Republicans Tell Military to Stop Buying Clean Energy
This week Republicans, led by Rep. Conaway, submitted a proposal that will prohibit the Defense Department from buying alternative fuels that cost more than traditional fuels. This has come at a time when the Defense Department is moving full speed ahead with the testing of renewable fuels in various military equipment including planes, boats, helicopters, and other military vehicles. The military is also researching the use of solar and wind energy and partnering with American companies to develop and deploy the technologies.
While it is true that in most cases advanced biofuels cost more per gallon than traditional petroleum based fuel, the only way to reduce the per gallon cost of advanced fuels is to bring them to market at commercial scale – something many groups are fighting tool and nail. The same is true in reaching per watt parity with solar and wind energy.
In response to this proposed action, Operation Free sent a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee calling on Congress to support the military’s efforts as it leads the way in development of advanced biofuels and renewable energy. The organization criticized members of Congress who advocate for policies that have already proved to be failures. The letter states, “We must change how we use energy in this country — and the military is leading the way. ”
Danger Room’s Noah Shachtman summed up the ramifications of the proposal well, “ If the measure becomes law, it would make it all-but-impossible for the Pentagon to buy the renewable fuels. … And it might very well suffocate the gasping biofuel industry, which was looking to the Pentagon to help it survive.”
3 Comments
BIOblogger
I find the GOP position remarkably short-sighted and oblivious to the trends that are bankrupting this country. It was President Bush who rightly called our oil dependence an addiction. Helping create markets for alternatives is the cheapest way for any administration to spur development of new technologies to end the addiction. As Reagan’s National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane said recently “Increasing domestic production of oil won’t change the price we pay at the pump.”
As to the argument that the DoD shouldn’t pay more for new forms of energy as they do for status quo sources – I wonder what would have been the outcome of WWII in the Pacific theater if Gen. Groves had been held to that standard? The Manhattan Project was an extraordinary use of government purchasing power because of an urgent need for a new energy weapons technology. Our addiction to oil has cost this country countless lives and will continue to do so unless Congress starts heeding the lessons of the past. We need new energy weapons – which is what biofuels are.
We have traded the Cold War for a War over oil.
Cliff Claven
The Navy just set a new Department of Defense record for fuel price in February by paying $245,000 to Albemarle Corp. to make 55 gallons of jet fuel from 100 gallons of Cobalt biobutanol. That works out to $4,454.55 a gallon or $187,000 a barrel, and that doesn’t include the cost of making the biobutanol in the first place. This beat the previous record of $427 a gallon for Algae oil. Somebody has to say stop.
Hughes Honda
Looks like the powers that be need to decide between short term savings versus long term effects of oil dependency and pollution.
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