Xinhua. The Seventh Green China Forum opened in Beijing over the weekend against a backdrop of ongoing energy demand, increasing pollution load and resource depletion. China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) started the Green China Forum in 2003 to provide a platform for domestic and foreign environmental officials and experts... Read more →

US Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) introduced bi-partisan legislation that will provide some $1 billion to support the reduction of emissions from existing diesel engines through retrofits and other programs. Such legislation would complement the pending EPA Clean Diesel regulations for new engines to reduce the emissions profile of the entire... Read more →

Bloomberg. Crude oil hit a record $58.60 a barrel before closing at $58.40 in New York on signs producers will struggle to meet growing fuel demand during the second half of the year. Analysts immediately began taking about the next threshold. (Historical price chart to right. Click to enlarge.) There... Read more →

AFP. Peru may have just christened the first CNG-powered train (earlier post), but on Monday Sweden will inaugurate the world’s first train to run on biogas. The train was developed by Svensk Biogas, which converted an old Fiat locomotive by replacing the diesel engines with two Volvo gas engines. The... Read more →

Reuters. Peru’s Ferrocarril Central Andino (FCCA) officially unveiled what it calls the world’s first CNG-powered train on Thursday. The cargo and passenger train, which runs along the world’s highest railway at 16,076 feet (4,900 meters) above sea level in Peru’s central Andes, will switch from diesel to run on two... Read more →

AP. Nissan announced Friday that it will build its first hybrid model, a version of the Altima, at its assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. The choice was between the Smyrna plant, and the plant in Canton, Miss. (Earlier post.) Nissan will invest $10.4 million for additional equipment and minor modifications... Read more →

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) has given “motor vehicle type certification” to both the Toyota FCHV and the Honda FCX. Up to now, MLIT granted certification to individual fuel cell vehicles for the purpose of testing on public roads. With new “type” certification, however, fuel cell vehicles... Read more →

The government of Ontario, Canada, is establishing a Can. $520-million (US$421-million), 12-year fund to support ethanol production and retailing. In November 2004, Ontario announced a Renewable Fuels Standard, requiring an average of five per cent ethanol in all gasoline sold in Ontario by January 1, 2007. The Ontario Ethanol Growth... Read more →

Work on the Senate version of the energy bill (S. 10) continued Thursday. The Senate rejected the Cantwell amendment (earlier post) that proposed a 40% reduction in oil consumption by 2025 from the baseline forecast by the EIA. The bill, co-sponsored by Senators Feinstein (D-CA), Reid (D-NV, Minority Leader) and... Read more →

Financial Times. Toyota executives acknowledge that because of the still relatively low price of gasoline in the US, there is currently no financial incentive to purchase hybrids. Kazuo Okamoto, who takes over as head of research and development at Toyota next month, said the extra costs of hybrid cars more... Read more →

Chrysler has introduced the new 2006 Dodge Ram 1500, featuring the first implementation of a cylinder deactivation system in a pickup truck. The company estimates that the Ram 1500 equipped with a HEMI engine and Chrysler’s Multi Displacement System will provide up to a 20% improvement in fuel economy over... Read more →

Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) has mandated the use of ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel beginning 1 Dec 2005. The adoption of the 50-ppm-sulfur fuel is in preparation for Singapore’s implementation of Euro 4 emission standards for diesel vehicles in October 2006. Singapore’s current diesel fuel standard is at... Read more →

The Senate voted 70–26 today to incorporate the 8-billion-gallon Renewable Fuel Standard into the energy bill. The proposal, offered by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chair Domenici, sets 2012 as the year in which the RFS must be met. Correspondingly, the Senate shot down 69–28 an attempt by Sen.... Read more →

Volkswagen will pay $1.1 million to resolve its failure to promptly notify EPA and to correct a defective oxygen sensor affecting at least 329,000 of their 1999, 2000 and 2001 Golfs, Jettas, and New Beetles, federal officials announced today. This is the largest civil penalty to date for this type... Read more →

A corn oil separation technology, developed by a partnership between a group of ethanol producers and a technology firm, enables the extraction of corn oil for use in biodiesel production from a process used to prepare corn for ethanol production. The technology enables ethanol producers to extract corn oil from... Read more →

Researchers at Chevron and the University of Kentucky have developed a new process for converting waste plastic into lubricating oil for engines. This is potentially environmentally important from two perspectives. First, a more stable synthetic oil (an oil with high paraffinicity and, therefore, high Viscosity Index (VI, signifying high stability... Read more →

A coalition of UK companies and advocacy groups, including Saab, Ford, British Sugar and Friends of the Earth, backed by the Transport and General Workers Union, launched the Bioethanol Declaration on Wednesday. The campaign calls for the UK government to implement a Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), requiring the blending... Read more →

Ford will start taking orders for the Mercury Mariner hybrid in July to gauge demand before production begins. Ford, which has been selling the hybrid Escape since October 2004, will begin pre-selling the Mariner hybrid on July 11, when prices will be set, according to the company. (Detroit Free Press)... Read more →

Hybrid Fuel Systems, a provider of CNG and LPG conversion system for heavy- and medium-duty diesel engines, intends to acquire DRV Energy, a small-volume manufacturer of bi-fuel and dedicated natural gas and propane turnkey conversion systems for light-duty vehicles. The result of the acquisition will be a larger company that... Read more →

The Senate began consideration today of its version of an Energy Bill (S. 10—earlier post) today, with introduction and support for the legislation coming from both the ranking Republican and Democrat (Domenici, R-NM and Bingaman, D-NM) on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. More aggressive than the House... Read more →

BP has released the 2005 version of its annual Statistical Review of World Energy. This year’s review, the 54th in the series, documents the strongest growth rate in global primary energy consumption since 1984. What did not grow apace, however, was oil and gas reserves. Global primary energy consumption increased... Read more →

The annual International Engine of the Year awards are organized by UKIP Media & Events–Automotive Magazines Division, Britain’s largest group of technical car publications. Judged by a panel of motoring journalists from 26 countries as disparate as the USA, Japan, China, Russia, New Zealand, India, Korea, Germany, France, South Africa,... Read more →

We’ve run into some issues with the menu navigation—which was one of the points of making the shift. I’m going back to the old design until I redo the menu widgets. Read more →

The first public sale of the Ford 2006 Mercury Mariner Hybrid raised $47,500 in a live auction at the Heal the Bay “Bring Back the Beach” dinner. (Earlier post.) Mercury donated a 2006 Mariner Hybrid SUV (details in earlier post) to Heal the Bay, the Santa Monica-based environmental group dedicated... Read more →

Reflecting the increasing potential importance of gasification and conversion processes in the emerging energy economy, Engelhard Corporation has acquired the syngas catalyst business of Nanjing Chemical Industry Corporation (NCIC). Englehard is a Fortune 500 surface and materials science company; NCIC was a wholly-owned subsidiary of SINOPEC, one of China’s largest... Read more →

As you can see (clearly, I hope!) we’ve changed the design of the site. If the rendering of the page is cluttered and confusing, you may have to do a “hard refresh” by hitting the Ctrl key while holding down the F5 key. This will update the older version of... Read more →

Philip Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist turned White House staffer who edited scientific language in government climate change reports, resigned Friday, just two days after the NY Times revealed his blue pencil work. Car Buyer’s Notebook provides a background look at the chain of events and people involved in... Read more →

MEMS USA has formed a second joint venture—Can-Am Ethanol Two, Inc.— to engineer, design, procure, build, own, operate and maintain a biomass-to-ethanol processing plant in Canada. The joint venture partner is Central Pacific Power. The preliminary budget for this plant is $150,000,000 with a projected production capacity of approximately 160,000... Read more →

Joe Romm, who ran the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at DOE during part of the Clinton Administration and wrote The Hype about Hydrogen, weighs in on the benefits of plug-in hybrids in a message posted to the CalCars newsgroup. Plug-ins are so new for most of us... Read more →

Energy prices to remain high, as more investment required. Read more →

This afternoon, I’ll be pushing out a new set of templates to the server. I expect that in the nature of the process, GCC will have a period (brief, I hope) of mixed rendering of pages, broken links, etc. I’ll get that resolved as soon as I can (and chose... Read more →

Lobbyists clash over RFS in Senate Bill Read more →

Toyota developing flex-fuel cars for Latin America. Read more →

First CNG station in Philippines. Read more →

Investment up, production down. Hallmark of peaking. Read more →

G8 to protect against oil shocks. Read more →

Only fuel-cell series hybrid design in the competition. Read more →

93% see increased fuel economy standards as a good solution. Read more →

EPA proposal to slip delivery date of ULSD makes EMA nervous. Read more →

The BBC takes a succinct retrospective look at the “rise, fall and rise” of ethanol in Brazil. In the mid-1980s - before any other country even thought of the idea - Brazil succeeded in mass-producing biofuel for motor vehicles: alcohol, derived from its plentiful supplies of sugar-cane. Differently-powered cars were... Read more →

In its current Oil Market Report released today, the IEA kept its estimate of demand growth for the full year at the 84.3 million barrels per day (mbpd) forecast last month. However, the agency raised its estimate of global demand in the second half of year, increasing to 86.4 million... Read more →

A gasification/biocatalytic process developed for BRI Energy by a team led by Dr. James L. Gaddy enables the co-production of electricity and ethanol (and/or hydrogen) from any carbon-based material, such as municipal solid waste; biosolids & animal wastes; biomass waste; used tires & plastics; and hydrocarbons (coal, natural gas, refinery... Read more →

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and fourteen other House Democrats today introduced the New Apollo Energy Act as a clean energy policy in counterpoint to the current House Energy Bill (H.R. 6—earlier post). On April 21, Congress stepped back in geologic time when the House of Representatives passed an energy... Read more →

Dr. Alan Lloyd, Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) is calling on Toyota to allow leaseholders and others to purchase existing RAV4 EV electric cars, which are no longer manufactured by the company. Hundreds of these zero-emission, zero-gasoline vehicles were sold and leased in California in 2002 and... Read more →

Hats off to Car Buyer’s Notebook, who was inspired by the viewing of the new Mercedes bionic diesel concept car (earlier post) to create a screensaver! Not only was the car a tremendous amount of fun to ogle over, the two Mercedes engineers on hand, Dieter Gurtler and Ralph Hettich,... Read more →

DENSO Corporation and Toyota jointly developed the new 1,800-bar diesel common rail system with newly-developed piezo injectors, currently installed on the Toyota Avensis, available in Europe starting last month (May). (Earlier post.) The 1,800-bar common rail diesel system performs up to five high-accuracy injections during each combustion stroke. The new... Read more →

Advanced Battery Technologies, (ABAT) a developer and manufacturer of rechargeable Lithium-ion polymer batteries, has successfully completed phase one tests of cells built with electrode nanomaterials from Altairnano (formerly Altair Nanotechnologies). The two companies announced a mutually exclusive development agreement in April 2005. The testing indicated a significant improvement in recharge... Read more →

The Bibendum Forum & Rally kicked off in Kyoto. Sponsored by Michelin in association with its partners in the automotive world—carmakers, technology and energy suppliers—the event promotes and demonstrates the development of clean technologies and energies for motorized vehicles with an educational forum and road rally. Her Imperial Highness Princess... Read more →

Amberjac Projects, a UK company, has announced that it is working with EnergyCS and Edrive Systems to launch the EDrive plug-in hybrid conversions in Europe. EDrive Systems is a joint venture between EnergyCS and Clean-Tech which has introduced a commercial retrofit system that converts a Prius into a plug-in or... Read more →

A cost analysis conducted by the British Columbia (Canada) Automobile Association (BCAA) reveals that, over a five year period, the cost differential between fuel-efficient hybrids and comparable gas-powered vehicles is minimal. And in one case, the hybrid is identified as being cheaper than its conventional cousin. The analysis judged four... Read more →