June 17, 2008
McMoRan Exploration, which describes itself as having been “among the most active drillers in the Gulf of Mexico” in the 1980s, is now planning to drill the world’s deepest oil well there—some 6.6 miles down. As the New Orleans Times Picayune reported last week: McMoRan Exploration said Thursday that it plans to...
June 17, 2008
A story in CQ Weekly (“The Greening of the Wheels”) looks at the vehicle leases taken out by members of Congress and a little known provision in the energy policy act passed last year that says members may be reimbursed for leasing vehicles only if the vehicles have relatively low levels of greenhouse gas emissions....
June 13, 2008
The Ecogeek blog takes a look this week at Louisiana Green Fuels, a group that plans to make sugar-based ethanol: Over the next ten years, expect to see three new sugar mills and four new ethanol plants open shop in Louisiana, generating an estimated 100 million gallons of sugar-based ethanol annually. Louisiana Green Fuels, an...
June 13, 2008
The cover of Wired magazine’s June 2008 issue says it all: The article inside even more directly takes on the environmental movement, starting with its title: “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green.” The article outlines a list of ten “inconvenient truths” (a play on the title...
June 13, 2008
This post from the Earth2Tech should be read by anyone who thinks Detroit has lost its mind — not to mention its edge, its marketshare, and its future. Apparently car makers are registering plenty of patents (though the rate has slipped a bit from the same quarter last year). What could they be up to? Hybrids apparently....
June 13, 2008
With the price at the pump around $4 per gallon, why is Exxon getting out of the business of selling gas? The company says it’s just not profitable enough any more. From the Associated Press: Exxon Mobil Corp said on Thursday it is getting out of the retail gas business in the United States as sky-high crude oil prices squeeze...
June 13, 2008
This week, the Brookings Institution and Google.org (the philanthropic effort that runs the Google Foundation) teamed up to run a two-day conference in Washington, D.C. exploring the future of plug-in vehicles (both hybrid and all-electric). Three issues were front and center: Can U.S. automakers actually deliver on this...
June 13, 2008
Billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens (reportedly worth around $3 billion, and the country’s highest paid hedge fund manager in 2005) had a lot to say about U.S. energy policy at Oil and Gas Investor’s Energy Capital Forum in Houston this week. He expects oil to hit $150 a barrel (it’s now around $135). Pickens is...
June 3, 2008
Hyundai Motor America announced that Americans have continued to buy its more fuel-efficient vehicles in record numbers. The Korean car maker said it had its “best May ever,” with sales up 6 percent over the May 2007. “We are very pleased with our results for May and the fact we were able to break the record set in 2007...
June 2, 2008
Senator John Cornyn, R.-Texas, has written a post for a Texas blog — Panhandle Poet — on why he wants to freeze the ethanol mandate: Hello Panhandle Poet readers…it’s a privilege to guest post here. I wanted to touch base with you regarding an issue which is very pressing in the Panhandle, ethanol. When first...