Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Big Gas, Big Oil, Boone Pickens, Club for Growth, energy, frack, fracking, Koch Brother, Natural gas, peak oil, Peak Oil is dead, s
Kochs don’t like govt. picking winners and losers — especially if the losers are them.
The idea of using the tax code to spur conversion of trucking fleets has support from many Democrats and Republicans, and enjoys some powerful backers.
They include billionaire energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, Reid and President Obama, who touted his own natural-gas vehicles plan in a Wednesday speech. (A White House spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment on the Senate proposal specifically.)
But groups influential in GOP circles including Heritage Action (an arm of the Heritage Foundation), the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity have long been battling the natural-gas plan.
via Natural-gas tax fight between Koch, Pickens reaches Senate floor – The Hill's E2-Wire.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: aviation, fuel costs, jet fuel, Patti Smith, Patty Smith, peak oil, transportation
Via LA Times:
Patty Smith, who flew to Los Angeles from Portland, Ore., for a recent vacation, said she saw no empty seats on her Southwest Airlines flight and can’t remember the last time she has had an empty seat next to her on a flight.
“As small as I am, I felt cramped,” said the petite woman as she waited for a taxi from Los Angeles International Airport.
She went home and wrote an angry song about it.
via Airfares climb, routes disappear as fuel prices rise – latimes.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike, India, samajwadi, urban cycling
Here’s something you don’t see every day.
SAMAJWADI PARTY :: OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: active commuting to school, autism, Boulder, Heatherwood Elementary, Omro Middle School, Safe Routes to School, SRTS, transportation
This school in Boulder apparently has some very cool teachers and parents.
…In just three years, Heatherwood Elementary’s walkers and bicyclists jumped from 12 percent to more than 43 percent of the school.
And, to recognize the importance of including all students in their program, Heatherwood’s SRTS coordinators made a special effort to the school’s autistic children in the district-wide Bike to School Day.
via US DOT official propaganda arm: Colorado’s Heatherwood Elementary and Wisconsin’s Omro Middle School earn 2011 Safe Routes to School Award – Welcome to the FastLane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cabotage, east coast refineries, EIA, impact of refinery closures, Jones Act, refineries, refinery closures, tankers
The little-known Jones Act. Via the EIA’s report on potential refinery closure impacts: http://www.eia.gov/analysis/petroleum/nerefining/update/pdf/neprodmkts.pdf
(The impact of refinery closures, by the way: Potential short-term supply disruptions and price spikes, due to transportation and other logistical issues. It’s not that there won’t be enough gasoline, there just might not be enough for a while in those places that used to be supplied by the shut refineries. Then, those supply networks are developed and those problems ease, although longer supply lines may add some to the final retail price.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Americans will find so many ways to hate this idea. Bicycle bus only acceptable for bar-hopping around here.
Each bike bus is designed to hold eleven kids up to the age of 12, who along with an adult driver, provide the pedal-power to carry them to school and back. For times when the team of youngsters isn’t enough, like on steep inclines or when just a handful of passengers are left to be dropped off, a built in electric motor is there to provide an extra boost.
via Bicycle Buses Let Dutch Kids Pedal Together to School : TreeHugger.
Go to Treehugger to check out the pictures.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cng, compressed natural gas, energy, FT-Bh, LNG, Natural gas, Toyota, transportation
The FT-Bh
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Benzene, commerce city, human remains, leaking pipe, leaking tank, oil leak, pipeline, pipeline rupture, ruptured pipeline, ruptured storage tank, Suncor
The discovery happened Friday on the west side of Suncor Energy property, according to Mike Saunders, a Commerce City Police Department spokesman.
Workers at the property were doing “hydro-excavation” work, moving earth with high-pressure hoses, when they uncovered human bones, said Suncor spokeswoman Brandy Radey.
via Skeletal remains unearthed in Commerce City near Suncor refinery – The Denver Post.
Company spokesman was tight lipped about what work was being done when the corpse was found. Reporters apparently didn’t ask. The skeleton was unearthed in the same general location as the leak into Sand Creek.
See Suncor Refinery Benzene Still in Platte River and Denver: Taste the Benzene
Filed under: maps, Uncategorized | Tags: Alaska, Arctic, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, drilling rig, Kulluk, oil drilling, oil produciton, Royal Dutch Sea, Shell
via Shell: http://www-static.shell.com/static/usa/downloads/alaska/alaska_vessels_brochure_2012.pdf
click to enlarge
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: BP, civil war, Exxon, Exxon Mobil, Iraq oil exports, Iraqi civil war, Kirkuk, Kurdish region, oil exports, Schlumberger
As Iraqi production reportedly tops 3 mbd.
Exploration in northern Iraq has been held back in part by disputes between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region over control of fields in Kurdish provinces.
The central government says it alone has the right to export Iraqi oil, and adds that deals signed by foreign firms with the Kurdish regional authorities, such as one announced by ExxonMobil, are illegal.
Luaibi repeated earlier remarks by Iraqi officials that an announcement on the Exxon deal would be made soon.
Luaibi said Iraq’s central authorities had received only 65,000 bpd of oil – less than half the 175,000 bpd they had expected – from the Kurdish region since the start of the year.
The central authorities say they suspect that missing Kurdish oil is being illegally exported abroad
via UPDATE 1-Iraq oil output over 3 mln bpd; first time in decades | Reuters.
via http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2012/03/04/red-cross-hopes-to-enter-homs-as-syria-boils
click to enlarge
Photo via Wikipedia.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chen Cheng-liang, e-bikes, ebikes, electric bicycles, electric vehicles, Taiwan, transportation
The annual competition has brought forth the latest trends of the industry and has also shown what the bikes of the future might become, the center said recently.
“There has been an obvious growth of popularity in electric bikes,” a spokeswoman of the center said, adding that six of the 19 finalists used such products.
Apart from a smaller motor system, how the battery is concealed in an aesthetic way is also crucial, she added.
The “Velocity,” an urban bike designed by Chen Cheng-liang of Taiwan, for example, has a hidden and detachable power assistance system inside the frame.
via Light electric vehicles, urban bikes foci of design competition | Eco-Business.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chevrolet, Chevy Volt, Detroit, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, General Motors, GM, Hamtramck, Malibu, Volt
And start Malibu production…
The 3.6 million-square-foot Detroit Hamtramck plant, opened in 1985, operates four days a week, 10 hours a day, on one shift employing 1,200 hourly and 130 salaried workers.
GM confirmed it also might extend the summer shutdown there, a move first reported by Ward’s Auto.
Chevy is preparing to launch production of the 2013 Malibu this summer at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly.
Volt sales bounced up last month, from 603 in January to 1,023 in February. It outsold Nissan’s electric Leaf for the month. The Volt’s best sales month was December, when 1,529 cars were sold.
…
GM sold about 7,700 Volts in 2011, below its target of 10,000. GM last month abandoned its sales target of 45,000 for 2012, saying it would match “supply to demand.”
via GM to suspend Volt production | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, depletion, North Sea, Norway, OECD, Oh Heck, oil supply, OPEC, peak oil, Reguly, Saudi Arabia
Like this Eric Reguly character of the Globe and Mail:
Why hasn’t the high price triggered a production surge? The biggie, it seems, is that the non-OPEC countries are simply not up to the job. As Barclays points out, non-OPEC supply last year landed at a full one million barrels a day less than forecast by the International Energy Agency. The North Sea (whose production is shared by Britain and Norway) continued its terminal decline. Brazil and Azerbaijan were also the scenes of production disappointments.
Meanwhile, OPEC, dominated by Saudi Arabia, is sweating exceedingly hard. OPEC production volumes are at three-year highs, to the point that the cartel has only about 1.6 million barrels a day of spare capacity, and still prices are climbing.
via CTV News | All the signs point to a falling oil price – except supply.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle commuting, bicycle transportation, bicycling, bike, bike commuting, bike path, bikeways, biking, Boulder, commuter bikeway, Denver-Boulder, MUP, transportation, US 36
Which is awesome.
The first phase of the project — from Federal to 88th Street — includes:
• Adding an express lane in each direction of U.S. 36, where bus rapid transit and high-occupancy vehicles can travel, free of charge. Solo drivers also will be able to use the express lane by paying a toll, the cost of which will vary by the time of day.
• Reconstructing existing pavement on U.S. 36 and widening the highway to accommodate 12-foot inside and outside shoulders.
• Replacing the Wadsworth Parkway, Wadsworth Boulevard (at West 112th Avenue) and Lowell Boulevard bridges over U.S. 36.
• Installing a separate commuter bikeway along much of the corridor.
via U.S. 36 from Boulder to Denver to get $311 million in improvements – The Denver Post.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: albatross, cash for clunkers, energy, February 2012 SAAR, light vehicle sales, oil consumption, peak oil, SAAR, transportation
via Rortybomb (who took the chart from Calculated Risk). MK is very excited about the auto numbers that came out today.
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/auto-sales-surpass-cash-for-clunkers-month/
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: energy, Iran, Iran oil exports, Iran oil production, Iran oil trade, Iran sanctions, Pakistan, petroleum, sanctions
First one’s free. Yeah.. If you like it, you know where to find me. Tell your friends.
“It is only an initial offer of 80,000 barrels on deferred payment at the moment,” Irfan Qazi, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, told Reuters.
via Iran offers Pakistan 80,000 bpd of oil – official | Reuters.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: census, durable goods, durable goods orders, economy, january 2012
http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/adv/pdf/durgd.pdf
click link for entire pdf
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: auto bailout, bailouts, car dealers, cash for clunkers, channel stuffing, energy, General Motors, GM, Government Motors, inventory, new car inventory, peak oil, transportation
via Zero Hedge:
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 