Jul
17
Picking on the Pickens Plan
July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
“Ah! Out with the sharp knives mates.” T. Boone Pickens has his idea of launching wind power so strongly made and out so fast that natural gas could be used for cars instead of some of the gasoline we’re using. Can it stand the test of close examination? Make no mistake; this Pickens fellow is [...]
Jun
19
Iowa Floods – You Might Pay More
June 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The flip side to food vs. fuel is that the corn crop may come up short enough to drive ethanol in part off the market for gasoline addition. Estimates are putting the price increase at 15% or nearly 60 cents per gallon. At 10% in E-10 mixes that could be high but even at a [...]
Jun
13
How Much at What Pressure and Temperature?
June 13, 2008 | 1 Comment
The American Petroleum Institute had me out for a tour of the premier oil refinery in the U.S. Located out or up in Billings Montana, depending on where you are, this refinery is in a truly beautiful and picturesque location smack in the middle of a mid sized city. It’s an easy walk from the [...]
May
20
The Next Fuel Craze May be Methanol
May 20, 2008 | 2 Comments
The week before last saw the Basques offer they have a fuel cell that can be fueled by methanol. With in a day I had received multiple notices that MIT in Massachusetts and Sharp of Japan were also in the hunt for methanol fuel cells. There is a lot of valuable “why” in [...]
May
13
So, How Much Electricity to End Gasoline?
May 13, 2008 | 4 Comments
One blogger I admire is Robert Rapier who writes the R-Squared Blog who posted on Monday about the solar base of electricity needed to displace the equivalent of today’s gasoline use. It is an interesting concept that is rife with problems of equivalency.
The U.S. is reported to be going through 389 million gallons of [...]
Mar
28
Another Way to Bio Gasoline
March 28, 2008 | 1 Comment
Wednesday Royal Dutch Shell and Virent Energy Systems of Madison Wisconsin announced their collaboration to develop biogasoline. The deal is using the existing research and development work of Virent in catalysts that convert plant sugars into hydrogen and fuel gas, a combination of hydrogen, methane, propane and CO2. The research so far has [...]
Dec
21
Gasoline From Coal – Deals Are Done
December 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment
DKRW has announced that it has signed a deal with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company for the methanol to gasoline segment of technology to complete the Medicine Bow facility conversion to gasoline from diesel production.
The Medicine Bow facility will convert the coal first to synthetic gas, then on to methanol and finish by converting the [...]
Nov
20
Here Hillary, A Softball For You
November 20, 2007 | 4 Comments
Today Joseph B. White at the Wall Street Journal posted his Eyes On The Road column with the subtitle “Sen. Clinton’s Push to Double Autos’ Average Fuel Economy Is Possible But Complicated.”
Mr. White is one of my more admired writers in the mainstream press. The Wall Street Journal is far from being a mass media [...]
Jul
26
Driving For Fuel Economy
July 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Here is the link, an introduction to and a summary about Jim Chiodo who I mentioned some days ago. Jim Chiodo is the author of “More MPG, an Unconventional Approach” that has been on the net for years. Jim uses his nearly 50 years of driving experience to share the best tips, advice and [...]
Jul
18
The Best Spark Plugs
July 18, 2007 | 6 Comments
Spark plugs are the single most important part of your tune up.
The leading questions over the past few days ask about tune-ups. Whether it’s for an older or newer car the task is the same, getting the gasoline fuel’s energy into moving the car efficiently. Most of us know that the tune up [...]
