March 08, 2009

The 9 billion gallons of ethanol that Americans used last year helped drive down oil prices. For those of us who fuel our vehicles with gasoline, as much as 10 percent of that gasoline is ethanol. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires that more biofuel be used every year until we reach 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Reduced oil prices are good. We can go from good to great, if we move past fuel from food and haste to fuels from wood and waste. Although the economics do not yet favor major production, pilot plants are taking wood and paper waste and converting it to fuel. Other cellulosic material is even more promising. Some grasses, energy crops, and hybrid poplar trees promise zero-emission fuel sources. These plants absorb CO2 and sequester it in the soil with their deep root systems. These plants often grow in marginal lands needing little irrigation and no fertilizers and pesticides, standing in sharp contrast to the industrial agriculture that produces much of our fuel.
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Shouldn’t Detroit be thinking “outside of the box” when it comes to developing new auto technologies? Well, software executive Shai Agassi’s company based in Palo Alto, Calif thinks so. Just think of your car as the Ipod of the future using renewable energy.

The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy — such as wind and solar — as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.

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BRADENTON, FL — There’s good news from the run-your-car-on-water set at the HHO Games & Exposition: Unlike at the last expo, no one’s hydrogen fuel generator blew its lid on the drive to the event.

That’s a sign of progress for a fledgling industry fighting for acceptance. True believers say it’s not the only one.

“This is going to change the way you drive your car,” said Joe Shea, who organized the expo Saturday, Sunday and today at the Manatee Technical Institute. “It will restore the freedom you lost when gas went up to $4 a gallon.”

At the most basic level, hydrogen fuel enthusiasts talk of using items found under the kitchen sink — a glass jar, distilled water and baking soda — to make a gadget they say improves gas mileage by 30 percent or more.

At the same time, a growing cadre of entrepreneurs is using more sophisticated materials and designs in their hydrogen fuel, or HHO, generators.

“Today, kits are far smaller, far more productive and in some cases less expensive,” said Shea, 62, of Bradenton.

HHO advocates use a process known as electrolysis to run an electric current through water and break apart its molecules.

Hydrogen and oxygen bubble up from the water and are fed into the engine. There, advocates say, they produce a leaner, cleaner and more efficient fuel combustion.

But the leaner fuel mix can fool modern automotive computers into injecting more fuel into the engine.

To get around that, many HHO advocates install electronic devices that allow drivers to adjust the fuel injection themselves. Others reprogram their cars’ computers.

Over the weekend, inventors from all over the country showed off hydrogen production kits in cars, pickup trucks, motorcycles, heavy commercial trucks, a dune buggy, and even a lawn mower.

James Edwards of Lakeland let a friend install an HHO generator on his Century Freightliner semitrailer truck at the expo. Depending on what it’s hauling, the truck gets 6 to 11 miles to the gallon.

“If I can get 2 more miles to the gallon out of it on a 150,000-gallon year, that’s a big difference,” Edwards said.

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With the early onset of the 2009 Winter, I was wondering. If we suffer extented and more sever winter temperatures, won’t the cost of travel, doing business and keeping warm require more fuel?  So, then we’ll need more oil again (after the sharp declines in consumption due to NOBODY has a job anymore to go to), won’t we see increased consumption again? Higher prices would then again be passed on to everyone driving. And OPEC wants to also reduce production. So, enjoy your Christmas gift at the pump while it lasts.  And I also wouldn’t count on seeing  $1.00/ gal for New Year’s either. 

T’AI’mS’

Could you be traveling on dangerous tires? Are the new tires you just bought really “old” tires?

How can you tell just how old the tires you are driving on are? Learn how you can read the cryptic code on your tires to determine the manufactured date.

ABC news investigated how tire manufactures and dealers knowingly sell you outdated tires that are potentitially a death hazard to you. <Outdated Tires>

October 22, 2008

OPEC Ponders Choices as Oil Prices Plummet

By JAD MOUAWAD

At the beginning of the year, OPEC producers felt confident that strong economic growth and tight supplies would keep oil prices high. When oil crossed the $100-a-barrel threshold in February, the cartel’s president blamed speculators and said there was not much OPEC could do.

But now, panic is gripping producers as prices drop. Oil is down by half since July, and the speed of the decline has stunned oil-rich governments that have become dependent on high prices.

As the global economy continues to weaken, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries faces its toughest test in years.

The problem for the oil exporters, who meet for an emergency session in Vienna on Friday, is to find a way to stop the price drop at a time when oil consumption is falling markedly in industrialized countries. Even the Chinese economy, long the biggest engine of growth for oil demand, seems to be cooling.

Most analysts expect the group to announce a production cut of at least a million barrels a day, which would be more than 1 percent of the world oil supply. Chakib Khelil, OPEC’s president, said last week that an output cut was “obvious” and suggested the group might meet often in coming months for further adjustments.

History suggests that OPEC will face a tough time propping up prices as oil consumption slows and the world teeters on the edge of a global recession, analysts said. Some experts warn that if the cartel took too much oil off the market, it could push prices up so much as to worsen the global economic crisis.

“OPEC’s problem is they don’t know how much demand is falling,” said Jan Stuart, an energy economist at UBS. “So the risk they run is either they don’t do enough, or they do too much. That’s a tough choice.”

Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said a cut in production could harm consumers and delay an economic recovery. “The slowdown may be prolonged,” Mr. Tanaka told reporters on Monday in Paris, where the energy agency, which advises industrialized countries, is based.

The biggest question is what price the cartel is prepared to defend. In 2000, producers adopted a price band of $22 to $28 a barrel, and adjusted production levels accordingly. The mechanism was imperfect, and many producers felt it constrained them, but it basically worked to ensure stability in oil markets.

But defending a price requires spare capacity, so that production can be raised if prices get too high, as well as discipline on the part of OPEC members, so that production can be lowered when prices fall. OPEC abandoned its price band when its spare capacity virtually disappeared in 2005 amid rapidly rising global oil demand.

Now, with consumption growth slowing sharply and new oil projects coming online, some spare capacity has become available.

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil was little changed after falling below $100 a barrel in New York today for the first time since April on signs that a slowing global economy will curtail energy demand and as Hurricane Ike takes aim at Texas refineries.

Crude oil and gasoline rose as Hurricane Ike headed toward the Texas coast, home to 23 percent of U.S. refining capacity, shutting almost all Gulf of Mexico oil production as it passes.About 18 percent of U.S. oil processing capacity has been shut before Ike makes landfall today. More than a quarter of U.S. crude production is based in the Gulf Coast region. Evacuations have halted 97 percent of Gulf oil output, the Minerals Management Service said yesterday.

“The big concern is about the products because the refineries aren’t running,” said Tom Bentz, senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York. “It remains to be seen how much damage will occur, but nobody wants to take chances.”

Futures traded as low as $99.99 a barrel and have erased almost a third of their value since reaching a record $147.27 on July 11. Traders have shrugged off forecasts that the storm will hit the Texas coast later today.

Would you like to be able to increase your cars fuel efficiency and save money at the same time?  By following these step by step instructions, you can covert your current vehicle to a hydrogen on demand system that will run on plain old tap water. That’s right, no expensive fuel additives or chemicals. Look for increases in your gas mileage by as much as 40%.