Your Tax Dollars At Work

It is no secret that one of the priorities of the Obama Administration is green energy. The problem with green energy is that we do not yet have the technology to make it cost effective. I suspect we will have that technology within the next thirty years, but we do not have it now. However, that has not stopped the government from using it when it is entirely impractical to do so.

Reuters posted a story today about the U. S. Navy‘s latest foray into the world of green energy.  The “Great Green Fleet,” the first carrier strike group to be powered largely by alternative fuels, is currently headed to the central Pacific in an effort to prove that bio-fuels are as effective as conventional fuels.

There is, however, a problem. The article reports:

Some Republican lawmakers have seized on the fuel’s $26-a-gallon price, compared to $3.60 for conventional fuel. They paint the program as a waste of precious funds at a time when the U.S. government’s budget remains severely strained, the Pentagon is facing cuts and energy companies are finding big quantities of oil and gas in the United States.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the program’s biggest public booster, calls it vital for the military’s energy security.

We need to understand that green energy will become cost effective and practical when the free market is allowed to develop an effective green fuel. Meanwhile, throwing money at solar panel manufactures that go bankrupt and rewarding political cronies who are involved in green energy simply slows down the progress toward practical and inexpensive green energy. If energy independence is so important to the Obama Administration, why did they veto the Keystone Pipeline, close down coal-powered electric plants, and slow down permits for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

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