Hands Off Our Biofuels, Panetta Tells Congress

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In a post on the White House blog Wednesday, Sharon E. Burke, the assistant secretary who oversees operational energy plans and programs for the military, noted that military spends way, way more on conventional fuels than it does biofuels.

“Last year, DoD purchased 5 billion gallons of fuel at a cost of more than $15 billion to conduct worldwide military operations,” Burke wrote.

green military

image via U.S. Navy

Burke argued, as Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has before hostile Congressional Republicans, that the department’s small investment in alternative fuels could, down the road, help ensure that the military’s equipment can operate on a wide range of fuels — just in case conventionals aren’t available, or become wildly costly.

“As one of the world’s largest consumers of petroleum fuels, DoD has an interest in the development of alternatives as a hedge against potential supply disruptions and future price volatility,” Burke wrote. “As a national security agency, we also have a strong interest in easing the economic and geostrategic pressures the global market exerts on all Americans.

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Posted on June 14th, 2012 · Comment ↓

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Posted in Biofuels, Editor's Pick, Renewable Energy

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cliff-Claven/100003175960268 Cliff Claven

    How is borrowing money from China to finance deficit spending on biofuels at 5 to 50 times the price of fossil fuels we could be producing right off our own coasts if not prohibited by our government improving our National security?  Logic would argue that spending millions more than we have to on fuel instead of using that money toward other essential items in a budget-constrained military would be the thing “depriving our
    military commanders of flexibility.”  As a data point, the U.S. Navy paid $4,454.55 a gallon ($187,000 a barrel) in February to Albemarle Corp. to convert biobutanol into jet fuel, and this doesn’t include the cost of the biobutanol. This eclipses the Navy’s previous record of paying Solazyme $427.53 a gallon ($18,000 a barrel) for algae diesel oil in 2009. These biofuels require more energy to create (fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, farm machinery fuel, processing, refining, hydrotreatment) than they yield in their final product. That input energy comes from fossil fuels, and is why a host of
    rigorous lifecycle studies now report that biofuels are more damaging to the
    environment and cause more greenhouse gasses to be released than the direct use of fossil fuels. Making biofuels actually accelerates our use of fossil fuels and our need for imports. Meanwhile, the military prices of jet fuel and diesel have never risen above
    $4.00/gal. Seeing some Congressman take a stand for science and sense instead
    of politics is refreshing.

    • Pete

      On the point of “borrowing money from China,” it should be noted that China holds around 10.4 percent of the U.S. public debt and about 7.5 percent of the U.S. combined total public debt.