Elon Musk doesn’t mind making comparisons between himself and Henry Ford. Others are doing it as well. In announcing his plans for a “Gigafactory” to manufacture batteries for a fleet of 500,000 Teslas, Musk said it would be like Ford opening his famous River Rouge plant, the move that signaled the birth of mass production. […]
The decision isn’t scheduled until June but already opposing sides are converging on Washington, trying to pressure the Environmental Protection Agency over the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard for ethanol. Last week almost 100 members of the American Coalition for Ethanol descended on the nation’s capital for its annual “Biofuels Beltway March,” buttonholing 170 lawmakers and […]
The Hawks are out again. One of my favorite service organizations, the American Automobile Association (AAA), in conjunction with media outlets, has again attacked the use of ethanol in cars. It’s quite sad. I will still keep my membership card. The AAA is the Walmart, Costco or Nordstrom of the automobile industry when it comes […]
“Why is it that we hear every day some new story about Elon Musk’s electric car, about Clean Energy Fuel’s efforts to build a CNG highway, or about some laboratory breakthrough that is at last going to bring us cellulosic ethanol, yet with methanol now cheaper than gasoline, you still never hear anything about it?” […]
The concept of converting our abundant natural gas supplies into liquid methanol in order to replace oil in our gas tanks has had trouble gaining traction for several reasons, all of which are about to face change. The first reason is that most of the attention towards additives has been focused on ethanol made from […]
Last week in Houston, Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz told CERA Conference attendees that storage batteries may be the next big energy breakthrough. “It’s pretty dramatic,” he said. “The research is moving very, very fast.” Indeed, if you’re looking for “energy breakthroughs” on the Internet these days, most of the hits are likely to […]
How many of you have ever been to Russia? It is a fascinating place filled with fascinating people. While in Russia facilitating an Aspen Global Forum of U.S. and Russian leaders, I visited Nikita Khrushchev’s grave. He lies under six feet of earth — probably banging his shoe and confessing that he still wishes he […]
Every now and then I will read a White House Blog. They’re sort of a fun read when you’re depressed about the state of the world and the country. The content always somehow reminds me of Gene Kelly dancing in the street in the middle of the rain, or that old (possibly New Yorker) cartoon […]
This will be a week for watching Tesla, not only because the company’s stock had soared to new heights but because Elon Musk seems poised to take it to the next level – manufacturing batteries. Musk has scheduled a conference call this week and gives every indication is he will be announcing plans for a […]
Read the Article Breaking Energy This question has been dissected in many ways by analysts, politicians, business leaders and countless other stakeholders, with numerous conclusions drawn. Clearly the term “energy independence” can be defined many ways. In terms of power generation, the country already is energy independent. But US petroleum import volumes usually lie at the […]
