President Barack Obama gave a powerful call to action on energy and climate, and he has given the order to halt Bush’s final rules. But if he really wants to send a quick, strong signal that he intends to preserve a livable climate, he should intervene immediately to stop the Pentagon’s toxic dalliance with liquid coal.
As reported by Air Force Times on Tuesday:
The future of a synthetic fuel plant that would power fighters and cargo planes with processed coal will be announced this week.
The Air Force decided on Friday whether to move ahead with a plan to build a synthetic fuel plant at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.
Due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the inauguration, Air Force spokesman Gary Strasburg said the decision will not be released until Wednesday.
(Note: I can’t find any notice of this decision on Google News or Montana newspapers.)
UPDATE: My sources say the decision “has been delayed.”
This is simply a terrible idea (see here), especially since clean alternatives are on the way “Boeing: Jet biofuel in three years”).
Obama said in his powerful inaugural address: “we will work tirelessly to ... roll back the specter of a warming planet.” That can’t be done running your Air Force on liquid coal:
Obama should kill this plant if the Air Force doesn’t, and then immediately make clear that America is not going to run its military on a fuel that itself worsens the greatest national security threat.
The proposal is part of the Air Force’s Enhanced Use Lease program, which allows a private company to lease space on military bases in exchange for base infrastructure improvements.
The owners of the proposed plant at Malmstrom would pay the Air Force in fuel.
This is just a clever way to get around the impossible economics of liquid coal—although given the current low price of oil, it is inconceivable that this liquid coal plant makes any sense for the Air Force today.
If the decision on Friday turned out to be a positive one, then we know the fix will have been in by the liquid-coal military industrial complex. But then, the Air Force has been fooling itself and trying to fool the public for a long time under President Bush.
The Air Force plans to certify all its airframes on domestic synthetic fuel by 2011 and has been checking off test flights steadily: The B-52, C-17, B-1 and F-15 have all flown with a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and coal-derived diesel.
The service is responsible for 10 percent of aviation fuel consumption in the country and spends billions a year on jet fuel.
The Air Force’s stated goal is to fly all planes with the 50-percent blend by 2016.
Ending this self-destructive vision for the Pentagon should be one of Obama’s easier decisions.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
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Ted Nace Posted 2:34 pm
22 Jan 2009
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Pompey Road Posted 12:44 am
23 Jan 2009
Choose your battles wisely as this one will soon have you on the defensive trying to explain why you are against national security. The Air Force presents this program as having a fuel source in reserve or independent of foreign oil that may be denied them in times of war. I do not have to remind you that we had to destroy the German oil sources during WWII before we could take control of the sky's over Europe. The Germans even had a viable CTL program started but it was of course to little to late.
National security triumphs all and you should be careful how you approach this. You may come away tattered and scared with a considerable amount of damage to your credibility.
This will not be the same as tackling the so called clean coal campaign. You will have to overcome patriotism, nationalism and you will be hit with some strong national defense arguments that will resonate all the way from the neo con to way just left of center. Go after CTL in every other sector but I would be cautious about being to verbal about the specific Air Force CTL program.
Just a little info from a neo con mole and who has trained his brain for far right thinking in order to see the landmines.
Obama has come out strong before and after the campaign on defense. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble but he is governing more to the center on most issues.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:23 am
23 Jan 2009
Meanwhile biofuel experimentation for military use should tend towards algae and away from CCS and coal. Sure fund a few research projects in clean coal to liquid CCS fantasies. But realize they are terminally flawed from the start.
Drastically cutting military, and eventually civilian, fuel use, by 90% is the best way to get military security, it pretty much destroys the oily reason behind present wars.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 2:10 am
23 Jan 2009
Amazing,
A plug in Hybrid Jet, I am trying to imagine that on the scale of a B-52 or B-1 Bomber. I am sure the technology for that is just right around the corner, please do not use that again. This is what I was talking about.
I never said do not attack CTL, just be careful how you approach it in some quarters. Algae would be my first choice for an ATL substitute for CTL. I also have great hope for it in the sequestering of co2.
I do not think CTL for the Air Force or gasification of coal for the generation of Power for electricity is a good idea. My sentiment was you can jump all over gasification without much regard on how you do it.
I was just pointing out some of the landmines when you go against the Air Force CTL program. You lose credibility and give Corporate the ammunition to come against you with every battle you lose. Why risk a loss with a head on attack on this front. There are other ways of skirting this confrontation that we will probably lose. There is nothing wrong in offering algae and other alternatives, just watch how you approach it.
In Vietnam we won all the battles but lost the war. You never want to lose the battle of public opinion.
I learned that early on.
And NO, I was not for that war or a willing participant, just an example
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:40 am
23 Jan 2009
Reduce the military fuel use where possible now, trucks and jeeps, land vehicles. And that frees up fuel for aircraft.
But apparently you hadn't heard about solid oxide fuel cell turbines that would use a quarter of the present fuel in a standard jet engine? Boeing has. And the fact that batteries only need to have 1/5th the energy density of jet fuel for them to compete.
Also hybrid electric turbines would have the ability to operate on power transfered from the ground during takeoff (via under run way induction strips and microwave laser), the most fuel intensive phase of air travel.
I guess I haven't mentioned this enough, hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 6:29 am
23 Jan 2009
You can spin this anyway you want to take the focus off my main point. I know with a Mars Rover running around on Mars the capability of all the futuristic environ fantasia oriented vehicles of the future the military may or may not be using or their real or imagined benefits in fuel savings and reducing our carbon footprint.
How do you pen this letter, Mr. president I know you have to save an economy from collapse, solve housing subprime mess plus the same one now in commercial real estate, solve the unemployment problem, fight a two front war, get your recovery program in action as soon as possible and we want all the alternative energy we can get, plus mass transit and fix the infra structure, fix social security, Medicare and all the unfunded liabilities that make up most of our national debt. We want universal health care and a smart grid and by the way I am a coal hater and want you to dismantle the Air Force CTL program.
From your background I will not believe you do not know the fact the fuel has already been tested in B-52's by the Air Force and people in the Pentagon have staked their reputation and carriers on it. The industrial Military Complex sitting right next door to the president and most days right in the same room with him. All the members of and heads of Defense and finance committee's in the legislative that have a vested interest in seeing this CTL program advanced plus the coal corporation lobby. And the mentality is we will just write a letter and Obama will shut down the Air Force CTL program. You take no heed of the complicated interconnected web spun by the Industrial Military Complex or the power of the corporate lobby.
Luckily Obama as I said kept his grassroots organization together and has asked input on the agenda and I believe we can finally start work around the powerful interest and lobby in Washington that dominated all discussion.
I do not agree with CTL but would not have attacked it as a coal hater just wanting to kill it for the sake of killing it. Especially since it is already out of its testing phase and has so many powerful people connected to it.
I would have wrote the letter demanding all of the Economic Recovery funding possible for BTL, Bio To Liquid Fuels in the alternative energy portion of the recovery money. When I had a viable BTL I would then as the president as Commander in Chief to order the Air Force to test it. If it is as efficient cost won't matter to the military.
Better yet I would ask UPS to test it in their package/partial Air Fleet. I think this is what he was talking about in his call to service. You can't just dump this stuff on his plate you have to help him work it through the system.
Blogging here is a good way to kill your day, so is the letter to Obama on killing the Air Force CTL program. Make an end run around it, if you attack it head on you are just peeing in the wind.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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