Iran is China's third-largest crude supplier with daily volume of 335,000 barrels last year. Sinopec Corp., Asia's top refiner but a minor lifter of Iranian oil, is still paying in U.S. dollars, said a Sinopec trader.
Ford received a 2003 fleet rating of 43 MPG for its flex-fuel vehicles, when in fact they only got 26 MPG which is less than the 27.5 MPG minimum standard for passenger cars.
Comments Off
Comments Off
Filed under: Etc.
In an article which discusses an invention that could be described as thrifty, useful or just crazy, depending on your point of view, Forbes highlights Jewish Rabbi Aaron Winternitz's conversion of an old school bus into an oven for cooking matzos for the upcoming Passover celebration. Officials were responding to reports of smoke when they located the bus/oven around 3 am. This would have been the second year that the Rabbi had used the bus for cooking Passover food. New York officials have stopped the cooking until the Rabbi can produce the necessary documentation to satisfy safety regulations. Inventive, no?
[Source: Forbes]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Comments Off
Filed under: Hydrogen
Oxford University scientists have presented a concept for a biofuel cell at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Dr. Fraser Armstrong described a new type of fuel cell that comprises enzymes called hydrogenases that can oxidize hydrogen through metabolism. Electrodes coated with the enzymes produce electricity from ordinary air that is blended with three percent hydrogen. That concentration is low enough to prevent the mixture from being an explosive hazard.A major advantage of this design is that it uses no platinum which is one of the major cost drivers in fuel cell construction. The initial prototypes are generating enough electricity to power small electronic devices. The new design isn't yet commercially viable, but they have made tremendous progress in developing enzymes that are resistant to the presence of oxygen. The biofuel cell is also not affected by the presence of carbon monoxide which when present in platinum catalyst fuel cells poisons the cell. More information is available in the press release at the Read link.
[Source: American Chemical Society]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Comments Off
Comments Off
Filed under: Hybrid, Legislation and Policy
In the transcript of the press briefing by Dana Perino we linked to yesterday in the post on President Bush's meeting with the CEOs of the Big 3, the White House spokesperson started talking about the meeting but the questions quickly turned to news of Alberto Gonzales and the ongoing US attorneys general firing scandal. The White House had one narrative, certain reporters had another. That's a good way to understand the gist of this AP piece that criticizes the president for focusing on "switchgrass and wood chips" in the face of all this political fallout. But we like it when the President talks about greener driving because it gives us a chance to once again take the (often ethanol-fueled) pulse of the administration and let our readers comment on the direction the government is headed RE biofuels and hybrids, hydrogen and petroleum.
So, after meeting with the Big 3 CEOs yesterday, Bush spent part of the morning today looking at alternative fuel vehicles, mostly delivery vehicles from the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. It's not like there was any new developments announced at the event, just a chance for Bush to talk up alternative fuels, which he did. For two minutes.
Oh, and about that scandal...
[Source: Domestic Fuel, AP]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Comments Off
Filed under: Etc., EV/Plug-in
While the article does not give an details as to which electric car Will Ferrell drives, he does say that he has added a new one to his current automotive fleet, which already included a Prius. Will is another celebrity in a long list of celebs who choose to drive green (see, for example, George Clooney and the Tango). Will also is building a new home which is eco-friendly. Another odd but strangely funny snippet from the interview? The name of the street he is building on roughly translates into "a whale's vagina". You couldn't make that kind of stuff up if you wanted to, but it exists in real life. Fitting for such a funny and interesting guy to live on such an oddly named street (or is it just a joke?).
[Source: Premiere via Ecorazzi]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Comments Off
Filed under: Flex-Fuel, Tesla Motors
The ever cranky Robert Farago has weighed in on the subject of Tesla Motors, and makes some valid points even if his overall tone is a bit overwrought. While acknowledging that the stated specs are impressive, he emphasizes that no one has been able to independently verify any of them, or even drive the prototypes. So far all first hand press impressions of the Roadster have come from the passenger seat. While no car maker would generally let media drive away with a development prototype, like the ones available so far, short drives are not unheard of, like the driving that Honda allowed us to do in the FCX concept last fall.
On the other hand, Tesla is a lot smaller than Honda and at this point probably can't afford to have any of us in the press breaking their cars. In our recent discussion CEO Martin Eberhard talked about some of the development testing that's been going on over in England and Sweden, which Farago seems to be unaware of. Assuming that I wasn't being fed a line, I think Tesla is a lot farther along than Farago thinks, and the Roadster will probably be more successful than products from some other companies. The first of the final validation prototypes recently arrived stateside and actual press drives should be coming in the next few months. Only time will tell how close the Roadster comes to meeting its published specs, and we should definitely remain skeptical until then.
However, I would definitely not call the Tesla Roadster vaporware at this point. To date they haven't yet promised anything that hasn't been delivered in the time frame they promised. Now if twelve months from now, production Roadsters still haven't been delivered to customers, or they are only getting fifty miles per charge in real world driving, or batteries are blowing up, then we can look back on the hype. At that time the conspiracy theories about the oil companies killing Tesla can commence. But right now that is completely premature and uncalled for. Let's just settle down and stop the gushing from the uninformed mainstream press and the bashing from the skeptics and be patient for a few more months. Then the howling can begin.
[Source: The Truth About Cars]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Comments Off
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid
I found the above photo over on Flickr and it's tagged as being taken at this year's SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. I thought it fit well with the story I spotted on Treehugger (originally from the Wall Street Journal, which is subscription-only) about clean, green transportation in that city. You don't need to put any petroleum into this four-legged powertrain (emissions are another issue).
The mayor of the progressive city, Will Wynn, and the Austin-based Plug-In Partners have announced a plan to make PHEVs a integral part of the city's energy scheme. The WSJ calls it "ambitious" and "quixotic," but it's really just a smaller version of what some are talking about for the entire country in the coming decades. Treehugger's synopsis says that a localized smart grid will charge the plug-in hybrids at night, when wind-generated energy is at peak capacity, and use the stored power to help feed home and business power needs during the day. If you have a WSJ subscription, you can read the piece here, otherwise Treehugger has more details.
[Source: WSJ via Treehugger]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Comments Off
