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Military Can’t Use Biofuels
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- Congress Won’t Let The Navy Purchase Biofuel For The Great Green Fleet
- Both parties in Congress hates the idea of the Navy using biofuels – they have all but banned them
- The Navy screwed up - there’s no way they could run on biofuels in any way and still be viable economically
- Turn: Biofuels make warming worse
- More ev – biofuels accelerate warming
- Amtrak Amtrak’s Getting Chopped
- Amtrak tremendously stimulates local economies
- Amtrak helps tourism, boosting econ
Military Can’t Use BiofuelsBio-Fuel Development is not popular and is being stoppedCichon, 6/6, http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/06/military-biofuels-ban-moves-forward-ignites-criticism-backlash (Meg Cichon, Associate Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld) As a proposed ban on military investment and use of biofuels inches closer to fruition in Washington, several groups are speaking out against the bill. Pentagon Budget Bill, H.R. 4310, which recently passed through the Senate Armed Services Committee with a 13-12 vote and the House with a 299-120 vote, blocks the military from purchasing and investing in biofuels if they are more expensive than fossil fuels. The bill also exempts previous restrictions on liquid alternative fuels derived from coal and natural gas, which emit more carbon than traditional fossil fuels. Congress Won’t Let The Navy Purchase Biofuel For The Great Green FleetBenjamin Preston, 5-23-12, http://jalopnik.com/5912787/congress-wont-let-the-navy-purchase-biofuel-for-the-great-green-fleet (Benjamin Preston- Scientist, Environmental Sciences Division, Deputy Director, Climate Change Science Institute, Lead, Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Science Research Theme, Oak Ridge National Laboratory) The U.S. Navy is gearing up to show off its Great Green Fleet at this summer's biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) fleet exercises. The collection of 48 ships and more than 200 aircraft will operate on 50/50 blends of conventional fossil fuel and various biofuels that have been under development. The fuel for the exhibition is bought and paid for — the navy bought 450,000 gallons of biofuel for $12 million last November. But — and this isn't terribly surprising — the navy's biofuel project has become a political issue. Several House Republicans are trying to shoot it down. To them, it costs more than conventional fuel, end of story. But the story doesn't end there. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), who chairs a House Armed Services subcommittee, said that rather than spending defense dollars on developing alternative fuels production and developing its market capability, the navy should be focused on building more ships and planes — a task that has become more difficult amidst more complex technology and dwindling budgets. Forbes even told Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus at a hearing in February, "You're not the secretary of the energy. You're the secretary of the Navy." A2 “K2 Navy”Both parties in Congress hates the idea of the Navy using biofuels – they have all but banned themShachtman 5/14 (Noah Shachtman, contributing editor at Wired magazine, fellow at the Brookings Institute, editor of the Danger Room, “Republicans order Navy to quit Buying Biofuels” http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/republican-navy-biofuel/ ) The Navy’s ambitious renewable-energy plans aren’t sunk quite yet. But they took a major hit Thursday, when the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to all-but-ban the military from buying alternative fuels. The House Armed Services Committee passed a similar measure earlier this month. But the House is controlled by Republicans, who are generally skeptical of alternative energy efforts. Democrats are in charge of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And if anything, the Senate’s alt-fuel prohibition goes even further than the House’s. If it becomes law, if would not only sink the Navy’s attempt to sail a “Great Green Fleet,” powered largely by biofuels. It would also sabotage a half-billion-dollar program to shore up a tottering biofuels industry. Like their counterparts in the House, senators prohibited the Pentagon from buying renewable fuels that are more expensive than traditional ones — a standard that biofuels may never meet. In addition, the committee blocked the Defense Department from helping build biofuel refineries unless “specifically authorized by law” – just as the Navy was set to pour $170 million into an effort with the Departments of Energy and Agriculture to do precisely that. Only fossil fuels allow the Navy to effectively and cost-efficiently operate Marsh 10 (Lt. Douglas L. Marsh, US Navy, and staff writer for the US Naval Institute “Our Lethal Dependence on Oil” http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2010-06/our-lethal-dependence-oil June 2010) The U.S. Navy, the largest single consumer of diesel fuel in the world, is taking steps to prepare for an alternative-energy future - and it must increase these efforts to stay at the vanguard in the coming century. On your drive to base today you stopped at the gas station and noticed the price of regular unleaded had increased by 2 cents a gallon. You sighed, realizing it would cost an extra 40 cents to fill up. Meanwhile, in the time it took to fill your 20-gallon tank, the Navy consumed 33,000 gallons of fuel. In the same ten minutes, the Department of Defense (DOD) consumed more than 100,000 gallons, and the United States came 5.7 million gallons closer to depleting a finite resource that plays dual roles as both cause and effect for the modern Navy, the U.S. military, and the world as a whole. Oil is the lifeblood of economies, industries, governments - and militaries. Without it, cars collect dust in garages, planes sit in hangars, and ships rust in port. Unfortunately, world and U.S. oil reserves will not last forever and may even be in jeopardy in our lifetime; the U.S. Navy needs to transition to alternative forms of energy sooner rather than later. […] Right across the King Fahd Causeway from Saudi Arabia is the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Surely, that the United States and its Navy choose to base an entire fleet in Bahrain demonstrates both the strategic and geopolitical values of the region and its resources. Bahrain provides a critical node from which to launch the U.S. Navy's unmatched power-projection capabilities in order to ensure stability in the Middle East. Such stability, of course, allows an uninterrupted flow of oil from the region, which encourages stability worldwide. The irony, however, that the Fifth Fleet uses a prodigious amount of the same oil it encourages to flow is no laughing matter. The U.S. Navy as a whole - for its unparalleled maritime dominance - uses vast quantities of oil. Determining a quantitative value is rather difficult and perhaps impossible. According to Dr. Karbuz in his blog, "the DOD still does not know exactly how much energy by fuel type is used." He does claim that the Navy consumed 32 percent of total DOD energy. Assuming a direct relationship between energy as a whole and oil in particular (which we know is not the case because of oil's relatively high energy density), this amounts to a rough estimate of 112,000 barrels per day. Of the total fuel use by the services, 89 percent went to jet fuel (used in aircraft as well as tanks, other ground vehicles, and electric generators - remember that high specific energy), 3 percent to ground fuel, 3 percent to facility electricity, and 5 percent to other consumers. 8 The Navy screwed up - there’s no way they could run on biofuels in any way and still be viable economicallyShachtman 7/17 (Noah Shachtman, contributing editor at Wired magazine, fellow at the Brookings Institute, editor of the Danger Room” http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/green-fleet/ ) In October of 2009, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus took the stage at a hotel ballroom in Virginia to announce the military’s most ambitious energy plan in decades: a break with the U.S. fleet’s strict dependence on oil. Instead, he declared, the Navy would get half of its fuel and power from clean, alternate sources by 2020. Leading the way would be an aircraft carrier strike group — the ultimate symbol of American naval power — running on nothing but biofuels and other renewables. The Navy’s biofuel push could cost an extra $1.8 billion per year. No wonder Congress hates it. Equipping this “Great Green Fleet” wouldn’t be easy, Mabus said. The Navy consumes 1.6 billion gallons of petroleum per year, while advanced biofuels are only produced in the tiniest of quantities — which means they’re insanely expensive, many times the cost of its fossil equivalent. But these were solvable problems, Mabus assured the audience. Navy ingenuity could help overcome any technical hurdles, and the Navy’s weight in the marketplace would drive economies of scale, bringing down the price of biofuel. “Right now I’m told 40 percent is a more realistic goal and even that remains difficult because of the cost and logistics,” (.pdf) he told the assembled troops and civilian researchers, comparing the effort to John F. Kennedy’s race to the moon. “But you know, our Navy and Marine Corps has never backed away from a challenge. With hard work and innovation from everyone in this room … we can get there. To paraphrase the movie Field of Dreams: if the Navy comes, they will build it.” On Wednesday, the Great Green Fleet is scheduled to make its first demonstration voyage in Hawaii, just as Mabus promised it would. But this is hardly the triumphant moment that the Navy Secretary depicted back in that hotel ballroom. Support for the Great Green Fleet — and for Mabus’ entire energy agenda — has collapsed on Capitol Hill, where both Republicans and Democrats have voted to all but kill the Navy’s future biofuel purchases. In the halls of the Pentagon, the Navy’s efforts to create a biofuel market are greeted with open skepticism. Even inside the environmental community, there’s deep division over the wisdom of relying on biofuels. And while the Navy has tried to deflect questions about the cost of its renewables push, a little-noticed Defense Department report shows that the Navy could spend as much as an extra $1.8 billion per year if it buys all the biofuel it’s pledged to burn. Mabus’ signature energy effort is now at risk of being stillborn. And if it goes, it could halt the progress of the broader biofuels industry for decades. How that happened is a story of the Navy’s unforced errors. A2 “k2 Warming”Turn: Biofuels make warming worseInman 8 (Mason Inman, National Geographic, 2/7/08, “ Clearing Land for Biofuels Makes Global Warming Worse” http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080207-biofuels-carbon.html ) Growing crops to make biofuels may accelerate global warming, not slow down its effects, a new study says. When farmers clear native ecosystems such as forests or grasslands to grow crops, this gives off substantial amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that fuels climate change. Biofuels such as ethanol from corn and biodiesel from palm oil typically start out with a "carbon debt." Before these biofuels could reduce individual carbon dioxide emissions, they would first have to pay off this debt, which would take decades or centuries. "I was surprised that with so many of the crops, it takes so long before you break even [on carbon emissions]," said study co-author David Tilman of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. The university and the nonprofit group the Nature Conservancy conducted the study. "I don't think we can afford to make biofuels if we have to wait 50 years for any benefit," he added. More ev – biofuels accelerate warmingJoyner 8 (James Joyner, publisher of Outside the Beltway and managing editor of The Atlantic Council, Ph.D. in Politcal Science – U. of Alabama, former US Army Officer. 2/8/08 “Biofuels cause global warming” http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/biofuels_cause_global_warming_/ ) While ethanol and other biofuels have long been touted as a means of reducing greenhouse gas levels, it turns out that they have precisely the opposite effect because of some unintended consequences. Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded. The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy. These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development. The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces. AmtrakAmtrak’s Getting ChoppedAmtrak on the chopping blockJIM LOOMIS 2-9-12 (Jim Loomis the author of "All Aboard! The Complete North American Train Travel Guide." An updated, revised 3rd edition, published by Chicago Review Press) With more people riding Amtrak trains than ever before, and with Amtrak repeatedly setting new revenue records, why are some members of Congress still trying to gut, if not actually kill, our national passenger rail system? The Republican draft of the current transportation bill has just been released and it reduces the federal operating grant for Amtrak to the point it’s hard to imagine cutbacks in service wouldn’t be the inevitable result. Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney, also a Republican, says he’ll do away with Amtrak’s federal subsidy entirely if he’s elected. A number of the more popular routes would probably survive, including the high-speed trains running between Washington and Boston. But other trains, in particular the long-distance trains? Well, they would almost certainly be history. And with them would go any semblence of a national passenger rail system. Amtrak k2 EconAmtrak tremendously stimulates local economiesTown of Normal 12 (Normal, Illinois, as well as Amtrak, “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” July 14th, 2012, http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/723/622/Amtrak-BNL-station-ribbon-cutting-ATK-12-067.pdf) NORMAL, Ill. – Federal and state officials today joined representatives of the Town of Normal and Amtrak in opening a multimodal transportation center to serve as a station for Amtrak rail and motorcoach passengers, local transit buses and as the focal point of a new urban center of a community that is among the top 50 Amtrak locations nationwide by ridership. U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, U.S Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood -- along with Mayor Chris Koos and Amtrak Board Chairman Tom Carper -- participated in the ceremony that included a dedication of the building now called Uptown Station, followed by tours of the facility and the Amtrak Exhibit Train. The $45.9 million project received a $22 million grant under the Obama Administration’s TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) program, as well as $10.6 million in additional federal funding, and more than $13 million in state and local contributions. “Key to our Uptown master plan from the beginning was a transportation center designed to provide a multistory anchor for redevelopment,” Mayor Koos said. “Uptown Station is something all Normal’s citizens can admire and be proud of, an example of elegant design, sustainability and quality that will last for generations. “The hundreds of jobs created during two years of construction invigorated the economy of the area, and now that Uptown Station is operational it will serve the public transportation needs of hundreds of thousands of people who live in Central Illinois,” added Koos, a member of the national Mayors Advisory Committee for Amtrak. “Uptown Station is a prime example of a federal investment paying dividends for local taxpayers,” U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said. “I have secured more than $10.6 million in federal earmark funding for this state-of-the-art facility since 2003. Those earmarks, combined with additional federal support from a $22 million TIGER grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, have helped Normal create what will become the national model for multimodal stations. Construction of this facility supported hundreds of jobs and generated millions in economic activity for the Bloomington-Normal region. Yet, today’s ribbon cutting is just the beginning. “In the years to come, this station will continue serving as an economic engine for Bloomington-Normal and Central Illinois.” “Thanks to President Obama, transportation projects like the Uptown Station that opened today are putting people back to work across the country building roads, rails, bridges and transit systems we need to keep our economy growing for years to come,” said Secretary LaHood. “Through the TIGER program, we’ve made it possible for communities to build the transportation infrastructure projects that best fit their needs, creating jobs today and a stronger economic future for the nation.” “This is a national example of what a community with a vision can do with their core assets when paired with frequent, fast and reliable Amtrak service,” said Amtrak Chairman Carper. “Uptown Station will be a significant driver for continued redevelopment in the central business district, as well as have a positive impact on regional economic activity. “Similar Midwest projects are underway in Minnesota and Michigan. In all these cases, the new stations will be enjoyed by more Amtrak passengers, our employees and by others in their regions,” Carper concluded. Amtrak helps tourism, boosting econVancouver Observer, 10 (Vancouver Observer, Press Release, “Federal uuppors for Amtrak train good news for city’s economy, says Mayor,” 10/14/10, http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/cityhall/2010/10/14/federal-support-amtrak-train-good-news-city%E2%80%99s-economy-says-mayor) Mayor Gregor Robertson praised the federal government for reaching an agreement to keep a second Amtrak train running, saying it is good news for Vancouver’s economy. “It’s great to hear the federal government stepped up and ensured that the second Amtrak train will keep operating,” said Mayor Robertson. “The Amtrak train has been a big success and has delivered tourist visits and dollars into our economy, both in Vancouver and throughout the region.“I want to thank the federal government for making the investment to keep the second Amtrak train operating. The dollars that the Canadian Border Services Agency is providing will leverage significant investment for our economy. This is good news for Vancouver’s tourism industry and our local economy.” Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 154.69 Kb. Share with your friends:
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