Barack Obama’s administration has backed the use of biofuels in powering its military, seeing it as a chance to immune itself from sharp fuel price fluctuations, especially after the Navy’s successful test of the technology.
But despite their efforts, the US Congress could stop the Defense Department from investing in alternative fuel until the price has become competitive to conventional sources.
Alternative Biofuels The Navy has made its first attempts in “going green” in 2009 and made tests on the jet engines on the biofuel mix in 2010. However, the project was questioned in 2011 when the Navy reportedly spent USD 450,000 on biofuels (composed of chicken fat and algae), costing around USD 15 per gallon, which is quite expensive compared to the USD 3.60 for the usual fuel.
The plan was met with strong criticism for its being very costly. Moreover, the Department of Defense was reportedly obliged to implement budget cuts by reducing the number of its personnel, aircraft, ships and important military programs.
McCain insists the program is simply too expensive, saying “I was just reading, it’s the cost of one destroyer – $1.8bn extra – they want to spend on this green technology. The fact is, I just do not believe that we need to spend that kind of money on it.”
“Absolutely it was worthwhile to show that biofuels can compete and can be used in every single thing that we do in the navy. This shows that it’s operational. Everything before now has been a t...
