Recent Gas News/GasBuddy Blog

bloomberg,com -- China is idling as much as 40 percent of its wind-turbine factories following a surge in investment driven by the government’s renewable energy goals, the vice president of Shanghai Electric Group Corp. said.

Prices of turbines have tumbled more than 30 percent from 2004 levels in the world’s third-biggest windpower market by generating capacity because there are “too many” plants, Lu Yachen said in an interview in Beijing today.

China aims to increase its capacity to produce power from the wind fivefold by 2020, spurring investment in turbine factories. Zhang Guobao, who helms the National Energy Administration, said in September without giving figures that there was a surplus of such plants.

“The overcapacity in manufacturing is caused by slower growth in wind-farm constru

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Alternet -- One thing has been driving me crazy about this drilling debate -- everyone seems to assume that if we drill for oil in the US, that we will get the oil. And hence, we won't be dependent on foreign oil anymore. But we won't get anything, Exxon-Mobil will.

The oil that comes from that drilling will not be United States property (Republicans aren't suggesting we nationalize the oil companies, are they?). It will be the property of whichever oil company got the rights to that contract. They can then sell it to whoever they like -- and they will. They will sell it on the world market, so the Chinese will have just as much access to the oil that comes out of the coast of Florida as we will.

The Democrats have done a decent job of beating back the argument that this will effect prices in th  (go to article)

BT -- North Dakota topped the century mark in the number of active oil rigs this week for the first time since February 1982.

There were 102 active rigs as of Wednesday. The state is still below the all-time high of 146 rigs that came in October 1981, said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council. Ness said the numbers are a positive for the future of the North Dakota oil industry.

Ness said improvements in technology have allowed rigs to be more productive and efficient with the advent of horizontal drilling. “That’s the real story,” he said. Ness said that one of today’s rigs is able to do the same amount of drilling as eight older rigs in about one-third of the time.

Ness said there are roughly 4,500 producing oil wells in the state with about 1,000 new wells that ca  (go to article)

The oil drum -- The Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana has generated a lot of buzz in the past year. Reserve numbers in the billions of barrels, even tens or hundreds of billions show up in press reports and blogs. Now the USGS has weighed in with a comprehensive assessment of the resource. So just how much will this oil accumulation help the world's largest importer of oil? Is it time to relax or is this just another small blip in the long-term decline of domestic production? We'll examine these questions and others below the fold, using data from the IHS database.  (go to article)

forbes.com -- RICHMOND, Va. -- Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law Wednesday offshore drilling legislation intended to realize his goal of making Virginia the East Coast's energy superpower.

The bills supporting offshore oil and gas exploration and directing royalties from drilling back to Virginia each hinge on actions by the federal government and Congress.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce his decision soon whether the government will move forward with the sale of oil and gas leases in a triangular tract 50 miles off of the Virginia coast. The 2.9 million acres has an estimated 130 million barrels of oil and 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

McDonnell said the bill backing offshore exploration is intended to signal to Salazar the state's official endorsement of

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Star Tribune -- Toyota's massive recalls are bringing new scrutiny to the government's auto safety agency, prompting Congress to look at how federal safety officials have lived up to their mission of protecting motorists.

A House panel on Thursday planned to examine the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's oversight of the auto industry in the latest congressional hearing linked to Toyota's recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide. Safety groups have accused NHTSA of being too cozy with the Japanese automaker while lacking the resources to test for vehicle problems that could be electronic, not mechanical.

"NHTSA has been viewed by the motor vehicle industry for years as a lapdog, not a watchdog," Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator under President Jimmy Carter.  (go to article)

New York Times - Green Inc. -- HOUSTON -- Renewable energy is being praised in Washington, but it is generating snickers here in the nation's traditional energy capital, where oil, gas and utility leaders are gathered for a major industry conference.

Leaders of two of the world's largest oil and gas companies used their addresses at CERAWeek, a sprawling conference sponsored by energy analysis firm IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, to warn against unbridled optimism about wind and solar energy. Khalid Al-Falih, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, deemed overreliance on renewable power dangerous, while ConocoPhillips Chairman James Mulva employed sarcasm to compare renewable boosters to those who won't acknowledge climate change.

"We must overcome the opposition of the 'hydrocarbon deniers,'"  (go to article)

http://www.physorg.com/news187436599.html -- John Messina

The best hybrid cars of today can only deliver about 48 miles per gallon. By using this newly developed fuel injection system a test vehicle was measured at achieving 64 miles per gallon in highway driving. This is approximately a 50% increase in fuel efficiency in a gasoline engine.

Excerpts

"...Transonic Combustion and their goal is to increase fuel efficiency of existing gasoline engines."

What makes Transonic's fuel injection system different from a direct injection is that it uses supercritical fluids and requires no spark to ignite the fuel. The supercritical fluid is mixed with air before injected into the cylinder. The heat and pressure, in the cylinder, alone is enough to cause the fuel to combust without a spark.

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inhabitat.com -- by Bridgette Meinhold

What’s a Gribble? It’s a tiny marine shrimp found on the southern coast of Britain — and its ability to digest wood may provide a breakthrough in efficient biofuel production. Researchers are studying the gribble’s digestion process at a new UK bioenergy centre in order to synthetically copy the process so that grasses, husk, straw and willow can be converted more efficiently into biofuels. The scientists reckon that information learned from the gribble could increase the efficiency of biofuel conversion by a factor of 6, making biofuels even more cost effective and utilizing non-food crops.

Excerpt

Rather than using valuable crop land needed for food production, nutrient-poor land could be used to grow grasses and willows that can then be converted to biofuel  (go to article)

Technologyreview.com -- By Tyler Hamilton

Sundrop Fuels, a startup based in Louisville, CO, says it has developed a cleaner and more efficient way to turn biomass into synthetic fuels by harnessing the intense heat of the sun to vaporize wood and crop waste. Its process can produce twice the amount of gasoline or diesel per ton of biomass compared to conventional biomass gasification systems, the company claims.

Excerpts

Alan Weimer, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

It worked so well that Weimer and Chris Perkins, the graduate student who came up with the idea, went on to cofound Copernican Energy to commercialize the approach.

"...its solar-reactor technology is now at the heart of a 1.5-megawatt thermal solar gasification demonstration facility in Colorado."  (go to article)

Bloomberg.com -- Crude oil fell for the second time in three days on a stronger dollar and concern that recent price gains outpaced demand growth in the U.S., the world’s largest energy consumer.

Oil declined from an eight-week high as the dollar climbed against the euro, reducing the appeal of commodities as an alternative investment. U.S. refinery utilization fell last week for the first time in five weeks to 80.7 percent of capacity, an Energy Department report said yesterday.

“We are at the high end of the recent trading range, which is one of the reasons why oil ducked lower,” said David Moore, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. in Sydney. “Demand in the U.S. is still weak, there is no doubt about that. It looks to be in the slow recovery mode.”

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Reuters -- (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury's decision against a bankruptcy restructuring for GMAC may have increased taxpayer bailout costs for the auto finance company and made it less viable, an oversight group said on Thursday.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a new monthly report, said despite three separate bailouts totaling $17.2 billion, GMAC Financial Services continues to struggle with its troubled mortgage liabilities.  (go to article)

CNN -- Los Angeles, California (CNN ) -- When former in-house defense attorney Dimitrios Biller resigned from his top post at Toyota, he walked out with something potentially more valuable than his nearly $4 million severance package.

He took some 6,000 internal documents, including memos and e-mails potentially damaging to his former employer.  (go to article)

Associated Press -- NEW YORK – Reports of sudden acceleration in the Toyota Prius have spiked across the country. But that doesn't mean there's an epidemic of bad gas pedals in the popular hybrid.

Experts on consumer psychology say the relentless negative media attention Toyota has received since the fall makes it much more likely that drivers will mistake anything unexpected — or even a misplaced foot — for actual danger.

"When people expect problems, they're more likely to find them," said Lars Perner, a professor of clinical marketing at Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California.

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Reuters -- A Michigan appeals court on Wednesday granted a stay requested by Toyota Motor Corp that delays testimony by two top U.S. company executives in a case about a crash that killed a woman driving a Camry in 2008.

The Michigan Court of Appeals will hold a hearing to determine if the executives can be deposed, said plaintiff's attorney Eric Snyder. The hearing date has not been set, Snyder said.

Toyota Motor North America President Yoshi Inaba and Jim Lentz, head of U.S. sales for Toyota, had been ordered by a lower court to be deposed this Thursday and Friday.

The appeals court on Wednesday stayed that lower court's ruling.

Toyota's attorneys say that neither of the top executives can offer unique testimony in the matter, papers filed with the appeals court show.  (go to article)

Reuters -- As oil and natural gas prices settle into an equilibrium for now, a new variable is emerging as the most worrisome for Big Oil: the cost of carbon.

Major international oil companies say they are factoring carbon prices into their long-term planning calculations, but assessing that cost is a challenge as U.S. policymakers struggle to come together on how to combat climate change.

The legislation could recast the playing field for energy producers and place a premium on low-carbon energy sources like wind and solar.

"Climate change regulations must be treated like business risk on par with other risks in this business," said Helge Lund, chief executive of Norway's Statoil (STL.OL), speaking at the CERA Week conference. "The pressure in this industry only will increase."  (go to article)

Cattle Network -- NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Crude futures ended at an eight-week high Wednesday, boosted by data showing tightening U.S. fuel supplies and rising demand.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery settled 60 cents, or 0.7%, higher at $82.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since Jan. 11. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange was recently up 41 cents, or 0.5%, at $80.32 a barrel.

Oil rose quickly after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported larger-than-expected drops in fuel inventories, along with a slight increase in demand for oil products.

The data offered early confirmation that the economic recovery is beginning to result in a move away from the massive surplus inventories built up during the recession. Total oil and fuel inventories are at the  (go to article)

gas2.0 -- New research out of Kuwait, using a new method of calculating the crude oil production potential of 47 of the world’s largest oil producing countries, has found that peak oil — the period in time when oil production reaches a maximum and then begins to decline — will come much sooner than expected… 2014 to be exact.
Peak oil is an important concept to fully understand in our modern world, given that we are so heavily dependent on petroleum products for everything from transportation to plastic. With the onset of peak oil, many expect that governments, economies, and cultures will start systematically collapsing as demand for crude oil overwhelms supply — unless we can do something to wean ourselves off of it before then.

Over the last few decades, much has been debated about peak oil a  (go to article)

The Detroit News -- U.S. automakers sharply criticized Brazil's decision to raise tariffs on American exports, including autos and auto parts.

Brazil said this week it would hike tariffs on more than 100 exports worth nearly $240 million as it seeks to force the United States to halt cotton subsidies. In August, the World Trade Organization gave Brazil approval to impose sanctions.

The move would boost tariffs on autos from 35 percent to 50 percent.

Brazil gave the United States one month to reach a deal to head off the tariffs before they take effect.

Detroit's Big Three automakers issued a statement criticizing the tariff move through the American Automotive Policy Council and urged a resolution.
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DailyTech -- Porsche really wants to build the 918, however, the company insists that it doesn't want to lose money on the vehicle...  (go to article)

The Detroit News -- Toyota Motor Corp. turned over to Congress today a 3 1/2 -year-old memo written by employees in Japan raising questions about the company's safety record.

The Oct. 3, 2006, memo was requested by Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after it was first published by the Los Angeles Times.

"If senior Toyota officials ignored important safety concerns raised by their own employees, it calls into question Toyota's corporate priorities and its commitment to safety," Towns wrote Monday to Toyota's North American chief Yoshimi Inaba, giving them a noon deadline today to turn over the memo.

The Detroit News today obtained an English translation of the two-page memo.
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THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE -- CHRON.COM -- Associated Press -- CAIRO -- OPEC has raised its projections for oil demand growth this year by 100,000 barrels per day, but stresses that gains could be eroded if the U.S. government scales back on stimulus efforts before the country's economy fully recovers.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a report released today that world oil demand was projected to climb to almost 900,000 barrels per day, or 100,000 barrels a day more than its February projection.

But the 12-member group that supplies about 35 percent of the world's crude cautioned that the recovery was tied to that of the global economy. It warned that demand growth could falter should governments scale back on stimulus efforts too quickly.

OPEC is scheduled to meet March 17.

[END OF ARTICLE]  (go to article)

Washington Times -- Get ready to pay a lot more than $3 a gallon to fill up your car during peak driving periods this spring and summer. More pain at the pump is the inevitable result of the Obama administration's carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with America's energy woes.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week announced new leases for offshore oil and gas drilling, which will take effect in 2012. While news reports characterized the decision as a bold response to the nation's energy needs, reality is quite to the contrary.

Within a month of taking office in 2009, Mr. Salazar froze drilling leases already approved by the outgoing George W. Bush administration. Then he imposed a six-month public comment period to precede his decision on whether to allow new drilling.  (go to article)

heatingoil.com -- Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that another high-profile international figure has pledged to fight excessive oil speculation, which many believe contributes to volatile prices. OPEC President Germanico Pinto of Ecuador laid out what he sees as the negative impact of volatile prices on OPEC and the oil industry: “volatility produces difficulties in the markets and in defining a long-term strategy for public investment in the oil industry.”  (go to article)

Asbury Park Press -- NEW YORK — The Energy Department on Tuesday said it still expects pump prices to climb past $3 per gallon as more motorists hit the road in the spring and summer driving seasons.

In its monthly short-term energy outlook report, the Energy Information
Administration said that for the full year it sees a national average price of $2.84 per
gallon, up from $2.35 per gallon in 2009.Oil prices should average above $80 per barrel this spring, rising to an average of
about $82 per barrel by the end of the year and to $85 per barrel by the end of 2011,
the report said.A more optimistic view of global economic growth prompted the EIA to boost its 2010 forecast for oil consumption growth to 1.5 million barrels per day from last month's prediction of 1.2 million barrels per day  (go to article)

DailyTech -- Charge strips are placed under blue line the tram followsAnyone who has ever traveled to a major amusement park knows the dread that is felt when facing a long hike to the gates from the parking lot. Amusement park goers can also appreciate the trams that typically run along the parking lot roadways which take visitors to and from the gates.

Most of these amusement park trams are powered by standard combustion engines or perhaps natural gas. A major amusement park in South Korea has debuted its new tram system that is electric and uses a "recharging road" to stay juiced. The tram is designed to look like a train engine and pulls three carriages to take passengers to and from the park gates. The tram system is called the Online Electric Vehicle or OLEV.
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MSN -- Controversial looks might have their detractors, but that doesn't mean the Juke isn't a winner in the making.....  (go to article)

MSN -- It's obvious that there is a market for Euro-only cars here in the land of the free and home of the brave. Sure, there are problems to consider, such as import costs, updating crash structures and having the cars evaluated for emissions, but none of that matters to us. We want these cars...  (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- Surprise, surprise. The DOE report today was quite bullish on many fronts, pushing oil prices and gasoline futures up almost immediately. Prices have since fallen back to hold on to small gains. In its Weekly Petroleum Status Report, the DOE outlines higher demand for oil products, lower gasoline and distillate inventories, and crude inventories gaining a respectable amount.

Crude inventories rose 1.4 million barrels while gasoline and distillate fuels fell a combined 5.1 million barrels, an amount that was larger than I had expected. The number may reflect refiners eager to move winter-spec material as temperatures begin to warm.

Also included in the report was demand data that showed motorists increasing appetite for...  (go to article)

Market Watch -- NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Oil major Royal Dutch Shell and oil-trading giant Vitol have suspended gasoline sales to Iran, as policy makers explore fresh options in an effort to curb the country's nuclear program.

Royal Dutch Shell spokesman Rainer Winzenried told MarketWatch that the oil major is not exporting gasoline to Iran. He declined to say how much gasoline Shell has typically sold to Iran, or how long ago the company stopped selling gasoline to the country.

Vitol spokesman Patrick Handley of the Brunswick Group's London office said the world's largest oil trader has taken no part in gasoline tenders with Iran since the start of the year. Some deliveries have been made in 2010 on contracts signed before Jan. 1, however.  (go to article)

Toronto Star -- The Toronto stock market pushed higher Wednesday morning, helped along by a sharp rise in oil prices following the release of the latest crude inventory levels in the U.S

The S&P/TSX composite index advanced 63 points to 11,981.7.

The TSX has been lower all week following a sharp three per cent gain last week, finally surpassing the level where it started the year, as investors responded to higher commodity prices and a slew of positive bank earnings.

Analysts said the back and forth action could be a factor in markets for some time.

“It’s been this way for six months and it’s probably going to continue this way for a number of months to come and that is that we are in a traders’ market,” said Gareth Watson, director Canadian Equities Portfolio Advisory Group at ScotiaMcLeod.  (go to article)

TVNZ -- Global oil demand will rise more quickly than expected in 2010, Opec says, increasing the need for crude from the 12-member group which meets to set policy next week.

Opec joins the US government's forecaster in raising oil demand estimates this week. Still, Opec's outlook remains conservative and it is widely expected to leave output policy steady when it meets on March 17.

Demand will rise by 880,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2010 to average 85.24 million bpd, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a monthly report. The growth rate is up 70,000 bpd from the previous forecast.  (go to article)

1200 WOAI news -- The head of the Toyota National Dealer Council today blasted the federal government for using 'taxpayer dollars' to fund incentive campaigns to lure customers away from Toyota, and accused GM of using ‘fear’ in an attempt to lure away its customers, 1200 WOAI news reports.

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InvestorPlace -- Today's release of OPEC's monthly market report for February highlights something that has been true for a long time now. The price OPEC receives for a barrel of oil jumped about $5/barrel since February 1 to close at $77.38/barrel yesterday.

Events in Europe, particularly the financial problems in Greece, kept the price low in the first half of the month, but improving economic data and the rise in stock prices have given the price of crude a bump in the last half of the month. The weak global economic recovery, as the OPEC report points out, is "mostly supported by the governmental-led stimulus."

That is not particularly good news for OPEC, nor for the rest of us for that matter. In the U.S., the outlook for a V-shaped recovery dwindles as consumers continue to hold on to their mon  (go to article)

MarketWatch -- U.S. oil demand in the month ended March 5 rose to an average of 19.41 million barrels a day, the highest reading since Sept 11, 2009, with overall demand up 3.8% from the year-ago period.  (go to article)

Honolulu Advertiser -- Chevron announced its work force reduction plan yesterday as part of a global restructuring, but did not detail where jobs cuts will be made.

Al Chee, Chevron's spokesman in Hawai'i, said he expects minimal or no impact from the plan on the company's roughly 300 employees here.

Chee said Chevron undertook a study last year to see whether it made sense to convert its oil refinery in Kapolei — one of only two in the Islands — to a terminal that receives refined fuel via ship, and concluded that maintaining the refinery made more sense.

"Our plan is to continue to operate our refinery," he said.

Though Chevron hasn't decided exactly where the job cuts will be made, Chee said, he doubts there will be much impact in Hawai'i.
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money.cnn.com -- NEW YORK -- The car company that is off to the worst start of 2010 isn't Toyota. It's Chrysler Group.

Industry experts say that even though Chrysler's overall sales are down only 3% during the first two months of the year, estimates show more than half of Chrysler's sales have been to fleet customers, such as rental car companies.

American consumers have essentially turned their backs on the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands. By some estimates, the once proud member of America's Big Three automakers fell to No. 7 in February in terms of sales to U.S. consumers.  (go to article)

NY Times -- Let’s do the math....If you drive one of the Toyotas recalled for acceleration problems and don’t bother to comply with the recall, your chances of being involved in a fatal accident over the next two years because of the unfixed problem are a bit worse than one in a million — 2.8 in a million, to be more exact. Meanwhile, your chances of being killed in a car accident during the next two years just by virtue of being an American are one in 5,244.  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- By Mark Shenk

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell before a report forecast to show that supplies rose for a sixth week in the U.S., the world’s largest energy-consuming country.

Inventories climbed 2 million barrels in the week ended March 5, according to the median of 17 analyst responses in a Bloomberg News survey. Analysts were split over whether gasoline supplies increased or declined and said that stockpiles of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, slipped 1 million barrels.

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Treehugger -- Greenopia has updated their guide to the greenest oil companies--though it may seem like it, it's not entirely an oxymoron--and BP is still on top. The other positions have shifted a bit, with Sunoco and Hess taking second and third place:

Companies were judged on six criteria: Environmental reporting, greenhouse gas emissions, production efficiency, production efficiency, oil spill efficiency, pursuit of alternative fuels, and stance on climate change. Each category is judged on a scale of 1 to 10.  (go to article)

Stock Watch -- Auto Major Nissan has announced that it is planning to launch its new and ultra modern car, Micra in the Indian market soon in a motor show in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The car is build on the V-Platform with a curved shape along with an accented waistline and is already tested in Japan. Nissan wants to triple sales of the car and is aiming at leading markets like India, China, Mexico and Thailand for higher growth.

The model comes with 5 speed manual transmission and is also available in the CVT segment. It is powered by 80 HP 1.2 liters engine with an alternative 1.2 direct-injection three-cylinder engine to generate 98 HP. The engines are designed to be very fuel efficient.  (go to article)

The Globe And Mail -- Some of the boldest speculative oil traders at banks and hedge funds are betting on a return of gasoline's strength ahead of peak summer demand, bringing an early shift to summer from winter to the oil market.

Many traders use a popular spread play between gasoline and heating oil to try to make money from seasonal shifts in demand in the Northern Hemisphere.

But the spread is one of the most volatile and unpredictable in the oil market and is often called “the widowmaker” after the plight of those who have made the wrong bet.  (go to article)

NY Times -- Expectations were high for the 2010 Geneva International Motor Show, which opened to the news media on Tuesday. After a relatively low-key auto show in Detroit in January, manufacturers planned more than 100 vehicle introductions in Geneva, many of them overlapping.  (go to article)

TAREK EL-TABLAWY From Associated Press -- CAIRO (AP) — World oil demand is projected to grow by 900,000 barrels per day in 2010, OPEC said Wednesday, revising up its previous month's forecast while cautioning that the increase is hinged on a sustained global economic rebound, particularly in the United States.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplier of about 35 percent of the world's crude, raised its demand forecast to 85.24 million barrels per day, roughly 100,000 barrels per day higher than its February projections. It also said demand for OPEC crude was estimated at 29 million barrels a day — some 200,000 barrels per day more than its previous month's forecast — but noted that members were still overproducing.

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MSNBC -- With fear of unintended acceleration approaching the dimensions of mass hysteria, now is a good time to review the fundamentals of operating cars so that drivers are prepared in the event of a stuck throttle, whatever the cause.

The first order of business is to ensure familiarity with the car and its controls, advises Popular Mechanics magazine’s automotive editor Larry Webster. Check the placement of the pedals to avoid accidentally pressing the accelerator instead of the brake. Practice shifting the transmission into neutral. Practice shutting the engine off with the transmission in drive.  (go to article)

TIME -- Seismic tests over the past 50 years have shown countries up the coast of East Africa have natural gas in abundance. Early data compiled by industry consultants also suggest the presence of massive offshore oil deposits. Those finds have spurred oil explorers to start dropping more wells in East Africa, a region they say is an oil and gas bonanza just waiting to be tapped, one of the last great frontiers in the hunt for hydrocarbons.  (go to article)

reuters -- In the world of alternative fuels, Brazilians are lucky. They have some of the best land and climate in the world with which to grow sugarcane-which they have proven is an excellent feedstock for first generation ethanol production.

Not only is it incredibly easy to convert the cane sugar into ethanol through fermentation, they can power much of their ethanol production by burning the material leftover after harvesting and crushing the sugarcane to extract the sweet liquid.

Years ago the Brazilian government realized the potential in this system and started encouraging a major shift to a transportation sector capable of running mostly on ethanol. And now the fruits of their labor are being borne out: The 10 millionth ethanol flex-fuel capable vehicle has been delivered in Brazil.
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Montgomery Advertiser -- L CAJON< CALIF> The government sent investigators Tuesday to examine a runaway Prius that sped out of control on a California freeway, and Toyota said it wanted to interview the driver as the besieged automaker dealt with a high profile new headache that raised questions about the safety of its beloved hybrid.  (go to article)

Detroit News -- "Cadillac, which has really turned itself around with new levels of quality and exemplary products, doesn't want to be associated with something that will drag it down," said John Grace, president of marketing consultant BrandTaxi LLC in Stamford, Conn. "With GM's bankruptcy comes lower credibility in the ability to build quality products."

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Tennessean -- Drivers, boat owners and even home owners with lawn mowers are lining up to buy "100 percent gasoline, no ethanol" at several service stations ("Mechanics, drivers say pure gas beats blended fuels on performance, wear," Feb. 12). Or so we're told.
But, first, let's clear this up, once and for all: Ethanol is safe for cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, lawnmowers and every other vehicle that runs on gasoline or diesel. Automakers approve the use of gasoline blends containing 10 percent or less of ethanol, and many motorists have been using the fuel without even realizing it.
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THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH -- By Alan Johnson -- State workers driving smaller cars and fewer miles last year burned less fuel, saving $6.8 million for Ohio taxpayers, according to an annual report.

The Office of Fleet Management report prepared by the Department of Administrative Services noted that having fewer state employees and slightly lower gas prices contributed to the cost reduction. The report covers only those vehicles under Administrative Services' control.

A $5.3 million drop in fuel costs for use of state vehicles accounted for most of the savings.

But the fact that state employees drove 6.25 million fewer miles in their personal cars last year also helped, saving taxpayers more than $800,000 in mileage reimbursement, according to the report.

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