Recent Gas News/GasBuddy Blog

CNN -- (CNN) -- Thad Allen, the government's point man on the BP oil disaster, and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser will meet Tuesday before briefing the public on the cleanup effort.

The effort to permanently kill the ruptured oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled because of turbulent seas.

Officials had planned to detach a device called a blowout preventer from the well and replace it with a new one, a procedure aimed at paving the way for a permanent fix for the well.

BP annouced the postponement of the procedure on its Twitter page Monday.

"Operations will commence as soon as sea states reach acceptable levels," the company said.
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inhabitat.com -- By Timon Singh

Clean energy company Acta has unveiled plans to install a network of solar-powered hydrogen fueling stations throughout Italy. The new fuel pumps will harness solar energy to produce hydrogen fuel from water through electrolysis.

"...they offer an alternative to the standard gas-guzzling automobile."

Hydrogen technology has certain advantages over batteries — it doesn’t necessitate emission-creating production lines and it doesn’t require long recharge times. The tech has proved that it can work in conjunction with batteries and that it can also become a fully-fledged alternative fuel.

"...completed more than 170 installations during 2009,...paving the way for a more sustainable fueling network."

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Bloomberg -- The Prius hybrid has spearheaded sales growth for Toyota Motor Corp. in Japan for more than a year, helped by government subsidies. The model will likely bear the brunt of plunging demand as the support ends.

“A collapse in sales is unavoidable,” said Hiromi Inoue, the new-car sales chief for Tokyo Toyopet Motor Sales Co. “The daily pace of orders for the Prius is already dropping. We are bracing ourselves for the coming crisis.”

The number of customers signing up to buy a Prius at Tokyo Toyopet’s 66 showrooms has dropped to about eight a day from 20 in June, Inoue said. Industrywide, car sales in Japan are expected to plunge 23 percent in the six months beginning in October from a year earlier, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.  (go to article)

CNET -- he Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation on Monday proposed a fuel economy label overhaul to reflect how electric and alternative fuel vehicles stack up against gasoline passenger vehicles.

The federal agencies released two new labels that officials expect to be finalized early next year and used in 2012 model year cars. The published labels will be available for public comment for 60 days.

The changed label, mandated by the 2007 energy law, includes the same information on city and highway miles per gallon and estimated driving costs based on 15,000 miles a year now available.

But the new labels add more comparative information, rating cars on mileage, greenhouse gas contribution, and other air pollutants from tailpipe emissions.  (go to article)

plugincars.com -- We are quickly approaching the launch dates of the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt—the first two globally-distributed and mass-market plug-in cars the world has ever seen. As the public's attention shifts to the battery-powered drive-train and its perceived shortcomings, the question of how long it will take to charge the battery has rightly taken center stage.

To this point, much of the conversation regarding plug-in car charging times has revolved around what kind of charging station you use. In the US, as many of us know, there are essentially three types of charging:

1. A standard 3-prong household outlet, also known as "Level 1 charging"
2. A specialized home charging station, also known as "Level 2 charging"
3. A commercial quick charging station, known alternately as both  (go to article)

Gas 2.0 -- In general, once you’ve bought something new, its value tends to sink the moment you take it out of the box. For a new car, the value plummets as soon as you drive it off the dealership lot. It’s called depreciation, and with cars it is especially brutal. That shiny new car you just bought for $30,000 might be worth less than $25,000 after just a week of ownership. With very few exceptions (like vintage muscle cars), most cars suffer a steep drop in value almost immediately.

This may go doubly true for electric cars it seems—at least in Europe. Mitsubishi has put out a chart to the BBC which suggests that the higher up-front costs of an electric car, plus the increased depreciation, mean in the long haul it could cost a lot more than a petrol powered car. Now why would they do that?  (go to article)

Flixxy.com -- In an efficient and safe effort to save us from the ill-effects of plastic waste, Akinori Ito has developed a machine which converts plastic back into oil..
watch the video.....  (go to article)

Telegraph.co.uk -- If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years.  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- The U.S. East Coast has three days to get ready for a possible strike by Hurricane Earl, which has delayed flights in the Caribbean and halted ship loading at a refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Earl strengthened today to a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 125 miles (200 kilometers) per hour about 120 miles east-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, at 3 p.m. New York time, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory. Earl is the season’s second major hurricane.

Earl’s projected track runs parallel to the East Coast. The storm may strike land anywhere from North Carolina northward, said Rick Knabb, hurricane expert for the Weather Channel in Atlanta.  (go to article)

The New York Times -- TEXAS CITY, Tex. — While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems.

For 40 days after a piece of equipment critical to the refinery’s operation broke down, a total of 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including the carcinogen benzene, poured out of the refinery.

Rather than taking the costly step of shutting down the refinery to make repairs, the engineers at the plant diverted gases to a smokestack and tried to burn them off, but hundreds of thousands of pounds still escaped into the air, according to state environmental officials.  (go to article)

CNBC -- The price of a barrel of oil would be closer to $10 if the commodity wasn't traded as an investment instrument, given the record-high levels of U.S. oil inventories, Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover, told CNBC Monday.
"I honestly think that if there were no investors using oil as an asset that the price of oil right now would be $10 or $15 or $18, but it wouldn't be anywhere near where it is," Beutel said.

"We have so much oil right now, more than we've had in 27 years. Why is it 27 years? Because that's how far our records go back. It's probably the most in 50 or 100 years," he added.

Part of the reason the price of oil is currently above $74 (BIS: US@CL.1) a barrel is because of a belief in the economic recovery, Beutel said.

Comments by Federal Reserve Chai  (go to article)

Science Daily -- Now, for the first time, a team of Empa scientists have made a detailed life cycle assessment (LCA) or ecobalance of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, in particular the chemically improved (i.e. more environmentally friendly) version of the ones most frequently used in electric vehicles.

The study shows that the electric car's Li-ion battery drive is in fact only a moderate environmental burden. At most only 15 per cent of the total burden can be ascribed to the battery. The production of the lithium, is responsible for only 2.3 per cent of the total. Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries are not as bad as previously assumed. How the battery is recharged has a greater impact on the environment than the production of the battery.  (go to article)

Reuters -- WASHINGTON | Mon Aug 30, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will propose on Monday new labels for passenger vehicles detailing for the first time their greenhouse gas emissions, while also changing measurements of fuel economy.

The labeling proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation would allow consumers to compare cars in terms of emissions blamed for warming the planet and to see how far they could drive on new technologies and traditional gasoline engines.

"New fuel economy labels will keep pace with the new generation of fuel efficient cars and trucks rolling off the line, and provide simple, straightforward updates to inform consumers about their choices in a rapidly changing market," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said  (go to article)

Market Watch -- SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has lowered its price target for crude-oil futures, saying the recent bounce is likely temporary and forecasting prices around $65 a barrel by October.

The firm has tweaked its third-quarter price forecast to $75 a barrel, from $77 a barrel.

Investors should view the recovery in prices in the coming week as "a selling opportunity," analysts at Morgan wrote in a note to clients.

Prices are likely to "move into the mid $60s before (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) meets in October," they said.  (go to article)

Associated Press -- There is good news at the gas pump, as Americans get ready to fill their cars, RVs and boats for the Labor Day weekend.

The national average price for gasoline has been falling steadily this month, reaching $2.678 for a gallon of unleaded on Monday, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That's about 6 cents a gallon less than a month ago and 7 cents less than it was on the Friday before the July Fourth weekend.

West Coast drivers pay the most for gas -- between $2.792 a gallon and $3.539 a gallon. The cheapest gas is in Texas, the Gulf Coast states and parts of the Midwest, where prices range from $2.431 to $2.523 a gallon.

A plunge in wholesale gasoline prices earlier this month is pushing down prices at the pump, PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn said.

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Downstream Today -- Life Technologies Corp., a provider of innovative life science solutions and SG Biofuels, Inc., a bioenergy crop company, on Tuesday announced they have completed sequencing the Jatropha curcas genome to 100x coverage, using the SOLiD 4.0 System by Life Technologies. The sequence significantly accelerates the identification of key traits for the oilseed-producing crop and advances its development as a high yielding, low-cost source for next generation biofuel.  (go to article)

Sympatico -- Gtrblog.com has leaked images and information on the 2012 Nissan GT-R.
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The revised GT-R will reportedly feature LED accent lights and newly shaped bumpers. The new styling make the car more aerodynamic. Two new colours, Aurora Flare Blue Pearl and Nebular Opal Black, will also available.
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The 2012's models new wheels will cut 12 kg off the car's weight and will be offered in two colours, Hyper Blue Black and Hyper Titanium.
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The 2011 GT-R features a 3.8-litre engine making 485 horsepower and 434 lb-ft of torque, a six-speed dual-clutch transmission, three driver-selectable modes and lightweight aluminium-forged wheels.
 (go to article)

Reuters -- (Reuters) - Biofuel demand is driving a new "land grab" in Africa, with at least 5 million hectares (19,300 sq miles) acquired by foreign firms to grow crops in 11 countries, a study by an environmental group said on Monday.

The contracts by European and Asian companies for land to grow sugar cane, jatropha and palm oil to be turned into fuel will involve clearing forests and vegetation, taking land that could be used for food and creating conflicts with local communities, Friends of the Earth said in the study.

Proponents of biofuels argue they are renewable and can help fight climate change because the growing plants ingest as much carbon dioxide from the air as the fuels made from them emit when burned.

Critics say there is a risk of the crops infringing on land that could be u  (go to article)

CNN -- U.S. gasoline prices have decreased a little more than 7 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, and lower demand in September is expected to keep prices steady, according to a new nationwide survey.

The latest Lundberg Survey, conducted on August 27, found the average price of self-serve regular at $2.70 per gallon -- down 7.54 cents since the last survey, conducted two weeks before.

Survey publisher Trilby Lundberg said gas prices were catching up to a decrease in crude prices.

"Absent any upset in the price of crude, (gasoline) prices should see little change or even a small drop," Lundberg told CNN.

There is a plentiful supply of gas, and September marks the beginning of a traditional period of lower gas consumption that should keep prices steady,  (go to article)

USA Today -- Volvo has long been known for Swedish quality and class-leading safety. So now that it's owned by China's Geely Holding Group, will the brand still be considered premium if Volvos are made in China?

Geely is considering converting a new plant in southwest China to make Volvos, the Wall Street Journal reports. It also may construct another Volvo plant, possibly near Shanghai. That didn't take long. Geely recently closed the deal to buy Volvo from Ford Motor.

Geely management has made it clear that it has to find ways to slash Volvo's costs. And it unclear whether any of a Chinese plant's output would make their way to the U.S., much less out of China.  (go to article)

Financial Times (FT.com) -- Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, on Sunday opened a new pipeline to export east Siberian oil to China that will help Russia reorientate its oil trade towards the east.

The pipeline, running 67km from Skovorodino in east Siberia to China’s north-eastern frontier, is an offshoot of a new oil export route Russia is building to the Pacific Ocean, providing a strategic window on the fast-growing energy markets of Asia.  (go to article)

London Free Press -- The door has opened a crack on a stay of execution for workers at Ford of Canada’s St. Thomas assembly plant.

While workers have received a layoff notice effective Aug. 31, 2011 — when the plant on Hwy. 4 south of Hwy. 401 is poised to close — included in the letter was a statement from Ford saying that if demand continues for the plant’s vehicles, the deadline could be extended.

“I will take whatever they give us,” said Scott Smith, chairperson of CAW Local 1520, representing Ford workers. “They had to give us one-year notice and they have now done that, but let’s hope there is more than that.”

As for whether there will be more time on the job for the 1,200 unionized workers, it all depends on what happens the next 12 months, he said.

The plant is still on pace to assemble abo  (go to article)

ALL247NEWS.COM -- In August 28, MSNBC ran a feature on fuel cells. It had a thing or two to say about the Bloom Box and Bloom Energy. The product, it said, has generated "excitement" among experts of the energy industry. MSNBC reported, "It's generated electricity as well, in pilot projects at places ranging from eBay to Safeway.  (go to article)

CNN -- An historic journey is happening now...and no surprise, it's to feed China's appetite for energy.

The SCF Baltica is a large tanker that has just made it safely through the Arctic Circle to deliver 70,000 tons of gas condensate (a natural gas extract) from Russia to China. This is the first time a tanker of this size has been able to make the journey through the Northern Sea Route. It's now headed for its final port destination just south of Shanghai.

There are two interesting angles to this story:

1) This route through the Arctic cuts down the distance traveled by almost a half. The route from Murmansk, Russia to Ningbo, China covers 7,000 nautical miles. This is down from the 12,000 nautical miles it takes on the traditional route through the Suez Canal.

Sergey Frank, CEO o  (go to article)

CNN -- (CNN) -- More than three weeks after plugging its ruptured oil well with cement and mud from above, BP plans to start a procedure Monday that will pave the way for a permanent fix for the well.

Crews will start work Monday removing the capping stack that began trapping oil in the well last month, retired Adm. Thad Allen told reporters.

That will allow them to detach the blowout preventer and replace it with a new one -- key steps before engineers use a relief well to permanently kill the well 18,000 feet below the Gulf's surface.

"We will attempt to pull it free, and we are prepared to apply up to 80,000 [pounds] of force in addition to the weight of the blowout preventer to lift it," said Allen, the man charged with the government response to the oil disaster. "We call this the g  (go to article)

autoblog.com -- One of the regular questions relating to the Chevrolet Volt is: what happens to the fuel in the tank if it's not used for extended periods of time and the car is only run on plug power? General Motors officials have said that the engine might periodically run just for the purpose of using up some gas as well as circulating the oil and making sure that all the systems are working properly.

While perusing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application database, we stumbled across a filing from General Motors for a system to automatically deliver additives to the fuel tank of a plug-in hybrid vehicle. While the application mentions engines with a variety of fuels and several possible additives, this clearly seems like something applicable to the Volt. The system would have a controller  (go to article)

physorg.com -- Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil.

Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels - which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises - the new process excels at higher temperatures.

Called 'photon enhanced thermionic emission,' or PETE, the process promises to surpass the efficiency of existing photovoltaic and thermal conversion technologies.

...a new energy conversion process..

And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable.  (go to article)

New York Times -- In a remote reach of the Gulf of Mexico, nearly 200 miles from shore, a floating oil platform thrusts its tentacles deep into the ocean like a giant steel octopus.

The $3 billion rig, called Perdido, can pump oil from dozens of wells nearly two miles under the sea while simultaneously drilling new ones. It is part of a wave of ultra-deep platforms — all far more sophisticated than the rig that was used to drill the ill-fated BP well that blew up in April. These platforms have sprung up far from shore and have pushed the frontiers of technology in the gulf, a region that now accounts for a quarter of the nation’s oil output.

Major offshore accidents are not common. But whether through equipment failure or human error, the risks increase as the rigs get larger and more complicated.
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IndustryWeek -- Toyota Motor Corp. said Aug. 23 it will continue hiring for positions at its Blue Springs, Miss., plant after delaying its plan to start production at the facility amid weak market conditions.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi, Inc. (TMMMS) is hiring for hourly production and skilled maintenance positions through the Mississippi Department of Employment Security and the Workforce Investment Network Job Centers.

Toyota plans to eventually hire 2,000 employees at the plant.

Individuals interested in employment opportunities at Toyota's Blue Springs plant may apply online at www.mdes.ms.gov.
 (go to article)

ROAD&TRACK --

2011 Ford FiestaHenry Ford certainly made things easy when he stipulated that customers for his rugged Model T could have any color they wanted, so long as it was black. Today’s car buyer faces a vastly more complicated decision-making process when choosing the paintjob for his or her new vehicle.
There’s no way of knowing whether Mr. Ford would have approved of the eight colors currently available with the 2011 Fiesta SE subcompact sedan. Our guess is “Tuxedo Black” might have won his approval—although “Lime Squeeze Metallic” would probably have cost someone  (go to article)

Financial Times -- By Gregory Meyer in New York , Financial Times, 26 Aug 2010

Los Angeles traffic: Americans are driving less

Evidence of a slowdown in the US economy is turning up in oil markets as demand stagnates in the world's most voracious petroleum consuming nation.

US petroleum stockpiles are at their highest levels since the early 1980s, the energy department revealed this week, and the rapid rebound in demand from the recessionary lows of a year ago has begun to decelerate.

Americans are consuming less oil than they did in 2008 – or most of the previous decade, for that matter.

Demand for petrol, crucial to a car-dependent US, has gained a meagre 0.5 per cent year to date, according to energy department data.

US refiners are, meanwhile, exporting hundreds of thousands of barrels of ...  (go to article)

Clean Technica -- "...This new form appears to be a kind of “scavenger” that harvests part of the light spectrum that other forms of chlorophyll don’t absorb.

The discovery is significant because it could help push forward the development of new strains of algae that can use a larger part of the light spectrum to produce biofuel oils, which in turn would help to make renewable biofuel production cheaper and more competitive with fossil fuels....

there is still some homework to be done before a definitive connection can be made, but the future looks promising for applying the mechanisms of photosynthesis not only to improve the efficiency of biofuel production. The implications for renewable energy also go beyond biofuels.... '  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s Mini, known for its retro-chic appeal, is targeting an unhip crowd with the Countryman crossover: families. The not-so-mini Mini will have four doors and be the brand’s biggest ever model.

“Our main aim is to unlock a wholly new target audience,” Mini product manager Hans-Joachim Leonhardt said in an interview in Munich. “Young families with kids, sporty youngsters, folks from modern milieus -- everyone can now drive a Mini.”

The new Countryman is part of a revamp of the entire portfolio of the Mini brand, which BMW restarted in 2001 after selling the unprofitable MG Rover Group. The company has sold 1.7 million Minis since then, helping the Munich-based carmaker attract customers who may later buy more expensive  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- BP Plc’s internal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster found company engineers misinterpreted pressure data that indicated a blowout was imminent, according to a person familiar with the report.

BP managers aboard the Transocean Ltd.-owned rig misread a test of the Macondo well’s stability on April 20 and began replacing drilling fluid, which is heavier than oil and natural gas, with seawater, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report’s findings haven’t been publicly released.

The seawater was too light to prevent natural gas that had begun leaking into the well from shooting up the pipe to the rig, where it exploded and killed 11 workers. The damaged well eventually spewed more than 4 million barrels of crude into the sea, enough to fil  (go to article)

Truthout.org -- The State of Mississippi's Department of Marine Resources opened all of its territorial waters to fishing on August 6. This was done in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida about the presence of oil and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster. On August 19, Truthout accompanied two commercial fishermen from Mississippi on a trip into the Mississippi Sound in order to test for the presence of submerged oil. Laboratory test results from samples taken on that trip show extremely high concentrations of oil in the Mississippi Sound.  (go to article)

Sympatico -- The Oakville, Ontario Ford assembly plant, which produces the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, will be the first plant in the world to install software via WiFi as vehicles move down the assembly line.
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Using Wi-Fi, "we can stock just one type of SYNC module powering MyFord Touch and loaded with a basic software package,” says Sukhwinder Wadhwa, SYNC global platform manager. “We eliminate around 90 unique part numbers, each of which would have to be updated every time a change is made."
 (go to article)

Yahoo News -- This could literally be called pee power to the people-researchers have figured out a way to make the world's first urine-powered fuel cells.
 (go to article)

Halifax Chronicle Herald -- When Cairn Energy, a British petrochemicals company, this week announced the first firm indication of worthwhile oil deposits off Greenland’s coast, inhabitants of Nuuk, the island’s gritty capital, greeted the news with their customary equanimity.

"That’s nice," said a housewife less interested in the implications of a possible oil bonanza than in negotiating her country’s sole pedestrian crossing in the sleeting rain.

Several hundred miles north in Baffin Bay, Greenpeace eco-warriors seeking to halt offshore oil exploration in the Arctic faced down a Danish warship. The government hotly contests Greenpeace’s claim that, because oil degrades far more slowly in freezing waters, a Mexican Gulf-style oil spill would mean calamity for the fragile environment.

 (go to article)

Zanesviille Time Recorder -- State officials are considering an idea to replace the gas tax with a user fee tied to how many miles you put on your vehicle.

At first glance, it might seem like a way to ensure all people pay their fair share, but it might have unforeseen consequences.

First, it won't decrease our dependency on foreign oil any time soon. Second, at a time when people are clamoring for smaller government, it could increase the amount of government needed to operate the program.

The concept is attractive to people, including county engineers like our Doug Davis, because it could provide more money to repair our roads. The state's gas tax revenue saw a decline of 1.5 percent during the past few years despite a rise in the gas tax from 22 cents per gallon to 28 cents per gallon. Th  (go to article)

Reuters -- ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote) asked the Idaho Supreme Court for an expedited hearing on a lower court ruling that prevents the company from moving giant refinery units on a rural highway through the state.

Conoco said further delay could prevent its Billings, Montana, refinery from completing an overhaul this year and cost the Houston-based company $9 million.

"If this window (for the move) is missed, ConocoPhillips likely will be forced to delay shipment until spring 2011, causing the needed repairs to be postponed until late summer 2011," attorney Scott Randolph wrote in a brief filed on Conoco's behalf with the Idaho Supreme Court.

An attorney for those opposed to the move said Conoco's deadline keeps changing.  (go to article)

The Grand Rapids Press Editorial Board -- The inspection of oil and gas pipelines in Michigan remains too much underground for the public good.

The late-July spill of more than 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River highlighted that hidden problem. There are 67,615 miles of transmission and distribution lines crisscrossing Michigan, ferrying liquids such as oil as well as gas. Some of those lines are regularly inspected. Some are not. Companies are not required to tell the public which are which, and finding the results of inspections isn’t as easy as it should be.

That calls for greater disclosure and accountability from oil and gas companies. If added accountability doesn’t occur, the state or federal government should step in to perform the inspections. Right now, that job is left exclusively to private compani  (go to article)

USA TODAY -- PHOENIX (AP) — A surprise downpour sparked collisions involving 69 vehicles on an interstate near Phoenix's downtown area Saturday evening, closing the westbound roadway for hours and sending seven people to hospitals.
The crashes — described by authorities as the most in a single Phoenix area in recent memory — began about 6:30 p.m. with many drivers going too fast or not leaving enough distance between cars for the slippery conditions, Department of Public Safety spokesman Bob Bailey said.

"The storm hit hard, hit fast, and caught a lot of drivers by surprise," he said. "The collisions began in the far right side of the roadway near the 7th Street exit ramp and this thing kind of perpetuated itself, enveloping the whole roadway."

None of the injuries was life threatening and most  (go to article)

Detroit Free Press --
Dan Akerson, General Motors' new CEO, showed Thursday night that he's willing to fight for Detroit.

In Washington, a powerful group gathered for a send-off dinner for Akerson and his wife, Karin Akerson. AOL co-founder Steve Case hosted. Guests included retired Gen. Colin Powell and Ted Leonsis, AOL co-founder and Washington Capitals and Wizards owner.
The evening was awash in good cheer. Then someone mentioned that he hadn't bought a domestic car or truck in 20 years, all within Akerson's earshot.

To Akerson, it was as if someone had said the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was better than the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he graduated.

"Dan started lecturing ... about the quality and reliability of the new Buick Regal and the styling elements of the Cadillac CTS coupe,"  (go to article)

CNN --
We all know Japan is second only to Singapore when it comes to keeping things clean, so it’s little surprise to see the country’s captains of industry come up with a futuristic vehicle called the Solarve Bus (a contraction of "Solar Vehicle") that’s sparkly both inside and out.

Sanyo and Ryobi teamed up to outfit (Japanese) the standard road-going bus with solar panels on the outside to generate power and some nifty air scrubbers in the cabin for the passengers to enjoy cleaner air.

While the solar cells currently only power the Solarve Bus's interior lighting, Sanyo’s prowess in the field of photovoltaics is such that it probably won't be long before some of that solar energy is used as a driving force for the whole bus. Aspirations aside, the Solarve Bus is the world’s first to u  (go to article)

autoblog.com -- That long-running joke about men being unwilling to stop for directions? Well, it's no joke, at least not according to British insurance firm Sheilas' Wheels. In fact, the average male motorist in Britain travels some 276 extra miles per year simply because he refuses to ask for directions. Worse yet, that amounts to £2,000 ($3,100) worth of wasted fuel over the stubborn man's lifetime.

In the UK, 25 percent of all men would rather wander aimlessly for up to a half hour before stopping to ask for directions, and one in 10 simply refuse to ask altogether. On the flip side, three quarters of women polled have zero qualms about asking for help. And here's our favorite stat: 41 percent of men admitted to telling their passengers that they knew where they were going... even though they didn'  (go to article)

mnn.com -- At General Motors, it’s all hands on deck to make half of its manufacturing plants “nil to landfill” by the end of the year...69 of the company’s plants worldwide are now landfill-free

But that’s just part of the story: To reduce landfill waste, the company is also using as much recycled materials in its cars as is humanly possible. GM’s plants globally now average a 90 percent recycling rate.

.. some of the recycling programs..

•Old bumpers: ground up and form new air inlet panels
•Worn carpets: takes the nylon and remakes it into mirror frames, fascia brackets and door handle parts
•Used water bottles: as air conditioning and heating vent covers
•Paint sludge: one of the biggest pollutants auto plants produce, GM is using as filler in reusable shipping containers
•Cardboard  (go to article)

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_15917969 -- As the final days of the 2010 legislative session wind down in Sacramento, a Silicon Valley lawmaker is pushing to give California the most far-reaching mandate for renewable energy in the United States.
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The showdown over Simitian's bill, SB 722, could come to a vote early next week. The bill would require California's utilities to produce 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
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Three years ago, Simitian wrote a law, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that required a 20 percent renewable electricity standard by Dec. 31, 2010. That target is close to being met. The state's utilities are on pace to hit 18 percent this year and 21 percent by the end of next year.

But getting to 33 percent is a much steeper climb.  (go to article)

Washington Post -- A BP drilling engineer involved in the planning of the Macondo well declined to testify before a federal investigative panel Friday, invoking through his lawyer his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Mark Hafle, who was involved in some of the most heavily scrutinized decisions about the well, became the third BP employee to invoke his constitutional right not to answer questions from the panel. Hafle had testified in an earlier round of hearings.

As Friday's hearing proceeded, another BP employee who wrote one of the most widely derided e-mails to surface in investigations of the Deepwater Horizon disaster testified under oath and gave a more benign explanation of the document.

In an e-mail four days before the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling engineer Br  (go to article)

Yahoo! Finance -- Used car shopping used to be a scary maze of breakdown-prone models, but reliability has gained sharply. Auto manufacturing quality and dependability studies have shown steady gains this decade. But exceptions do exist and if you're in the market for a used car, you want to steer clear of them.  (go to article)

MNN -- Senate Republicans recently blocked a bill that would give the presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill full subpoena powers in order to protect their pals in the oil industry.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 420-1 to give the presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill full subpoena power. In the Senate the move was blocked by Republicans. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans colluded behind the scenes with the Senators agreeing to block the measure to give their House colleagues political cover to vote for it (Senators, serving six year terms, have much less to worry about when it comes to re-election).  (go to article)

the auto blog -- Hydrogen faces a number of challenges when it comes to supplanting gasoline as the world's transportation fuel of choice, one of the largest of which was underscored by two small explosions at a Rochester, New York refueling station yesterday. According to reports, two people were injured when a spark ignited the fuel during a tank exchange. Praxair driver Robert Scruggs was transported to Strong Hospital with second-degree burns to his hands and face as a result of the incident, and a female Burger King employee was treated for ear pain in connection with the explosions.
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Medill Reports -- Drivers pay extra to pump midgrade or premium gas into their tanks nearly 15 percent of the time, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

No figures track the exact number of people who fill regular tanks with premium gas for a perceived performance bump. But as the country increasingly looks for big ways to conserve energy, smaller targets also beckon. Shifting gears away from premium gasoline is an obvious move.

Patrick Kelly — a policy adviser at the American Petroleum Group, the country’s largest trade association for producers of oil and natural gas — offers a crash course in “Gasoline 101,” explaining what gasoline octane means, what makes premium gas “premium,” and whether overusing it takes an added toll on the environment.  (go to article)