You’ve seen them zipping around city streets or squeezed into some illegal-looking space between a normal car and a fire hydrant. At first you might have thought they were some kind of joke. Who would drive such a thing? But the new mini-electrics are catching on and may be on the way to revolutionizing urban […]
“The NGV market experienced a growth spurt in late 2013, and that is expected to continue in early 2014, with new engineers and vehicles coming to market.” That’s the conclusion of a very optimistic report issued by Navigant Research on the progress of natural gas vehicles – particularly NG trucks and buses – in the […]
Walter Breidenstein may be the only CEO in America who still answers the company phone himself. If his operation is still something of a shoestring, it’s because he’s spent four years trying to duel with perhaps the most formidable foe in the country, the oil companies. “I’ve been trying to get into North Dakota for […]
Everyone’s doing it, doing it, doing it. Probably the last good prediction maker was Nostradamus and even he was probably more lucky than clairvoyant. Last year’s political predictions in retrospect did not turn out to be confidence builders. Predictors of less, or indeed more, tension in the Middle East seem to have run up against […]
The hydrogen car may be on the road to another comeback – again. At the annual auto show in Los Angeles last week, both Honda and Hyundai unveiled “concept cars” of hydrogen models they expect to be available by 2015. As a result, the automobile press has been filled with stories its revived prospects. “For […]
Over the last year or so, many in the media have commented on the Saudization of America. Readers and viewers have been told that drilling for tight oil will lead to reduced imports and energy “independence.” Luck, or perhaps because of good ole American ingenuity in developing fracking technology, America, the Saudization folks indicate, will […]
In New York City politics they used to talk about the “three I’s” – the Irish, the Italians and the Israelis, which formed the major voting blocs. Today we can talk about the “two I’s” –two countries that are making significant progress in methanol as an alternative fuel – Iceland and Israel. Iceland is by […]
“Over the river and through the wood To grandmother’s house we go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh\ Through white and drifted snow.” Thanksgiving has come and gone, Christmas is coming, and that makes me think of alternative fuels and finding something to replace gasoline in our engines. What, after all, was […]
In their path-breaking study, “Fuel Choice for American Prosperity,” the Energy Security Council carefully outlines the dilemma that our complete dependence on oil for transportation has created. “It’s not the oil we import, it’s the price,” was the way they summarized it. As I outlined in a previous post the authors show how OPEC still […]
This paper examines the correlation between energy consumption and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. This region uses only 2 percent of the world’s energy, yet its reliance on petroleum — for transportation, cooking, heating, agriculture and other uses — makes citizens extremely vulnerable to oil price spikes.
