Navy's Big Biofuels Bet: 450,000 Gallons at Four Times the Price of Oil
The Navy just signed deals to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels — arguably the biggest purchase of its kind in U.S. government history. The purchase is a significant step for Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’ plans to transform the service into an energy-efficient fleet. But at approximately $15 per gallon — nearly four times the price of traditional fuel — the new fuels won’t come cheap. (Wired)
There is so much wrong with that statement. First, if Bush and Rummy had handed a lucrative deal like this to Halliburton, liberals would be screaming "fraud, waste and abuse!" Second, biofuels are less energy-efficient than fossil fuels, and this big purchase is not a "bet;" it is flushing taxpayer money down the toilet. Finally it is an expensive payoff to the FOOs (Friends of Obama).
This doesn't even rise to the level of Crony Crapitalism. It is bald-faced political patronage. Chicago Democrat Machine politics practiced by the crooked politician from Crook Country, Barack Hussein Obama. He's an upscale Richard Nixon for the 21st century. Bebe Rebozo - Tony Rezko...
Obama does have one up on Nixon. Tricky Dick's corruption did not make him a millionaire.
But Wait! There's More!
As they say on those cheesy tv commercials, "but wait, there's more!" Progressives are continually drooling over the prospect of grabbing other people's stuff. You can now add land grabbing to their long list of confiscatory lust that includes liberty limitation, money confiscation and gun grabbing...
Green Energy's Manifest Destiny
The rapacious Big Biofuels industry, world governments firmly in it's back pocket, is now taking direct aim at the little brown people standing in its way.
Covering a full decade of land deals from 2000 to 2010 in the global south and considering the acquisition of more than 200 million hectares of land over that period (equivalent to more than eight times the size of the UK), ILC’s new report suggests that 78 per cent of deals were for agricultural purposes, of which three-quarters were for biofuel production.So, you sanctimonious green progressives, consider this the next time you're tootling around in your green hybrid crapbox, all puffed up with satisfied self-righteousness...
The new research also indicates that national elite firms play a greater role in the process of land-grabbing than previously indicated. While large land deals can create opportunities for developing countries , they are more likely to cause problems for the poorest members of society, who often lose access to land and resources that are essential to their livelihoods. (Biofuels Grab Half of Land Deals in Developed World)
“Under current conditions, large-scale land deals threaten the rights and livelihoods of poor rural communities and especially women,” says report lead author Dr Ward Anseeuw of the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, CIRAD. (Biofuels Grab Half of Land Deals in Developed World)All of this deforestation, destruction and theft of poor people's land is brought to you by your progressive federal government teamed with like-minded global progressives. With progress like this, who needs enemies?
18 comments:
People often don't think about the economic impact of their policy ideas.
It's just like the people that make the ridiculous claim that all food should be produced by small, organic famers, "because it's better for us."
They don't stop to think that by promoting the smaller farmers they'd be destroying the livelihoods of the big farmers. And also, they don't stop and realize that we have mass produced food because it's no easy task to feed 311 million people.
Yes, we need to find an alternative to fossil fuel if we're ever to achieve energy independence, but my guess is that picking up fuels that are far more inefficient and expensive are not really going to help us along that path.
Right Jack. It's all trade-offs. Paper towels or hot air blower in public restrooms? One kills trees, the other consumes electricity.
And your point about organic farming is a good one. I don't know if they would necessarily put big farmers out of business, but subsidizing them where not otherwise economically viable is wasteful and distorts the market.
Well, corn farmers weren't happy with loading the American diet with high fructose corn syrup. Although that generates big health care costs, capitalists love it.
Now they want to join the biofuel scam. Not sure who else is in on it. Big sugar down in the Everglades is probably in on the mischief.
Let's eat those Big Macs too and help tear down rain forest for grazing.
Seriously, Silverfiddle, I believe you are a Seventh Day Adventist. I'm curious about your opinion on the matter of something like "fast food" or corn syrup because the Adventist position on diet is something that would do us well in the general populace.
How much of out farm land goes to growing crap, low nutrition corn for whatever reason.Ethanol, biofuel, fructose, cow feed.
After seeing a report on the end of the family farm due to rising real estate taxes while farmers are sitting on a fortune in Natural Resources, I am starting to wonder if this isn't part of the bigger picture in stopping exploration.
Silver, you apparently haven't been keeping up on military news.
http://ivn.us/news/2012/01/19/us-military-leads-drive-toward-renewable-energy-future/
The concern of the Pentagon is that we won’t have an energy future if we keep relying upon fossil fuels imported from elsewhere. The Strait of Hormuz is in the news again as Iran threatens to blockade it if the US imposes further sanctions. Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to care about crude oil shipments through the Strait because we produced all our fuel at home? That’s what the military wants to do.
This has nothing to do with crony capitalism or FOO's. This is a military strategy. I know you are incessantly on the look-out for anything you can find to bash Obama, but sometimes you are not very discriminating in your reports.
JMJ
You're a naive Obama worshiper, Jersey. I give you the facts and you ignore them.
So driving poor people off the land is ok because it's part and parcel of Progressivism's Manifest Destiny?
I was going to call you a good German, but perhaps that's too harsh...
No Ducky, I am not a 7th Day Adventist, nor am I a Calvinist.
Government protection of big Sugar has caused much mischief, including high fructose corn sugar-induced diabetes.
http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2010/07/economist-walter-e.html
And without government incentives, the biofuels crony crapitalist market would die on the vine.
My wife, my kids and I do not eat fast food, but I do not seek to control the consumption of it by others. We also try to avoid white bread, hf corn syrup, trans fats and white rice. One of KP's Caveman rules is eat foods with only one ingredient, and we try to do that as much as possible.
Buying fresh food and cooking it is healthier, cheaper and infinitely more satisfying.
I would never put Rick Santorum on any ticket - even an imaginary one.
And I would NEVER, EVER put Ron Paul second on any ticket.
EVER!
Silverfiddle, I believe Jersey has the correct angle. The military wants to define a new fuel source. Forget the fallout, it gets what it wants.
You don't want the Syrians staging a spec-op night drop to put botulism in Romney's creme freche because some carrier ran out of gas,
Oh please, Ducky! I rarely agree with you, but I know you're not a dumb man.
The DoD gets all kinds of stupid stuff foisted on it, and this is just one more. I was in long enough to see the strings of unwanted construction projects and weapons systems.
Also, fuel comes out of the O&M budget, and the stars are absolutely cringing over paying four times the normal price for it.
No, Tricky Dick Obama is paying off his cronies while the wine stewards in epalualeted uniforms salute smartly and do stupid pet tricks because the political masters said so.
Muchmadness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur — you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Submitted by FreeThinke
Silver, the military has been planning this for a long time. The way they procure things is infamously bad, but this was going to happen with or without Obama. Heck, I was listening to a general give a speech at Duke a couple weeks ago and he said this has been a top Pentagon agenda for years.
You're just blindly bashing Obama, as usual.
Read this:
http://energy.defense.gov/OES_report_to_congress.pdf
http://www.dod.mil/ddre/doc/DoD_Energy_Security_Task_Force.pdf
Note that this agenda was started in 2006. For fuck's sake.
JMJ
UN PRESIDENT TIM KALEMKARIAN, US PRESIDENT TIM KALEMKARIAN, US SENATE TIM KALEMKARIAN, US HOUSE TIM KALEMKARIAN: BEST MAJOR CANDIDATE.
Jersey: You're out of your depth on this one.
This is not a procurement. It is an annual Operations & Maintenance (O&M) cost.
Today's generals (wine stewards) have finely tuned political antennae, and are adept at slavishly and autonomously enacting the boss's agenda. We have no more warrior generals (except perhaps in the Marine Corps); they're all political BS artists now. Stan McChrystal's sin was that he didn't get the message. He was too busy fighting a war.
Goodnight Chesty, wherever you are...
Stick with what you know Jersey. You've got some good worldly experience, but you've never served and you don't know your ass from a pop gun when you try to discuss military matters.
One point of history, one of the key elements leading to the downfall of both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was their lack of POL (Petroleum, Oil, Lubricants). The destruction of refining and production capabilities was also one of the primary goals of the allied strategic air campaign.
To correct Jersey, although perhaps not in a way he expects... this has been a military agenda since the cold war.
Here's an interesting article on German synthetic fuel work in WWII:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm
The process of turning coal into gasoline is the Fischer-Tropsch process (or varients thereof used today) that was developed at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the 1920's.
I can understand being opposed to government subsidies of biofuels, but being opposed to a technology is simply luddite. Most scientific studies assign an energy balance of 1.3 to corn based ethanol, that is for 1 unit of petroleum, 1.3 units of ethanol are produced. Brazil has achieved ratios of 1:8 with sugar based ethanol, and the University of Nebraska has achieved 1:5 ratios with switchgrass based ethanol.
For those that scream we are denying people food, switch grass can produce high-yields on marginal cropland not under cultivation.
Me, I burn ethanol in the summer, I'd burn it in the winter but at my altitude and nighttime temperatures the vapor pressure is too low, this could be remedied by a fuel heater, but alas my flex fuel vehicle is not so equipped.
Cheers!
I'm not being a Luddite, and I get your point Finns, but it is madness for a government to subsidize alternative fuels when we have literally hundreds of years worth of petroleum in the ground.
Oh, I agree with you 100% regarding government subsidies to industry. Just like whale oil and kerosene, when the technology reaches the breakover point one will replace the other.
Cheers!
Quite honestly, if the military wanted to be sure they wouldn't run out of fuel, they'd switch to natural gas, not this useless biofuel crap.
The USA has more natural gas than any nation on the planet.
So yes, this IS just political BS. Plus, if we were truly worried about not having the fuel, we'd quit blocking access to our own. We have quite a ton of oil that is currently "unavailable" because of more political BS.
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