Green Options

Oil and gas leases have been a hot topic for a long time, especially since the controversial disruption of a BLM land sale by student activist Tim DeChristopher in Salt Lake City this past December. The sale which, according to some, was a midnight move by the Bush administration found itself floundering when an unknown bidder (DeChristopher) won parcel after parcel of land. Since December the leased parcels have been pulled back and forth between the BLM and the Interior, [...]

I have too much time on my hands, so I took a gander at the 2009 BP Statistical Review of World Energy to kill time as well as wait to see if I won the bid for an Iraqi oil field. I didn’t.

BP and China National Petroleum beat me and they now have the right to develop Rumaila - the largest Iraqi oil field. The two organizations beat out a bid from Exxon Mobil Corporation and the Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani estimates that the selling of oil rights will garner them more than $1.7 trillion over the next 20 years.

This win shouldn’t be surprising considering 2008 was the first year that developing countries, led by China, consumed more energy than developed countries. It was also noted in BP’s report that industrialized countries reduced their energy consumption by 1.3 percent led by a 2.8 percent decline in energy consumption from the U.S. –the steepest single-year decline since 1982. However the potential benefits of energy reduction were offset by countries who increased their energy consumption. China accounted for nearly three-quarters of the 1.4 percent global consumption increase.

Three more car companies received sizeable loans from the federal government yesterday, but don’t worry; it’s not another bailout. In fact, the$8 billion is just the start of a larger $25 billion project called the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM for short) that was thought up back in 2007 and funded by Congress in late 2008 during the Bush administration. The project, overseen by the Department of Energy, is a federal grant and loan initiative bent on providing [...]

In the constant push for ever newer and greener technology and energy, we sometimes forget that it is often both simpler and cheaper to revisit old techniques in new ways. And that’s exactly what a group of researchers in California has done.

With the spotlight shining on clean energy, the stage has been set for the U.S. to rid itself of a harmful addiction to foreign oil. The stars are aligned and the cards have been dealt. Soon we’ll have kicked the dirty habit, right?

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved by a vote of 15 to 8 a piece of legislation that would open up huge areas of the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere for drilling of oil and natural gas. It also contains requirements for increases in renewable energy generation, and a number of other energy-related measures, but it seems a sad and regressive alternative to Waxman-Markey, which may reach a floor vote in the House by next week.

With over 1.3 billion people, it is no wonder that China is the “tipping point” when it comes to electric vehicles (EV). At least that’s what Better Place CEO Shai Agassi says.

Better Place, a venture-backed company that aims to reduce global dependency on oil, doesn’t sell cars but infrastructure. The company recently unveiled a battery swap system in Tokyo that makes refueling an EV easier than filling up at the pump. The $500,000 station allows drivers to travel long distances without having to stop to charge their battery, eliminating EV’s ever present “range anxiety.” Batteries are quickly and easily swapped out so drivers can get back on the road.

But infrastructure is just part of the picture, and Agassi says that China is taking steps toward green-lighting electric cars in a big way. “Once China does it, you don’t have a choice,” Agassi said.

I’m coming to the conclusion that there’s very little that’s sustainable about the company known as GM.

It’s frustrating and sad, because I was raised in the auto city and had family members who worked in the industry.  I even spent a summer at the GM Tech Center (working for then EDS as an intern at the time).  I’m perplexed by the company’s name which most of us recognize only as a vehicle company.  But it wasn’t always this way.

There was a time when GM was diversified, and innovative.  I was amazed by the poor decision making at GM when it recalled and promptly crushed their all-electric EV1s after bringing them to market in 1996.  I drove an EV1 in California; it rocked!  The company used to also make refrigerators starting in the 1920s under the Frigidaire brand and airplane components during WWII (my grandfather was an engineer who worked on a few).

So when, exactly, did the General Motors Corporation stop becoming a “generalist” industrial powerhouse making motors and instead, devote all its energies to making only motors in transportation vehicles and to lesser extent, but profitable one, vehicles for the military — you know, Humvees and the like?

Is the U.S. Interior Department wrongly withholding information that will reveal whether taxpayers are being ripped off in a controversial oil and gas royalty program? Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) see to think so, according to a lawsuit they filed today. Interior claims that disclosure of bidding and contracting information about its Royalty-In-Kind (RIK) sales would reveal oil company trade secrets.

Three different news items highlight the vast differences in viewpoint and the continuing uncertainty around the farming of Jatropha by small scale farmers as a feedstock for Europe’s refineries moving towards meeting the EU’s renewable liquid fuel goals.

Clarity on What Jatropha Can Deliver

At the recent Africa Biofuels Conference in Midrand South Africa, Vincent Volckaert the Regional Manager for Africa of D1 Oils Plant Science presented a paper titled “Jatropha curcas: beyond the myth of the miracle crop”.

Besides making it clear that Jatropha is not a miracle plant and like any other it needs water and fertiliser to produce biomass, he noted it was particularly sensitive to pests and disease when not grown as an intercrop. Volckaert stated that D1 Oil expected to release new seed in 2010 or 2011, that would have a yield of 2 tons of oil per hectare on well managed estates at maturity.

Salt Lake City, UT - The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) announced that on May 28, 2009 an agreement was made with Equity Oil Company (”Equity”) concerning oil and gas leases on lands in Utah’s San Juan County.

The agreement “gives SUWA certainty that oil and gas development in an important part of the Hatch Point proposed wilderness area will be subject to the applicable Resource Management Plan and additional restrictions,” said Stephen Bloch, Conservation Director and Attorney for SUWA.