Gulf Oil Leak + Hurricane = Worse

What could happen if the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout is not stopped before the first hurricane of the year comes through the Gulf?

Even FOX News Doesn't Trust BP

The ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil blowout disaster has revealed that BP, as a corporation, lacks integrity. Even FOX News does not trust them!

Nissan Land Glider

Here is a new electric car concept from Nissan - the Land Glider. It is an all electric vehicle. Small and lightweight, it will not waste energy moving around thousands of pounds of metal. Recharging can be done by parking over special plates in the ground. This is the sort of vehicle we need to cope with a future of scarce, high priced gasoline.

Ethanol Good Enough For the Record

Ethanol is potent enough as a fuel to break records set by gasoline powered engines.

Where Does Ethanol Come From?

How ethanol is made.

Emergency Kit

Do you carry an emergency kit with you in your car? You never know when you might run out of gas in the middle of nowhere or have a mechanical breakdown. Here are some items you might consider carrying with you.

Famous People Use Nitrogen Too

Even television celebrities like Jay Leno use nitrogen in their tires.

30 Ways to Save on Gas

Here are 30 tips you can use to save on gas and avoid some pain at the pump.

Roil Platinum for Better Lubrication

Friction between moving parts in engines burns fuel. Generally less friction means you will save on gas. So better lubricants could improve your gas mileage. Roil Platinum is an oil additive which seems to do a pretty good job on fighting friction based on the video below. You might want to try it out and see what happens. You will have to do careful measurements of fuel consumption before and after to be sure. The best is to have a real time fuel consumption gauge, such as the ScanGauge.

Where Electric Vehicle Batteries Come From

The batteries found in electric vehicles are mainly based on lithium instead of the familiar old lead and sulfuric acid used in gasoline powered cars. The video shows how they are made.

Electric Cars Are Too Quiet

Unlike conventional combustion engine powered cars, electric cars are almost silent. This is yet another plus of electric vehicles, but it comes with a danger. People may not be aware the car is coming if they do not hear it. One simple solution is to fit the car with a sound system that generates a clearly audible but not loud sound to warn others the electric vehicle is near.

Prius PHEV Conversion Success

The add-fuel light came on yesterday. So I went another 100 miles before I decided to fill up the tank. Total miles on this tank of gas was 1620 miles. The tank took 9.46 gals to fill. This works out to 171.2mpg

Driving Habits to Save on Gas

Here are some tips on how you can adjust your driving habits to save on gas.

Cash for Clunkers Results Analysis

So what was the final result of the Cash for Clunkers program? Here is an analysis.

Big Crude Tanker Construction Photos

A photo tribute to the huge crude tankers of the world, which keep us in the United States supplied with the gasoline we need to continue driving.

Oil Tanker Engine Room

The United States imports about 60% of all the oil it consumes, and all except that from Canada and Mexico is waterborne. Here we get a look at the engine room of an oil tanker ... thanks to those huge ship diesels, you can pull into your local gas station and fill up with the gasoline produced from its cargo of crude oil.

Toyota President Planning for Peak Oil

Toyota is thinking ahead to a future of high gas prices driven by peak oil. That likely means they will be putting an emphasis on producing future models of cars that are very fuel efficient. This is a business model based on reality. On the other hand, here in the United States the big automakers are still having trouble breaking out of a business model based on extracting profits from big, expensive gas guzzlers. The US automakers already had a brush with death and were only saved by government intervention. It looks like they are less prepared for the future than Toyota and other competitors. Will Detroit go the way of the dinosaurs because it could not accept that saving on gas is a good thing?

Oil Production Trend Not Going Up

It is becoming more and more apparent that the era of ever increasing oil production is over. The world is in a now six year period of flat oil production. This failure to increase production occurs at a time when prices are at unprecedented highs. Here we have the clear signature of peak oil setting in ... it would appear that we are now very near the peak. Prognosis: in the near future global oil production will not be able to hold up, and will actually start to decline. This means we will be forced to save on gas whether we want to or not ... so we would be best off to start learning how to save on gas before we absolutely have to. Like the old saying goes, forewarned is forearmed.

Deepwater Horizon Spill

Video of the oil plume escaping from the wreckage of the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The estimate of 5000 barrels a day escaping into the ocean provided by BP, which also happens to be the corporation responsable, appears to be far too low.

Gas Cheaper With More Butane

Have you seen cheaper gas in rural areas? Certainly you have heard about summer blend gasoline being more expensive. The common factor influencing both is air pollution. In hot temperatures, gasoline evaporates into the air and creates polluting smog. Gasoline is actually a mixture of many components, some of which are cheaper than others. Some also evaporate more easily. It turns out that butane is one of the cheaper components of gasoline, but it also evaporates easily. Thus to reduce evaporation in the summer heat, the gasoline has to have less butane. But that also means less of one of the cheapest components, which raises the price as well as reducing evaporation.

In congested cities, environmental regulations are often stricter, which implies the gasoline must be more resistant to evaporation. So in cities as in summer, the easy to evaporate but cheap butane must be replaced with something with a higher price.

Plx Kiwi Gives Feedback to Help Save on Gas

Driving habits are a very major influence on how much gas we use. If you want to improve your fuel burn, it is a big help to be able to see the rate of fuel use in real time. Real time feedback is a great way to learn. The Scangauge is one device which can give you this feedback. The Plx Kiwi, featured in the video, is another.

ecoRoute Route Planning Aide

Choice of route can save on gas. Shorter paths are generally better than longer paths, but there are complicating factors. For example, a shorter path which has you stuck in stop and go traffic could burn more gas than a somewhat longer route on an open road. Remember that slowing down or stopping only to speed back up again wastes all the kinetic energy which you had to pay for with fuel. There are various route planning programs which can help you deal with these factors. The video introduces one.

Why Drill in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico?

Why is Big Oil drilling in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico? It is difficult, costly and dangerous, as the ongoing Deepwater Horizon blowout shows. The answer is because there is nowhere else to go. The Energy Information Administration maintains Gulf of Mexico production data, which is shown in the graph above. As you can see, we are currently getting about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day out of the Gulf of Mexico. And if the Gulf were not producing those barrels, they would very likely not be available from somewhere else ... global crude oil production is running full steam. So until we all start to save on gas, there is no choice but to be in the deepwater Gulf.

Deepwater Horizon - One Leak Down, Two to Go

Here is video showing the capping of one of the three leaks coming from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig. The blowout and disaster reminds us that we are now in an era in which the easy oil is all gone, and the petroleum industry is forced to go after ever more difficult and low quality fields. This inevitably means higher costs for reduced amounts of oil. Let us remember the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and take heed of the lesson it can bring: we must start learning to save on gas.

Big Truck Fuel Efficiency

If you like big Ford trucks but you want to save on gas, you might want to watch this video.

Ships Reducing Drag to Save on Gas

Ocean going cargo vessels are responsible for moving an important part of the global economy. Consider how much of the items you buy in the US are made overseas and have to be brought to you by ship. Moving a huge ship against the resistance of the water costs a lot of gas. Ships are enormous gas guzzlers. Ideas for saving on gas in shipping could be very important for us in the future given our massive dependence on seaborn imports.

Bunker Fuel Prices

You know the price of the gasoline you buy. The price of bunker fuel, which is what ships burn in their engines, is important for the global movement of cargo. A very large percentage of all the goods sold in the US are made overseas and carried to our shores in cargo ships. Keeping an eye on the price of bunker fuel gives a peek into the health of the global movement of goods. Bunkerworld is a website which keeps you informed up to the moment on developments in bunker fuel prices. We see that lately the price has been going up.

What Is Peak Oil?

Oil is a limited resource. Although natural processes do create new oil, it takes millions of years. On human timescales, no new oil will be formed. So we have only the finite amount that is in the ground now. As we use it up, naturally the oil companies start with the easiest and cheapest oil to get. That means over time it gets harder and harder to extract a barrel. The result of this is that there will come a time when the rate of oil extraction begins to decline, even though there is still plenty of oil left. That is peak oil.

Peak Oil : Will we be Ready?

Peak oil, or the moment when the extraction rate of oil is at the highest value it will ever have, is likely right about now. That means in the future we will have less and less oil available every year, even though we are adding more and more people to the population. Less oil supply will mean higher oil prices. How will we adjust our society to high oil and gas prices? Can we do it? We have gotten to where we are today in part by depending on cheap gasoline.

Aptera Press Release Update

Aptera gives an update on their status. The Aptera is an aerodynamic, lightweight electric car.

Driving Tips to Save on Gas

One of the biggest factors in saving on gas is the way we drive. Here are some tips you can start using today to save on gas!