Greening Up the Military: Pentagon Purchasing Chevy Volts

Katie Pavlich | September 14, 2012 8:03 AM

GM's Chevy Volt sales are pathetic, so the government is stepping in to give the failing car a boost.

The Pentagon is buying Chevrolet Volts to help “green up” the military—while propping up sales of the bailed-out automaker’s most politicized car.

The Department of Defense began purchasing the struggling luxury electric car, which retails at $40,000, this summer as part of its goal to purchase 1,500 such green vehicles. The Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Calif. purchased its first two Volts in July, and 18 more vehicles will come shortly to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Air Force One is based, according to military magazine Stars and Stripes.

This isn't the first step toward "greening up" the military. The Navy has already taken steps toward a "greener" and more expensive future.

The U.S. Navy has started going green under the direction of Obama’s Secretary of the Navy Roy Mabus. They started using a special “green fuel” for their “Great Green Fleet,” which will be tested this month while completing its Rim of the Pacific exercise. Unfortunately, this green project already reflects the worst aspects of the Obama Administration’s green agenda. The fuel being used by the “Great Green Fleet” is colossal waste of taxpayer money.

The standard aviation fuel used by the Navy $3.60 a gallon. The “green fuel,” made from things like algae, chicken fat, and seeds, costs $26 a gallon.

And then of course there is the Air Force, which is shelling out $59 per gallon in taxpayer money for biofuel after receiving stimulus funds.

The U.S. Air Force spent $59 per gallon on biofuels for a demonstration last month intended to show the promise of the alternative energy source. That’s more than double what the U.S. Navy spent as part of its so-called Great Green Fleet demonstration.

The total cost for the 11,000 gallons of synthetic jet fuel from Gevo Inc., a Colorado-based company, amounts to $639,000.

For its demonstration, Navy officials spent $12 million on 450,000 gallons of fuel, or approximately $26 a gallon. Combining the fuel with petroleum in a 50-50 mixture reduces the cost per gallon to around $15, more than four times the cost of petroleum alone. The company providing the Navy’s biofuel, Solazyme, was a recipient of stimulus grant funding.