An American F/A-18 Hornet recently became the first fighter jet ever to fly on a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and biofuel refined from camelina. The U.S. Navy made a point of timing the flight to Earth Day (April 22), underlining its effort to help break the country’s dependence on foreign crude. But this green exercise, like so many of its kind, is more illusion than vision.
According to ClimateWire, a paid news service, camelina-derived jet fuel costs US$65 per gallon, about 30 times more than conventional jet fuel. Camelina is a non-edible plant classed in the mustard family. Considering the fact that the United States and others have invested billions in the search for crude alternatives since the late 1970s, that cost is deeply discouraging.
In 2007, the U.S. Congress passed an energy bill decreeing that the country must produce 250 billion gallons of renewable motor fuels by 2022, including 16 billion from cellulosic biosources. Target production for 2011 was 250 million gallons, by law. But it ain’t gonna happen. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just announced that next year’s target has been rolled back to somewhere between five and 17 million gallons. Relative to total American fuel consumption, the EPA’s new target for next year is roughly 1/100th of 1%.
The U.S., oddly enough, has not built sufficient capacity to supply more cellulosic biofuels because the products still fall so far short of commercial viability. Politicians and bureaucrats, it seems, can’t just conjure new realities out of thin air.
Windy blowhards of this type constantly badmouth Canada’s oilsands. Who cares? Chinese energy consumption is just now overtaking American, making China the world’s largest market. Also coming along nicely are India and a raft of other hydrocarbon-hungry economies. I’m about as far from anti-American as anyone can be – in my book, George Washington is the world’s greatest revolutionary by a factor of at least 10. Even so, Yankees who bitch about bitumen can switch to camelina any time they like.
