Why You Should Consider A Hybrid Car

Cory Lynch asked: In America, a standard automobile gets an average of 20.4 miles per gallon. With the innovative hybrid technology, consumers can expect to get a lot more mileage for their dollar. According to researchers, the Honda Insight was designed specifically for the purpose of getting the best gas mileage and is said to

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Why You Should Consider A Hybrid Car

BMW’s Electric Car Comes To America

Share BMW Announces Markets for BMW ActiveE Field Trial New York Metro and Greater Los Angeles will again be included and be joined by Metropolitan markets of San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento and Boston Read more on BMW’s Electric Car Comes To America… Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Post this on Diigo Post on Google Buzz Add this to Mister Wong Share this on Mixx Share this on Reddit Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on Technorati Tweet This!

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BMWs Electric Car Comes To America

Garbage As Energy?

CNBC is premiering a new show next week that takes a long look at the business of garbage in America. They have previewed parts of it and there is some good info about turning garbage into energy and using to offset other forms of energy for industrial production.

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Garbage As Energy?

Looking For Information On Alternative Energy Stocks

The world we live in makes living difficult each day as prices of goods go up and all other expenses rising to the maximum level. Having just one way of earning money is simply not enough unless you have a diversified portfolio. This means that if one method fails it will not matter, as there are other methods that can be used. One way of doing this is to have alternative energy stocks. This might actually solve the problem of having expenses that exceed the income. Alternative energy stocks is an area that many people today consider as a means to getting higher returns on their invested money. For some this may sound like a risky business with uncertainties of getting a positive return. Nevertheless this is the newest trend with most companies that are yearning for a good profit. Did you know that the market for alternative energy stocks could be worth for more than $13 billion dollars by the year 2013? This is what analysts predict and it could come true if investors do their job wisely. If you are an owner of a small company and one of the alternative energy stocks that you have invested on becomes the course of the future, you could end up as the next Bill Gates. Alternative energy stocks have the potential of growing and if you decide to invest on it, chances are that you and your company could profit as well. Oil prices are higher than never before making the need for investing in alternative energy stocks important. Companies that are trying to help America eliminate the crisis of oil shortages, etc, are ready to invest in these stocks as it seems to be the only way to a brighter future. Although the market for alternative energy stocks will look positive, it is advisable that you get the assistance of a financial advisor who has been studying these stocks closely. The market is full of uncertainties and the alternative energy stocks you choose might not be what the world chooses. Therefore, instead of heading for losses, it is beneficial to study the market, get help from a financial advisor and then move on to invest in alternative energy stocks . Read more on Looking For Information On Alternative Energy Stocks… Energy Tags: alternative , wind power Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Post this on Diigo Post on Google Buzz Add this to Mister Wong Share this on Mixx Share this on Reddit Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on Technorati Tweet This!

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Looking For Information On Alternative Energy Stocks

Solar Electricity As The Renewable Sourceof Reliable Free Electricity In Homes

Solar energy as we all know is free energy from the sun that anyone can tap into and turn it into free electricity. There are only two main conditions that must be available to reliablygenerate this type of free energy. Foremost, there must be enough hours of sunlight exposure during the day so that the solar panel cells can absorb and convert to electric electricity. Secondly, the intensity of the sunlight must be strong enough to generate as much power with smaller solar panels. This second condition can be controlled to some extend by installing more or less solar panels depending on your power needs. Solar electricity is one of the easiest renewable sourceof free power, considering that once the initial cost of installation done, there is hardly any other expenses needed. It is also important to remember that simple solar panels can be build at home using cheap local materials by just following a step by step solar panel guide. The only caution when looking for a DIY solar panel manual is to get it from a reasonable source. There are several homemade solar panel guides available online currently. The best advice if you decide to go this route is to do enough research to identify the most concevient Do-It-Yourself (DIY)solar panel manual. For those who feel solar energy is not convenient, there are other sources of alternative power that can be as reliable such as wind power or magnetic power generators. Though wind generated power technology has been around for decades, it has not been fully exploited until recently. Wind farms are now seen all over America, Canada, Australia and some parts of Europe. This is an indication that most world leaders have realized the need to reduce global warming and conserve the already depleted sources of non-renewable electricity. Unlike solar and wind electricity sources, magnetic power is a new technology that will soon become one of the most concevient free electricity sources . Magnetic power generators are currently built by regular people using DIY guides. However the technology is becoming famous by every passing week. Similar to the solar panels and wind turbines, there are DIY magnetic power generator guides currently available online. Magnetic power generator may be the next energy answer that can be used by anyone anywhere in the world and at anytime whether day or night, winter or summer. The main reason for this claim is because of the fact that magnetic generator is self driven and therefore does not rely on any outside power to generate power. In other words, it uses its own power to run itself and produce extra power. The renewable energy sources mentioned above are by no means the only sources, but rather the most concevient for residential homes. It is significantto assess your energy demands before investing in any of these free power sources. It is also significantto consider factors such as reliability of the sun or wind where you live. Fetch realistic info about the topic of Cheap webhosting – please make sure to go through this site. The times have come when concise information is truly within one click, use this possibility. Read more on Solar Electricity As The Renewable Sourceof Reliable Free Electricity In Homes… Energy Tags: energy , hybrid cars whether or not it is reasonable to switch to alternative energy

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Solar Electricity As The Renewable Sourceof Reliable Free Electricity In Homes

Groundbreaking Step in Alternative Fuel Deployment For Airlines

The Air Transport Association of America, Inc. (ATA), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, announced today that a core group of airlines has signed groundbreaking memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with two different producers AltAir Fuels LLC and Rentech, Inc. for a future supply of alternative aviation fuel .

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Groundbreaking Step in Alternative Fuel Deployment For Airlines

Survey: Alternative Energy Sources are Vital for Survival

The international image of America is a country that is constantly creating roadblocks in the way of reaching a global agreement on climate change and environmental protection. Americans are seen as totally oblivious to the issues of global warming, and energy and food crisis. Recent research shows a totally different outlook. When asked if Posted in: Future Energy , Politics , Solar Power

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Survey: Alternative Energy Sources are Vital for Survival

All The Way With Resources Renewable Energy Systems

In his first 100 days, President Obama has taken bold moves to create a comprehensive resource renewable energy policy to help America reduce its dependency on foreign sources of power, while also responsibly reducing our carbon footprint on the planet. (…)

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All The Way With Resources Renewable Energy Systems

Why are Oil Prices So High?

Why are oil prices so high? This is the question being asked with increasing frequency in many countries around the world. Some would have you believe that the blame should be placed on “greedy oil companies”, “Arabs”, “speculators” or “OPEC”. While speculation is happening with investors and hedge funds looking to commodities for returns that are not being seen in the stock or property markets, there are underlying fundamental reasons which mean prices are likely to stay high. Last November the International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook report. Traditionally the agency has projected energy supply based on projected demand. The agency has projected that India and China will lead the increase in energy demand making 45% of total growth. Oil imports for these two countries combined will grow to 19.1m barrels a day by 2030 compared to 5.4m barrels a day in 2006. Demand for oil will grow to 116m barrels a day by 2030, an increase of 37% on 2006 oil usage. In this report back in November the International Energy Agency warned the price of a barrel of oil could rise to $159 by 2030 due to high growth in demand. This estimate now looks very conservative. The reality is there have been some fundamental changes. Before if the United States went into recession, this would lower demand for oil and prices fell. Now with China, India and other rapidly developing nations demanding ever increasing quantities of oil a recession in America is unlikely to lead to falling oil prices like it did in the past. Were per capita oil use in China and India to reach the same level as in the United States, this would fully deplete the world’s remaining proven oil reserves in just 15 years and prospective resources, in 26 years. The other fundamental change is that there is little excess production capacity. While Saudi Arabia would like the world to think it could increase production if it deemed it “beneficial” to the stability of the market, this is just an illusion of control. The reality of the OPEC cartel is that while sticking to production quotas may have benefited the group as a whole, individual countries have always “cheated” consistently and repeatedly exceeded their production quotas. In the past this has lead to significant downward pressure on prices. This time the signs are that the world is at or near its maximum oil production capacity. Does this mean Peak Oil has arrived? In my opinion – not yet. New production will continue to come online in the coming years which is likely to raise worldwide maximum oil production. So we haven’t reached peak production… yet. What we may be experiencing is what Robert Rapier calls Peak Oil Lite , with the early effects of Peak Oil arriving. Demand is rising faster than supply. In its July 2007 report the International Energy Agency predicts OPEC spare capacity will decline to minimal levels by 2012. The lack of spare capacity means, that price volatility increases with price spikes occurring in the event of supply disruption. So what we are likely to experience prior to Peak Oil is Peak Export. According to Eugene Linden in BusinessWeek when it comes to oil our biggest concern should be the amount of “global oil available for export”. According to the Export Land Model developed by Jeffrey Brown – exports decline faster than production declines, the rate at which exports decline accelerates over time and only a small percentage of a producing country’s production is exported following peak production. According to a report in last week’s Wall Street Journal, fresh information from the US Department of Energy shows the quantity of petroleum products shipped by the top exporting countries in 2007 fell 2.5% last, while prices increased 57%. Net exports from major producers Mexico, Norway and Venezuela have fallen in every year since 2005. With the rise in prices individual producing countries in OPEC had every incentive to “cheat” and yet exports fell. The influx of wealth into the Middle East has led to a boom in domestic demand. It seems that Middle Easterners aspire to the same gas guzzlers and energy rich lifestyles as Americans. Soaring profits from high-price crude have fuelled a boom in oil demand in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, leaving less oil for export. In 2007 the output of the region’s six largest oil exporters – Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar – fell by 544,000 barrels a day. During the same period domestic demand increased by 318,000 barrels a day, leading to a decrease in net exports of 862,000 barrels a day. A recent report from CIBC World Markets also indicates that as much as 40% of Saudi Arabia’s expected production increases will be offset by rising internal demand by 2010, and Iranian exports will decline by more than 50% for similar reasons. Indonesia recently withdrew from OPEC as it has gone from being a net exporter of oil, to a net importer of oil. The Wall Street Journal report comments that the fall in oil exports “defies traditional market logic.” Perhaps that should be blind faith that OPEC nations can turn on the taps if prices rise “too high”. It seems even oil traders are unsure what is driving prices as according to one market analyst quoted by BBC News “we really don’t know what the fundamentals are doing at any point in time.” Much of the information on fundamental factors in the oil market is not public or freely available. In simple terms demand is outstripping supply and prices are rising. This is how the market is supposed to work. Other fossil fuel prices tend to follow oil. IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook forecasts coal is set to rocket in demand, increasing by 73% from 2005 to 2030. This means coal’s share in global energy demand will rise from 3% to 28%. It is predicted by 2015 America will go from being a net coal exporter to a net coal importer. Coal is the most carbon intensive way of generating electricity and this report predicts that rather than becoming a smaller part of the energy mix, coal is predicted to play a much bigger role. With a presidential election this year in the United States and gas prices at record levels, oil and energy in general is set to be a key issue. There is the opportunity to have a serious debate about energy – a fundamental part of our lives which has been taken for granted for far too long. However the responses from the presidential candidates so far have not been encouraging. In 2002 McCain declared that ethanol is a “giveaway to special interests in corn-growing states as the expense of the rest of the country.” In 2003 he put out a press release saying “Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality.” He went on to describe it as “highway robbery.” Hillary Clinton signed a letter saying that there is “no sound public policy reason for mandating the use of ethanol”. McCain, Clinton and Obama all seem to have drunk the ethanol Kool Aid and seen the bright white light that has converted them to E85 . In 2008 none of these presidential candidates seems to have anything negative to say about ethanol. In 2006 Barack Obama along with four Republican and one Democrat senator introduced the Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act. There have also been accusations made against “Big Oil”, “OPEC” (including by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown) and suggestions that a “gas tax holiday” or “windfall tax” would fix everything. It’s always easier to find a scapegoat. One bandaid being suggested from some quarters, is to open up drilling in the United States in areas which are currently off limit. This would give access to 19 billion barrels of oil enough to meet US needs for approximately two-and-a-half-years or world demand for just over 7 months at current rates of consumption. To quote the head of the International Energy Agency: “All countries must take vigorous, immediate and collective action to curb runaway energy demand. The next ten years will be crucial for all countries… We need to act now to bring about a radical shift in investment in favor of cleaner, more efficient and more secure energy technologies.” Further Reading: The Ethanol Scam in ” Gusher of Lies ” You can read more on what the energy policies of McCain, Clinton and Obama should be in this Open Letter to the Next President .

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Why are Oil Prices So High?

Clean Coal or Dirty Coal?

When President Bush said America is addicted to oil, he could also have said that America is addicted to coal. Most Americans are not aware of the sheer scale of current coal use in the United States. Over 50% of electricity is generated from coal with 20 pounds of coal per a person being burnt every day to generate electricity. While questions are increasingly being raised about remaining oil and gas reserves, we are assured that there is plenty of coal left to burn. Indeed in a talk to a meeting of builders and contractors at the Capital Hilton on June 8, 2005 President Bush asked the audience, “Do you realize we’ve got 250 million years of coal?” Hopefully readers will spot this obvious gaffe. The figure quoted by the coal industry is 250 years of reserves, not 250 million years. The energy illiteracy of the average person is worrying enough, but in our political leadership it is a real cause for concern. There are an estimated one trillion tons of recoverable coal in the world, by far the largest reserve of fossil fuel left on the planet. The United States has over 25% of the worlds recoverable coal reserves. An important point to remember when considering how many years of coal we have left is that these figures are based on current rates of consumption and do no take into account growing demand for electricity. Since 1980 coal use for power generation has increased by over 75%. A good percentage of the coal thats left is too dirty to be burned in conventional power plants and much of its buried in inconvenient places. In 1974 the USGS published an estimate of the recoverable reserve base at 243 billion tons. This however failed to take into account real world restrictions on mining: state and national parks, roads, towns, proximity to railroads, coal quality, losses during mining and geologic limitations. When these are factored in less than 50% of the coal estimated as recoverable in the 1974 study was available for mining. This fails to taken into account how much is economically recoverable at market prices. In a 1989 study by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Kentucky, at $30 a ton 22% of coal was economically recoverable. The author Tim Rohrbacher wrote a strong argument can be made that traditional coal producing regions may soon be experiencing resource depletion problems far greater and much sooner than previously thought. Recently there has been a rise in suggestions that America should replace its addiction to oil, with diesel fuel made from American coal. There is currently in place a Coal-to-Liquids Tax Credit of $0.50/gallon in place until 2023. The idea has been around for a long while, in the second world war it was used by the Germans to make Nazi oil from coal when their supply of normal gasoline was cut off. I remember when I first started researching peak oil I realised after awhile if things got bad that coal rich countries might turn to making Nazi oil in desperation when petroleum depletion started to bite. Of course calls to start building Coal to Liquids plants arent proof that petroleum depletion is well advanced, but I hardly see it as a source for optimism. Fischer-Tropsch pilot plant You dont need to be an expert on coal liquefaction to realise that its a bad idea as this article on AutoblogGreen shows. Its expensive, uses lots of water, produces double the carbon dioxide when compared to regular petroleum use and produces diesel when the vast majority of the U.S. car fleet runs on gasoline. Over at the Ergosphere, the Engineer Poet crunches the numbers and compares coal to liquids versus electric vehicles . He calculates that to replace the United States petroleum consumption at current rates would take 214 four billion dollar coal to liquid plants (thats not far off a trillion dollars in investment) and the mining of an additional one and a half billion tons of coal a year, in addition to the one billion tons already being mined for electricity generation. It should be noted that the high percentage of electricity currently produced from coal is not an argument against electric vehicles, this is something I have covered in detail elsewhere on this blog. Electric motors are inherently more efficient than the internal combustion engine. It is far easier to control emissions from large power plant, than from the exhausts of thousands of cars. Electric vehicles are not reliant on one source of energy and in the longer term polluting non-renewable sources of electricity can be replaced by clean alternative energy. The coal industrys promotion of the idea that America has a vast reserve of coal is slowing the transition to clean renewable sources of energy. In addition to tv spots showing child actors extolling the virtues of coal , the industry has spent heavily to get the ear of the political establishment. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Peabody Energy, the worlds largest coal company spent over 5% of its revenues on political contributions, for comparison Exxon Mobil and General Motors spent a fraction of one percent. In seeming return for such generosity, The Energy Policy Act of 2005 included five billion dollars of subsidies for the coal industry. Virtually every power plant built in America between 1975 and 2002 was fired by natural gas. However between 1970 and 2000, the amount of coal America used to generate electricity tripled. Now with natural gas prices rising steeply, U.S. power utilities are expected to build the equivalent of 280 500 megawatt coal-fired electricity power plants between 2003 and 2030. China is already constructing the equivalent of one large coal burning power plant a week with two thirds of energy production coming from dirty coal. 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. India is the third largest producer of coal in the world, also getting over two thirds of its energy from coal. If these new coal plants are built, they will add as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as has been released by all the coal burned in the last 250 years. Acid run off from coal mining Coals sale price may be low, but the true costs of its extraction, processing and consumption are high. Our use of coal leads to ravaged mountains , air pollution from acidic and toxic emissions and fouled water supplies. Coal mining is massively more invasive than oil or gas drilling. Coal burning power plants account for more than two-thirds of sulfur dioxide, 22% of nitrogen oxides, nearly 40% of carbon dioxide and a third of all mercury emissions in the United States. Results of the largest mercury hair sampling project in the U.S. found mercury levels exceeding the EPAs recommended limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair in one in five women of childbearing age tested. Each year coal plants produce about 130 million tons of solid waste, about three times more than all the municipal garbage in the U.S. The American Lung Association calculates that around 24,000 people a year die prematurely from the effects of coal fired power plant pollution. Techniques for addressing CO2 emissions exist, although the will to quickly implement them lags. The techniques electric utilities could apply to keep much of the carbon dioxide they produce from entering the atmosphere are known as CO2 capture or geological carbon sequestration. This involves separating the CO2 as it is created and pumping it underground to be stored. Until recently I wasnt aware that all the technological components needed for carbon sequestration are commercially ready (according to an article in Septembers Scientific American magazine ) as they have already been proven in applications unrelated to avoidance of climate change. However integrated systems have yet to be built on a commercial scale. Capture technologies have been deployed extensively throughout the world both in the manufacture of chemicals (e.g. fertilizer) and in the purification of natural gas. Industry has gained experience with CO2 storage in operations to purify natural gas, principally in Canada, as well as using carbon dioxide to boost oil production, mainly in the United States. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) estimated in 2005 that it is highly likely that geologic locations worldwide are capable of sequestering at least two trillion metric tons of CO2 – more than is likely to be produced by fossil fuel consuming power plants this century. Carbon sequestration is not without risk. The two main risks are sudden escape and gradual leakage of carbon dioxide. In 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa carbon dioxide originating from a volcano killed over 1,700 people. However according to IPCC this is unlikely for engineered CO2 storage in carefully selected, deep porous geologic rock formations. In regard to gradual leakage the IPCC estimated in 2005 that in excess of 99% of carbon sequestered is very likely to remain in place for at least one hundred years. Studies indicate that 85 of the carbon in coal could be sequestered using existing power generation technologies. A key point is that fundamentally different approaches to carbon capture would need to be pursued for power plants using the old pulverised coal technology as opposed to the newer integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). IGCC plants use heat and pressure to cook off impurities in coal and convert it into a synthetic gas, this gas is then burnt in a turbine. These plants are 10% more efficient than conventional plants, consume 40% less water, produce 50% less solid waste and burn almost as cleanly as natural gas plants. Although building IGCC power plants is slightly more expensive (10), IGCC is likely to be the most effective and cheapest option for carbon capture. In an IGCC plant designed to capture CO2 the syngas exiting the gasifier, after being cooled and cleaned of particles, would be reacted with steam to make a gas made up mainly of CO2 and hydrogen. The CO2 would then be extracted and pumped to a storage site. The remaining hydrogen would be burned to generate more power. Captured carbon dioxide can by piped up to several hundred miles to a suitable geologic storage site. A recent study found that for carbon capture in a saline formation one hundred kilometers from a power plant would cost an additional 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (over the generation cost of 4.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for a coal IGCC plant that vents carbon dioxide), making a 40% premium. With coal generation costing 6.6 cents for a kilowatt hour, this would make wind power cheaper than coal and with technology advances could also provide a boost to other renewable energy sources (e.g. concentrating solar power). However electricity producers are rushing to build conventional coal pulverisation power plants, just as they rushed to build coal plants without sulfur scrubbers prior to legislation coming into force. This is short-sighted as it is more expensive, more energy intensive and less effective to attempt to capture carbon from conventional coal power plants. It is highly likely that having built these plants, that the coal industry would expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for the additional expense. Of the one hundred or so plants being planned or under construction in America only a handful use IGCC technology. Proposed Design for FutureGen FutureGen , is the Department of Energy financed one billion dollar zero emissions plant intended to turn coal into electricity and hydrogen. Proposed in 2003 and backed by a consortium of coal and electric companies, it is not due to come online until at least 2013. Many in the industry consider this date to be dubious nicknaming the project NeverGen. It is intended to make it look like the coal industry is doing something, while actually doing very little and in the process putting off changing how coal plants are built for a decade or two. Indeed in its Coal Vision report (pdf), the industry does not plan on building ultra-low emissions plants on a commerical scale until between 2025 and 2035. According to the report there is considerable debate about the need to reduce CO2 emissions. The report also states that achieving meaningful CO2 reductions would require significant technical advances. The report further states large scale and long term demonstrations of carbon sequestration technologies over a geographically and geologically diverse range of… sites are needed before making any policy decisions concerning carbon management. The coal industry wants sequestration to be demonstrated not only in the United States but additionally similar assessments need to be conducted internationally. In terms of who should pay for these demonstrations the report writes the government must play a significant role. It sounds that if the coal industry has its way, it wont be using carbon capture for many decades. Instead of waiting until 2013 or even 2035, the coal industry could be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture now. The rush to build conventional coal pulverisation plants is extremely short sighted as these plants could be operating for the next fifty years or more. In the first instance I advocate maximising our use of clean renewable energy. At the moment wind power is being used to generate only 0.5% of electricity in the United States. Using existing technology wind power could cost effecively generate a significant portion of many countries electricity supply. Significant sums of money should also be invested in making solar power and wave power more cost effective, as well as investments in energy long shots such as cellulosic ethanol and fusion power. If we are going to continue to use coal as global society as a major source of energy, which seems pretty much inevitable for at least the next few decades in key countries such as the United States, China & India, then we should be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture and retiring existing dirty coal plants now. If there are unforeseen problems with carbon capture, we need to find out now rather than in a few decades time. The coal industry’s business as usual attitude is simply not acceptable. Jeff Goodell in his recent book Big Coal concludes, coal gives us a false sense of security, if we run out of gas and oil, we can just switch over to coal the most dangerous things about our continued dependence on coal is it preserves the illusion that we dont have to change our thinking. Further Reading: Big Coal by Jeff Goodell What to Do About Coal? in Scientific American September, 2006 Lively Discussion of Coal to Liquids Coal Vision by the Coal Based Generation Stakeholders Group Mountaintop Removal A Quick Guide to Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining When Will Coal Production Peak?

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Clean Coal or Dirty Coal?