Aug
18
The Oil Spill Disaster That Isn’t
August 18, 2010 | 9 Comments
The BP well blowout, fire, explosion and platform collapse, and the ensuing crude oil leak are without doubt the result of human failings. Underestimating the quality of the reservoir is one reason, perhaps some engineering choices and safety oversights, inadequate equipment, testing that didn’t work out in the real world and all the rest only [...]
Aug
13
A New Kind of Patent
August 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment
This writer was asked in an email a couple days ago about what the non-committed, seemingly idealism free, and generally pro commerce view is here about incentives for energy and fuel production. It is an arena fraught with special interests of every stripe including the environment itself to the consumers ranging from wealthy to dirt [...]
Jul
5
The Media and Leadership Failure
July 5, 2010 | 3 Comments
Any amount, no matter how little of watching, reading or listening to popular or mass media, politicians and pundits would have regular folks wondering when we’re ever going to start on alternative energy and fuel sources. This in the face of more ethanol than the 10% already in the system forming an oversupply problem compared [...]
Apr
16
Can Poland Save Americans and Europeans From the Russians?
April 16, 2010 | 2 Comments
The leadership in Russia has been busily destroying the sensible business reputation they inherited from the old Soviet Union. Freedom also allows mistakes. The Putin trend has already proven itself willing to use its gas reserves as a weapon in diplomatic negotiations. Moscow cut gas supplies to Ukraine in January 2006 during a row over [...]
Apr
6
Fuel Economy Regulations for Trucks Are Coming
April 6, 2010 | 1 Comment
Congress has mandated a report from the National Research Council to evaluate various technologies and methods that could improve the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as tractor-trailers, transit buses, and work trucks. The report is in late draft form and recommends approaches that federal agencies could use to regulate these vehicles’ fuel [...]
Dec
22
Is It Time to Pop The Iranian Nuclear Pimple?
December 22, 2009 | 2 Comments
Oil is abundant again; some reports have it that OPEC alone has 6 million barrels a day of spare unused oil capacity. Iraq, which has some sort of exemption to sell all it can, and Venezuela, which is selling on the cheat are pushing the price lower along with the U.S. Federal Reserve expressing some [...]
Dec
8
CO2 Kills With Every Breath Says US EPA
December 8, 2009 | 2 Comments
If even there was a more stupid result the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said ‘greenhouse gases’, “threaten the public health and welfare of the American people” and that the pollutants, albeit mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Given free reign from the U.S. Supreme Court, [...]
Sep
2
Angry Yet? Obama Finances Oil Exploration Off Brazil
September 2, 2009 | 5 Comments
Presidential advisor James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about lending billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. No joke, the loan been confirmed by the Wall Street Journal. [...]
