alternative ways to fuel the fleet, not because its "green" but because anything that reduces foreign oil demand and thus reduces our involvement with those mostly unfriendly oil countries is a good thing. What it should not be is a way to defraud the taxpayer by propping up what is still a very uncompetitive industry, bio-fuels haven't reached the stage where they can compete toe to toe with petroleum oil.

When the military starting uses nuclear power to propel its larger ships, moving away from conventional fuel, it was down for military and strategic reasons. Lawmakers and other decision makers were not thinking "Hey if we force the military to buy into nuclear power, that'll be a major boost to our domestic nuclear power industry" of course in the end it actually was a major boost but that was a secondary affect. If we are going to use more biofuels it must be done for military and strategic reasons not because an industry has wiggled its way into the minds of politicians.

Which is it? Frankly I don't know, on the one side biofuels have had several set backs and still only survive via government subsidies and special laws like "Your fuel must contain X amount of biofuel" if you've ever noticed those signs at the gas station. But on the other hand there's no denying the great benefit it would have to the US to significantly decrease its foreign oil consumption.
 
Catawba said:
The military understands what world peak oil will mean for not only our economy but for their future operations. They are smart to begin planning now so that they are not held hostage to future oil prices when world demand for cheap oil exceeds world supply as it did in the US in 1971.

Their warning in 2010:

"The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact."

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015 | Business | The Guardian
Click to expand...

If you REALLY want to "save energy" then stop fighting totally moronic "nation building" wars. If the most powerful military force on the planet can not advance beyond a stalemate in Afghanistan, against an "enemy" that has no navy, no air force and a "rag tag", at best, army then we have a VERY BAD battle plan.

The U.S. military is NOT designed to play world policeman, especially in a corrupt "country" that has NO court system. The military should be used, as intended, for national defense and fighting only necessary wars with a "git-r-done" battle plan. The idea that it should be a "laboratory" for green energy "experiments" is INSANE. Even with the REAL material and fuel shortages during WWII, we got the job done.

Stop the nonsense and trying to INVENT problems that "might happen" when ignoring REAL problems, like "nation building" nonsense, that not only WASTE fuel, but the lives of thousands of U.S. service personnel. Explain to that guy that just lost both of his legs, playing "nation builder" in some far away excuse for a country, that they helped make the USA "green". Get real!
 
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Oil can only be obtained from a limited number of geographic areas and is currently is refined in a relatively small number of locations. Those kind of bottlenecks can make you very vulnerable in a wartime situation. Biofuels are hideously inefficient, but with decentralized production and ability to use local materials, its much harder to sabotage production. Converting the entire military away from oil would be stupid, but having a small alternative fuel capability and the know-how could be useful in certain situations.
 
GPS_Flex said:
LINK: MSNBC

You elected Obama and now you know what four more years with him in the White House will look like.

The US Navy, under Obama, is now more concerned about global warming and “going green” than it is with defending the United States. We are about to gut the defense budget but our navy can afford $26 a gallon (bulk) for fuel while WE pay ~ $3.60 a gallon at the local gas station?

Obviously Obama has picked his “’yes’ men” military leaders carefully. If he wanted to test this out on the post office or other civilian government agencies like the EPA, I might groan about it but I wouldn’t be as outraged as I am over this because the US military isn’t supposed to be an experimental playground for Presidential politics that have nothing to do with national security.
Click to expand...

That's just ****en stupid paying that much for fuel when traditional fuel is nowhere near that much. Its like paying ten bucks for a common screw.
 
Except it's NOT "green" fuel. It is "world starvation" fuel. Crops and crop land diverted to fuel reduces world food supplies and increases food costs - meaning starvation for the desperately poor of the world. And it is myth that biofuels do not produce Co2.

Another question is whether then Navy needs to use 2% of the entire national fuel consumption or, according to the article, 264,000,000 gallons of oil each year. Since we are in NO Naval wars why the massive fuel usage?

This all is an example of lack of financial oversight and prudence within the military. What about not stop making soldiers pay for the cleaning of their own uniforms instead? Why does the military have unlimited amounts of money except with it comes to military personnel? Then the military is financially broke.

There is no defending $26 a gallon for bulk fuel. Trace it all the way and it will just be more political graft and payola disguised as a "green" agenda.
 
rathi said:
Oil can only be obtained from a limited number of geographic areas and is currently is refined in a relatively small number of locations. Those kind of bottlenecks can make you very vulnerable in a wartime situation. Biofuels are hideously inefficient, but with decentralized production and ability to use local materials, its much harder to sabotage production. Converting the entire military away from oil would be stupid, but having a small alternative fuel capability and the know-how could be useful in certain situations.
Click to expand...

Since Germany figured how to make fuel out of coal 8 DECADES AGO, developing an "emergency" alternative source of fuel doesn't require $26 a gallon bio-fuel. There is no technology to develop. It has existed for many decades.
 
GPS_Flex said:
The point was obvious. “Decades away” means a long time from now. Things changed with the DOE overnight once Obama took office and now $26 a gallon gas is ok by you because you think it is good for the planet. Fact is, biofuels have always been more harmful to the planet than petrol and they will always cost more than petrol.
Click to expand...

You are looking at just one source, while the military is looking at what many sources say. Based on your denial of climate science, I put much more faith in the military's capabilities in the area of oil of which they as an single entity are the largest user in the world. Also, biofuels made from non-food sources are less harmful to the environment to burning fossil fuels. The military is also utilizing solar and wind power.



Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is a politician,appointed by Obamma, and a shill for Obama.
Click to expand...

So you say, without a lick of proof! :roll:
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
If you REALLY want to "save energy" then stop fighting totally moronic "nation building" wars.
Click to expand...


Agreed!!! That's why I'm voting for the viable candidate with the quickest withdrawal schedule from Afghanistan and the one that withdrew all troops from Iraq last year, rather than the candidate that said it was too soon to withdraw the troops.
 
joko104 said:
Except it's NOT "green" fuel. It is "world starvation" fuel. Crops and crop land diverted to fuel reduces world food supplies and increases food costs - meaning starvation for the desperately poor of the world. And it is myth that biofuels do not produce Co2.
Click to expand...

You have not heard of making biofuels from non-food sources, such as algae? And yes burning biofuels do emit CO2 but less than burning fossil fuels. They are only intended as a transition energy source to lessen the impact when world demand for cheap oil exceeds the world supply. We also have to consider the great cost in military expense and wars, not to mention the kissing of Saudi ass, to keep the oil flowing from the Middle East. If that cost were added at the pump, we would be paying more than $26 a gallon.
 
Wiseone said:
The military should be looking for alternative ways to fuel the fleet, not because its "green" but because anything that reduces foreign oil demand and thus reduces our involvement with those mostly unfriendly oil countries is a good thing. What it should not be is a way to defraud the taxpayer by propping up what is still a very uncompetitive industry, bio-fuels haven't reached the stage where they can compete toe to toe with petroleum oil.

When the military starting uses nuclear power to propel its larger ships, moving away from conventional fuel, it was down for military and strategic reasons. Lawmakers and other decision makers were not thinking "Hey if we force the military to buy into nuclear power, that'll be a major boost to our domestic nuclear power industry" of course in the end it actually was a major boost but that was a secondary affect. If we are going to use more biofuels it must be done for military and strategic reasons not because an industry has wiggled its way into the minds of politicians.

Which is it? Frankly I don't know, on the one side biofuels have had several set backs and still only survive via government subsidies and special laws like "Your fuel must contain X amount of biofuel" if you've ever noticed those signs at the gas station. But on the other hand there's no denying the great benefit it would have to the US to significantly decrease its foreign oil consumption.
Click to expand...

I have a friend with a chinese wife and another who has been doing a lot of business tbere for several years.

They both say China by policy doesn't use its own natural resources. It almost exclusively imports them. This is done to hold those resources in reserve so that as they begin to dwindle globally, China will still have them at home.

So long term, developing alternatives will offset this future advantage in our inevitable competition with China for resources.
 
GPS_Flex said:
Like I said, Obama installed a few yes men and put the thumbscrews on them to do his political work.
Click to expand...
It seems Obama began this treachery years ago, the sneaky bastard.

The biofuels effort is one of the most ambitious Pentagon energy programs since then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set up a task force in 2006 to find ways to reduce the military's fossil fuels dependency, involving more than 300,000 barrels a day.

​















​
 
First of all, anyone thinking this bio-fuel is crippling our food production is flat out wrong. Solazyme, the producer of the bio-fuel for this project, makes it from algae which has NO EFFECT on our food production.

In 2010, we delivered over 80,000 liters of algal-derived marine diesel and jet fuel to the U.S. Navy, constituting the world's largest delivery of 100% microbial-derived, non-ethanol biofuel. Subsequently, we were awarded another contract with the U.S. Department of Defense for production of up to 550,000 additional liters of naval distillate (SoladieselHRF-76® marine fuel).
[...]
SoladieselBD® and SoladieselRD® are the first algal-derived fuels to be successfully road-tested in blended and unblended (B100) forms for thousands of miles in unmodified vehicles.
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Solazyme | Renewable Fuels for Marine, Land, & Air Transportation

Secondly, folks should remember we get a significant percent of foreign oil from the middle-east, an unstable region which is largely hostile to the US. Knowing that our military relies on oil and that much oil come from potential enemies in the middle-east, it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that this situation constitutes a major flaw in our military structure. The only INSANE thinking is running your military on fuel provided by your enemies! That's building castles made of sand, my friends. Yes, Saudi Arabia ( a major US oil supplier ), has avoided the Arab Spring for now, but how long will it last? Should we throw all our eggs in one basket assuming it will never happen? That's lousy strategic thinking. Our military is attempting to plug a major energy security hole with this project. Does our military expect to pay $26 per gallon indefinitely? HELL NO! It expects the large demands to force an explosive increase in algae-fuel production which will drive the price down tremendously. The price we read in the article is not the price, forever. It's a shame my fellow Americans don't understand Capitalism any better than that.

Thirdly, our Navy does not sit around in port, swinging at anchor like the Russkies. We are steaming abroad on station ready to go to battle-stations on a moment's notice. And that's why our Navy still uses a lot of oil. And most of the time, when our military goes into action, what region dominates this activity? The middle-east of course! Where all the oil is! Yes, our military spends most of it's time ensuring oil production facilities are safe and that the sea lanes bringing the oil home are safe. If anyone is unhappy with all the American sons and daughters fighting in foreign lands, then those same people should praise the vision of the "Green Fleet." I think that's a misnomer, though. Screw the green aspect of it if it seems offensive. Consider it "Energy Security." We should call this fleet the "Energy Security Fleet." Sound better? Because that's what it REALLY is. I don't think Donald Rumsfeld is the type to sit in a field of daisies feeding doves from his hand, do you? If DR was pushing for it there was a serious nuts and bolts, military/economic reason for it, not "being green."
 
Simon W. Moon said:
It seems Obama began this treachery years ago, the sneaky bastard.

The biofuels effort is one of the most ambitious Pentagon energy programs since then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set up a task force in 2006 to find ways to reduce the military's fossil fuels dependency, involving more than 300,000 barrels a day.

​












​
Click to expand...



so using apparent DP forum logic, rumsfeld mustve been a shill for obama too..

or perhaps this is another case of "for it before they were against it" rational..
 
I think I read somewhere the US pumps around 50% of what it consumes, and the military consumes like 15% or less of what the US consumes.

So if push comes to shove we got enough oil to run a war without imports, plus enough oil for the richie riches to keep their cars full of gas.
 
Catawba said:
You have not heard of making biofuels from non-food sources, such as algae? And yes burning biofuels do emit CO2 but less than burning fossil fuels. They are only intended as a transition energy source to lessen the impact when world demand for cheap oil exceeds the world supply. We also have to consider the great cost in military expense and wars, not to mention the kissing of Saudi ass, to keep the oil flowing from the Middle East. If that cost were added at the pump, we would be paying more than $26 a gallon.
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We have a right to confiscate the property of our enemies, starting with the jihadists' oil.
 
EagleAye said:
First of all, anyone thinking this bio-fuel is crippling our food production is flat out wrong. Solazyme, the producer of the bio-fuel for this project, makes it from algae which has NO EFFECT on our food production.


Solazyme | Renewable Fuels for Marine, Land, & Air Transportation

Secondly, folks should remember we get a significant percent of foreign oil from the middle-east, an unstable region which is largely hostile to the US. Knowing that our military relies on oil and that much oil come from potential enemies in the middle-east, it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that this situation constitutes a major flaw in our military structure. The only INSANE thinking is running your military on fuel provided by your enemies! That's building castles made of sand, my friends. Yes, Saudi Arabia ( a major US oil supplier ), has avoided the Arab Spring for now, but how long will it last? Should we throw all our eggs in one basket assuming it will never happen? That's lousy strategic thinking. Our military is attempting to plug a major energy security hole with this project. Does our military expect to pay $26 per gallon indefinitely? HELL NO! It expects the large demands to force an explosive increase in algae-fuel production which will drive the price down tremendously. The price we read in the article is not the price, forever. It's a shame my fellow Americans don't understand Capitalism any better than that.

Thirdly, our Navy does not sit around in port, swinging at anchor like the Russkies. We are steaming abroad on station ready to go to battle-stations on a moment's notice. And that's why our Navy still uses a lot of oil. And most of the time, when our military goes into action, what region dominates this activity? The middle-east of course! Where all the oil is! Yes, our military spends most of it's time ensuring oil production facilities are safe and that the sea lanes bringing the oil home are safe. If anyone is unhappy with all the American sons and daughters fighting in foreign lands, then those same people should praise the vision of the "Green Fleet." I think that's a misnomer, though. Screw the green aspect of it if it seems offensive. Consider it "Energy Security." We should call this fleet the "Energy Security Fleet." Sound better? Because that's what it REALLY is. I don't think Donald Rumsfeld is the type to sit in a field of daisies feeding doves from his hand, do you? If DR was pushing for it there was a serious nuts and bolts, military/economic reason for it, not "being green."
Click to expand...
No wonder our enemies have such contempt for us. Only cowards would say we shouldn't use our enemies' oil when the manly solution would be to take it away from our enemies.
 
PrometheusBound said:
No wonder our enemies have such contempt for us. Only cowards would say we shouldn't use our enemies' oil when the manly solution would be to take it away from our enemies.
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Nice. You would push our American sons and daughters into deadly combat because you can't be bothered to think and innovate? How about YOU lead that charge into enemy machine gun nests?
 
joko104 said:
Except it's NOT "green" fuel. It is "world starvation" fuel. Crops and crop land diverted to fuel reduces world food supplies and increases food costs - meaning starvation for the desperately poor of the world.
Click to expand...

The desperately poor eat algae and chicken fat?

Another question is whether then Navy needs to use 2% of the entire national fuel consumption or, according to the article, 264,000,000 gallons of oil each year. Since we are in NO Naval wars why the massive fuel usage?
Click to expand...

Well, we don't park the ships and tanks and jeeps and planes between wars and have the sailors and soldiers and airmen kick stones at the docks and depots until another war starts. The force has to be mission ready, which means they're always moving, always training, etc.

What about not stop making soldiers pay for the cleaning of their own uniforms instead? Why does the military have unlimited amounts of money except with it comes to military personnel? Then the military is financially broke.
Click to expand...

Cleaning uniforms doesn't really have anything to do with force readiness. Service members are paid a salary and I think it's reasonable to expect them to care for their own uniforms. You can certainly argue that they might deserve more pay in that light, but surely that's nibbling at the edges, no?

There is no defending $26 a gallon for bulk fuel. Trace it all the way and it will just be more political graft and payola disguised as a "green" agenda.
Click to expand...

The article states that: The Pentagon paid Solazyme Inc $8.5 million in 2009 for 20,055 gallons of biofuel based on algae oil, or $424 a gallon.

Seems that in only a few years costs are down to $27 dollars per gallon. That's a lot of progress. At this point biofuels can be used as an admixture to stretch petroleum fuel supplies. If progress this rapid continues, biofuels might be competitive with petroleum in another few years.
 
PrometheusBound said:
No wonder our enemies have such contempt for us. Only cowards would say we shouldn't use our enemies' oil when the manly solution would be to take it away from our enemies.
Click to expand...

****ing with their **** is why they're our enemies in the first place.
 
ChuckBerry said:
The desperately poor eat algae and chicken fat?



Well, we don't park the ships and tanks and jeeps and planes between wars and have the sailors and soldiers and airmen kick stones at the docks and depots until another war starts. The force has to be mission ready, which means they're always moving, always training, etc.



Cleaning uniforms doesn't really have anything to do with force readiness. Service members are paid a salary and I think it's reasonable to expect them to care for their own uniforms. You can certainly argue that they might deserve more pay in that light, but surely that's nibbling at the edges, no?



The article states that: The Pentagon paid Solazyme Inc $8.5 million in 2009 for 20,055 gallons of biofuel based on algae oil, or $424 a gallon.

Seems that in only a few years costs are down to $27 dollars per gallon. That's a lot of progress. At this point biofuels can be used as an admixture to stretch petroleum fuel supplies. If progress this rapid continues, biofuels might be competitive with petroleum in another few years.
Click to expand...

Iirc, biodiesel replaces lubricity lost in low sulphur diesel fuels at like 1-2% mixture. I've read that that should be done for its own sake.

Diesel injector pumps are EXPENSIVE.
 
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