Comments on What Consumes Jet Fuel

Awesome.

The USAF, Navy, Marines, and Army all add up to much of the consumption of jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel.

As in double digit percentages.

Mostly in Iraq.

Solution: Bring the troops home and put the money we waste on fuel into building American supplies of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal etc that can all be used to power fuel cells from basic hydrolysis.

Turning swords into H2 and O2 - the only way to go.

make-a me so ANGRY!!!!

You forgot pictures of Dan and Erica.

These will always come first. When we citizens are all struggling to obtain basic staples and meet transportation needs (although that will bear ever-increasing introspection) at $300/barrel, these machines will never have to worry about going thirsty.

The cruel irony: The fact that we're fighting a war no one wanted makes it nearly impossible to afford a vacation to at least temporarily escape the terrible state our nation is in because we're fighting a war no one wanted.

Yes...but you're leaving something crucial out of the equation. The formulation of jet fuel used by military vehicles is completely different from the fuel used by commercial. Commercial = J-1. Military = JP-4/5/8

They're not interoperable.

Try agian.

It's all a rouse to impoverish the American people so much that the only reliable source of work and sustinence will be to join the military industrial complex; thereby effectively militarizing the population and preparing them for the inevitable world war that will result from the competition for those last, dwindling resources.

You need to compare the $25 billion cost with revenue, not profit.

I use jet fuel for my leaf blower! It significantly increases the horsepower and is especially useful on wet days when the detritus sticks to the sidewalks...

What's funny about the airline industry is that as a whole it is showing a NET LOSS FOREVER. All of the profits by all of the airlines added together since the Wright Brothers is a very large negative number.

How long before the airline industry is completely subsidised by the federal government???????

What's sad about the airline industry is that it took a magnificent feat of engineering that was impossible for 99.999% of human history and reduced it to a mundane and commidified mode of transportation that people now dread in less than a century.

Yes, laterite, it would be much better if no one could travel long distances for almost no money, but just read about it in their newspapers. Commodified transportation is a spectacular societal good.

@2: Can you document that? I Googled, but didn't find anything about percentage of jet fuel used by civilian / military applications.

@7: It's lame to be so smug about smacking someone down when you, yourself, are being an idiot. What do you think would happen to production volume, supplies, and costs of JP-1 if there were a dramatic decrease in demand for military fuel? Were you blind to the obvious answer, or did you just not mind posting an obviously idiotic point if it let you act superior?

I never said no one should travel by airplane. My point is that the airline industry (with some help from the government after 9/11) has done everything it can to make airline travel as miserable as possible for as many people as possible while striving for nonexistent profit (as you pointed out).

Part II : Also meant to add that airline travel used to be regarded as something special in and of itself, even as recently as 15-20 years ago. Who is excited to fly nowadays? I personally love it, but have had no need to do so in the last few years, and everything I read or hear of late makes me want to avoid an airport for the rest of my life. And that is really sad. I mean, it's FLYING! That should be some god damn exciting shit right there. But, no more.

The same thing could be said about driving cars.

Wanna be rich? Here's the idea of the future -- Commercial ultralights. 50 people per ultralight, all pedaling as fast as they can.

Ah, the A-10 Warthog - pretty plane. One of the last built that harkens back to a relatively autonomous pilot & stick flying style of the olden days.

It's our fate to sacrifice for the Chinese and India. Soon we will sacrifice our food for them as well.

@18 : Yes.

Back in the late 70's, when living in L.A., the cost of a roundtrip ticket to Mpls was $400 - which was a lot for me to dish out. Using the Consumer Price Index, $400 in 1979 is equal to $1046 in today's dollars. However, I can still get a roundtrip for about $400. The point is, what's your bitch?

Actually, $400 in 1979 dollars is $1258 today. And that's a pretty high fare these days. Discount airlines have made it possible to travel all over Europe, for instance, for as little as ten or twenty dollars.

The glamor of air travel? You couldn't afford it.

Airlines are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the first major disturbances we are going to see from peak oil.

I, for one, welcome the death of airlines. Jet fuel (which is little more than kerosene)wreaks exponentially more global warming related havok then simply driving or simply taking amtrak across the country.

[insert "I hate the Blue Angels" rant here]

Being alive is the number one cause of global warming, Zach. Hint, hint.

#17 - besides the obvious reason that air travel is entirely commonplace now, I think it's fair to say most of us don't dread the act of flying, we dread the experience of fellow travelers.

I still think planes are cool as shit - the the man that has to get his sweater out of his bag he stowed in an overhead three rows back before his gets off the plane, that's not so cool. A whole bus can empty at a stop in 30 seconds, air passengers, however, like to drag that part of the experience to around 20 minutes.

I'm flying tomorrow, on a holiday weekend - pretty sure I'm not looking forward to the crowds.

Most of the dreadfulness of flying takes place in the terminal, not the plane. The Security Theater.

@15 What's up straw man? I can't defend a position, so I'll just attack the person refuting my argument. The methods used to refine J-1 aren't really related to the methods used for JP-4. Increased US military demand has no more or less impact on the availability of fuel than increased demand for unrefined petroleum for gasoline from the domestic automobile market, the fuel oil market, overseas markets, plastic manufacturers, etc...etc...etc...

It is fitting, then, that the Defense Department is spending more on funding research into algal and cellulosic based jet fuel than any other arm of the government.

@7 - wrong. They were just testing supersonic bombers fueled with synthetic jet fuel (front page today's WSJ). Tests went fine at supersonic speeds.

$1458 is pretty cheap - I've paid for round-trip flights to Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand that cost that much. Mind you, I prefer $300 roundtrip tix to Milan ...

Will, do you evaluate your plane ticket deals without regard to destination? Charlie was talking about LA to Minneapolis, not Australia. Or are you just braggin' again, about places you went but didn't understand?

And of course you give credit to the Wall Street Journal article yesterday that gave you the numbers in this Slog post, right?

Um, MyDogBen at 34:

This post starts with a block quote, clearly quoting an external source. It even includes a healthy link to the original WSJ source.

Even shitty RSS readers should be able to show a block quote. So, please work on your reading skills before bitching next time.

Jet fuel usage by M1 tanks certainly pales in comparison to that used by naval destroyers and other ships of many nations, often powered by multiple aircraft-derived gas turbines (DC-10 size) for rapid startup. Just turn the key and drive--no need to build a head of steam. Hovercraft, helicopters, etc. also use jet fuel.

Some stationary "peaking" gas turbine power plants may also use jet fuel, although many use natural gas. California, for example, generates less than 50% of its average summer peak electric loads with "always-on" plants (coal, nuclear, hydro, etc.). All the rest is either imported (which is why we were vulnerable to Enron's schemes) or generated by the small scattered gas turbine plants (at a cost of 40-50 cents a kilowatt hour).

I'm with @28 and 29. Traveling to places I would never have been able to afford going to 50 years ago is a priceless experience. But the delayed flights and resultant missed connections, nickel and dime charges, security rituals, waiting for the old geezer in front of me to actually GET OUT OF THE FUCKING AISLE after we have landed before monkeying around in his luggage searching for/putting away some precious belonging, etc makes the airport experience itself less than pleasant.

And @26: count me among those who go to Vancouver for the weekend every year when the Blue Angels deafen Capitol Hill with their silly dog and pony show.

Blue Angels arguments must wait until after Memorial Day.