Green Options

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$1 per barrel increase in the price of oil costs U.S. $130 million

Whenever I’m involved in a discussion about government waste and/or the politics of bureaucratic budgeting, I undoubtedly recount a story that usually leaves people nodding in agreement or shaking their head in disbelief. The story goes like this: A friend of mine we’ll call “Rob,” whom I used to work with during my summer breaks, was coming back to Massachusetts for an unexpected late-September visit. Rob had relocated to Pensacola, Florida where he was learning how to fly jets at the Naval Flight Training School. As Rob lifted the golf clubs out of the nose of the fighter jet he had just flown from Florida to Massachusetts for a one-day visit, he knew his trip was different - and he was a little uneasy about it.

You see, Rob’s day-long visit to play golf in Massachusetts was made possible by an officer (or officers) who rightly feared that ending up with a surplus of fuel at the end of that fiscal year would slash the budget for fuel in the next. Rob’s little visit was back in the early 1990s, but with today’s skyrocketing fuel prices, and the added fuel demands of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “largest single user of petroleum products in the world” is looking for ways to use less fuel - and more types of it.

Not everyone has the same definition for the term ‘renewable-fuel’.

The United States Air Force is well on their way to becoming coal-powered. On Monday, the USAF carried out a transcontinental test flight using a 50-50 blend of standard jet fuel and coal-based ’synfuel’.

“The Air Force is taking a leadership role in testing and certifying the use of synthetic fuel in aircraft,” Secretary Wynne said. “We’re working very closely with our Army and Navy colleagues to ensure that this fuel is capable of operating in all of our aircraft. This is especially important because JP-8 military jet fuel is commonly used in the battlefield by the Army and Marines tactical vehicles and generators, as well as our respective aircraft.”

While synthetic fuel has the capacity to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it could also double CO2 emissions produced by military flight. At the time of this writing, synfuel is made via Fischer-Tropsch process from either coal or natural gas to produce a somewhat cleaner burning but extremely greenhouse-gas intensive product.