Black Oil Blog

Lack of fueling stations, high cost of development remain hurdles

By Ken Thomas
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, August 28, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Tom Albert drove the loaner Chevrolet Equinox like any other car.

He took it to work during the week, picked up groceries and loaded up the back with bags of soil at the garden store. When his infant son was fussy, Albert drove him around the block to calm him down.

The normal driving experience ended, however, when it came time to fuel the car. While driving the silent vehicle, Albert had two filling stations to choose from in the Washington, D.C., area because the fuel -- hydrogen -- was anything but typical.

Albert's no-cost driving experiment in the spring was part of a program by General Motors Corp. to see if vehicles powered by hydrogen can become a reality. Automakers such as GM, Honda Motor Co. and BMW AG are putting several hundred vehicles in the suburbs and the cities to see how they fare during day-to-day driving.

"I heard about it on one of the local news stations on my commute in, that they were offering the chance to drive these," said Albert, an engineer who applied online to participate. "For some reason, they picked me."

Hydrogen fuel cells have been on the auto industry's roster of advanced vehicles for years, and several companies are testing small fleets. They gained attention when President Bush announced in 2003 that the government would invest $1.2 billion to encourage their development.

Read the rest of this piece at statesman.com

by unionLeader.com

If you support offshore oil drilling to help reduce the price of gasoline, as two-thirds of Americans do, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks you're a stupid shill for "Big Oil."

Confronted by protesters shouting "Drill here! Drill now!" at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Tuesday, Pelosi mocked them, asking, "Can we drill your brains?" and dismissed them as "handmaidens of Big Oil."

Americans get what Pelosi doesn't. More than three times as many Americans support offshore drilling as approve of Congress right now.

Read the rest of this piece at UnionLeader.com

By DINA CAPPIELLO Associated Press Writer

Article Launched: 08/26/2008 01:27:09 PM PDT

WASHINGTON--Six more senators on Tuesday joined a bipartisan group of 10 senators backing a bill they say will break the stalemate over offshore drilling in Congress.

Three Democrats and three Republicans joined the so-called Gang of 10, making it the Gang of 16. The group supports a bill that would lift a ban on oil and natural gas drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the southeastern U.S. coast, invest $20 billion in the development of petroleum-free motor vehicles and extend tax credits for renewable energy.

Among the new converts are two Republican senators facing tough re-election bids this fall, underscoring the role high energy prices are playing on the campaign trail. By signing on with the group, Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Sununu of New Hampshire have broken with the majority of their party, which like President Bush, would like to see the moratorium on drilling lifted along the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Sununu said Tuesday that while he favors lifting the moratorium entirely, the bipartisan bill opens up new areas and has a chance of being passed this year.

Read the rest of this piece at Mercury News

Representatives of the liberal coast lost out to their more conservative inland colleagues in the symbolic action, playing out tensions that have long plagued a region better known for its broad beaches and celebrity residents than its oil and agricultural fields.

"Unless you arrived here on a horse or walked or rode a bicycle, you are part of the oil industry," said Supervisor Joni Gray before voting in favor of the measure. "All we're doing is asking the state to reexamine their stand on abandoning any kind of offshore drilling."

Read the rest of this piece at LA Times

by Brian Carr

With the price of gasoline only ten percent below its record high, there's no question that our pain at the pump has caused many of us to make several "lifestyle" changes in order to make ends meet.

Even with the recent month-long decline in the price of gasoline - now down 43 cents from its peak - we're still paying about a third more than we were at the same point last year.  This extra strain, in addition to higher food prices, falling real estate values and a slumping job market, has significantly hurt many families' financial situations.

To see where people have been cutting back their expenses to deal with soaring fuel costs, I recently had a poll on Daily Fuel Economy Tip which asked, "What have you cut back on the most to offset higher gasoline prices?"

Read the rest of this piece at Daily Fuel Economy Tip

The Democratic candidate for the Senate joins his party in trying to neutralize the GOP's strength on the issue.

By Michael Riley
The Denver Post

Battered on the energy issue for weeks, Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Mark Udall moved Wednesday to close the distance with his Republican opponent on the issue, calling for more domestic drilling and reversing his long-standing opposition to drilling off America's shores.

Both were sharp turnarounds for a man who has made the expansion of renewable energy a cornerstone of his career and who has consistently dinged the aggressive drilling policies of the Bush administration during this campaign.

But both Udall and his staff emphasized that the nation's energy crisis called for a sweeping rethinking of possible solutions -- and that the country could no longer afford to keep much of anything off the table.

At a news conference Wednesday with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., Udall announced that he was embracing -- with a few additions -- a bipartisan proposal hatched recently in the Senate, one that he said would break the country's current energy policy "logjam."

The proposal by five Republicans and five Democrats (the so-called Gang of 10) would allow much more expansive offshore drilling but also creates a $20 billion program to shift 85 percent of cars from petroleum-based fuels within two decades.

Read the rest of this pieces at Denver Post

Not to be mistaken with Udall from New Mexico

Published by Slick at 4:00 am under Uncategorized

For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken.

Ethanol-based automotive fuels are not, and never will be, a solution to our oil dependence. Besides the simple fact that ethanol has less energy per unit volume, there's simply no way to get enough ethanol into the system to provide meaningful relief. Attempting to make it so is a recipe for disaster.

The reasons for this difficulty come in two broad categories: Ethanol can't come fast enough, and ethanol uses too many resources.

You see, there's a dirty little secret the ethanol proponents don't tell you. (Several, actually.) To really convert to an ethanol fuel system, we have a lot of pre-work to do. New engine designs, for one. We also need to refresh the infrastructure to get the product from the fomulator to your vehicle; the supply chain.

Why? Water. Ethanol plus water is BAD for engines, storage systems and pipelines. Corrosive to metal systems, for example. And a teensy bit of water in ethanol fuel robs power. Meaning bad performance.

Water makes ethanol-containing gasoline blends unstable over time; you shouldn't store E-10 or E-85 for more than a few weeks. This includes inside your car. And how will you know how "fresh" that E85 is by the time you get it? Now you need a test kit every time you fill up with ethanol fuels.

(By the way, did you know that over 50% of the fuel available in the U.S. contains ethanol? Providers aren't required to tell you in all instances. Just thought you ought to know.)

Read the rest of this piece at Slick and Slack

At what price will corn be so expensive that the federal government will decide that it is time to stop driving up the price of food?

Three years ago, Congress imposed a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandate that has forced the gasoline industry to mix massive amounts of corn-based ethanol into the nation's fuel supply. In 2007, Congress nearly
doubled that mandate to require nine billion gallons of ethanol be blended into gas in 2008 and even more in 2009.

But, as a safety valve, Congress gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the power to waive the new mandates if they turn out to have unforeseen, negative consequences.

As we can see now, the diversion of our corn supply from grocery stores to gasoline pumps has caused the price of corn to spiral out of control. Corn prices were once driven by market forces. Today they are artificially driven up
by a government mandate. In 2004, before the mandates were imposed, the cost of corn hovered around $2 per bushel. Now it is close to $8 per bushel.

This is driving up the cost of staple food items at the grocery store. And it is also driving up the price of corn-based feed, devastating the livestock industry to the point that Texas cattle feeders have been operating in the red since 2007.

Read the rest of this piece at The Wall Street Journal

by U.S. Department of the Interior News

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Saying the nation's energy situation has dramatically changed in the past year, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today jumpstarted the development of a new oil and natural gas leasing program for the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.  The action could give the next administration a two-year head start in expanding energy production from federal offshore jurisdictions, including some areas where a congressional ban had prevented oil and gas development.

"When our current five-year program for Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing was launched in July 2007, oil was selling for $64 a barrel," Kempthorne said.  "Today a barrel of oil costs more than $120, almost double the price a year ago. Clearly, today's escalating energy prices and the widening gap between U.S. energy consumption and supply have changed the fundamental assumptions on which many of our decisions were based."

 "Areas that were considered too expensive to develop a year ago are no longer necessarily out of reach based on improvements to technology and safety," Kempthorne noted.  "The American people and the President want action and this initiative can accelerate an offshore exploration and development program that can increase production from additional domestic energy resources."

President Bush lifted the Executive Withdrawal on oil and gas leasing operations on the Outer Continental Shelf on July 14, calling on Congress to lift its ban that has been in place since 1982.  He also urged Congress to enact legislation that would allow states to have a say regarding operations off their shores and to share in the resulting revenues.  

"The President believes coastal states should have a voice in how Outer Continental Shelf resources are developed off their shores while ensuring those environments are protected. Also, Congress should provide a way for the federal government and states to participate in revenue sharing from those new leases," Kempthorne said.

Because of the current energy situation and the President's action, Secretary Kempthorne has directed the Minerals Management Service to begin the initial steps for developing a new five-year program that accurately reflects the nation's needs.  The multi-year process starts with a call for information from all parties on what a new five-year program should consider.  MMS is also requesting comment to ensure that all interests and concerns are considered regarding oil and gas leasing and exploration and development resulting from a new five-year program. The governors of all 50 states will be specifically asked for their comments, particularly on issues unique to each state.

Read the rest of this piece at Minerals Management Service

by A.W.R. Hawkins

Oil is the fuel of free nations, guns and speech the tools of free men. Thus the three have freedom in common. Ironically, oil, guns, and free speech have something else in common as well: all three are scorned by the Left. Democrats are opposed to further oil exploration, individual gun rights, and speech that is free from the constraints of political correctness.

We need oil now, and there is no doubt about the amounts of untapped oil off the shores of California, under the surface of the earth in Wyoming and Colorado, and up in that pristine rock quarry called ANWR. But the Democrats are so opposed to further oil exploration that they will not even hear of drilling for these deposits or exploring oil shale extraction with new technologies. As a result Democrats, who claim to represent the "common man," are pushing the price of a gallon of gas above that of what many a common man can afford.

The Democrats use ecological concerns as a cover for their inflexibility on this issue, yet their refusal to drill is actually contributing to ecological problems. Off many of our coasts, the amount of untapped oil is so great that the deposits themselves create a pressure that forces oil to seep through the ocean floor and into the ocean. As a matter of fact, on the beaches of Santa Barbara, it is not uncommon for beachcombers to step into a "glob of tar" while walking the beach. The only way to decrease both the occurrence and size of the globs of tar is to increase oil production, according to a 1999 press release by the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Read the rest of this piece at Human Events