The Green Department of Defense

Another week and we are another 20 billion dollars in debt.  But we will have a slightly greener military.  The US Senate restored the DOD’s ability to buy alternate fuels for the now small navy.  Of course what the Clinton News Network never mentioned was that the unit cost of diesel from algae is $15 a gallon versus only $3 for diesel from an oil refinery.  As a gallon of diesel emits approximately 20 pounds of CO2 and assuming the diesel from algae only emits half as much CO2 the implicit carbon tax of the action to restore gangrene fuel to the fleet is approximately $2,400 a short ton.  Not too shabby for a bankrupt state to pay $2,400 a ton tax on the ox-hide of carbon.  The Navy could simply have bought some carbon offsets in Europe that are now trading at $7.22 a short ton and saved the US taxpayers some $2,392.78 per short ton.

Talking of ox-hides the air force also got into the act of buying gangrene alternate jet fuels for their aviators in leather bomber jackets.  The jet fuel story is a bit more convoluted as the sugar to transportation fuel route has to go through iso-butanol and the carbon savings are even less than half compared with oil refinery based jet fuel.

What was particularly interesting is that 11 Senators on the Republican side of the isle joined the gangrene crowd on the left in greening of the military and fleecing those that financially support the military.  Breitbart reported the following:

“Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Hoeven (R-ND), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Dick Lugar (R-IN), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and John Thune (R-SD) joined Democrats to pass an amendment by a 62-37 vote that eliminated the provision that prohibited the Pentagon from spending money on alternative fuels if it cost more than traditional sources.

Senators from the Midwest such as Grassley and Moran voted for the amendment because of the "growing business of alternative fuels" in their states. “

It is kind of sad that Senator Grassley of Iowa likes wind and ethanol out of his Hawkeye State and yet is on the right side of the argument when it comes to plug in electric cars not produced in Iowa.  He is simply on the wrong side of this argument but he wants voter support from Iowans.  Politics makes very strange bed fellows. 

Perhaps the President can make a speech about how many tons of CO2 the military has saved by not using bayonets any longer.   Of course the President won’t mention that the military got rid of all the horses that were one hundred percent renewable fuel based.   Perhaps the 11 Republican Senators can come back into the fold by adding an amendment that the 11^th Cavalry will replace the 102^nd Airborne and the US Army will only use Green Berets in the future.