Recent Gas News/GasBuddy Blog

Deutsche Welle -- The hard-line Iranian Revolutionary Guards began naval maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, more than a week after the western Allies dispatched more warships to the strategically critical choke point in the Persian Gulf.

Iran plans to conduct war games in the strait for the next month, coming at a time of already heightened tension with the US and its European allies over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. At the end of January, Washington deployed the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the region, which was accompanied by two British and French warships.

Tehranhas threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the route for one-fifth of the world's crude oil, in response to EU and US sanctions against its oil exports. Washington has vowed to keep the Persian Gulf open  (go to article)

Philadelphia Inquirer -- With Washington deadlocked over funding for the nation's highways and transit systems, several transportation experts warned Thursday at a forum in Philadelphia that continued wrangling could jeopardize the nation's recovering economy.

"Even a catastrophe doesn't seem to bring it home," said Peter J. "Jack" Basso, chief operating officer of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. He cited the 2007 collapse of an interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis, which he said brought only momentary attention to the state of America's transportation system.

Noting that partisan debates in Washington have blocked a long-term national transportation policy since 2009, Basso said, "The process is sinking the ship."

Basso was one of four transportation panelists ...  (go to article)

The Globe & Mail -- Imperial Oil Ltd. has approved plans to spend $2-billion on an oil sands expansion effort, just days after turning over record production results from the existing project.

The company plans to expand its Cold Lake operation, proceeding with its Nabiye blueprints. Operations at the new zone, which will be developed using a drilling technique rather than a strip mine, are expected to start by the end of 2014.  (go to article)

thetimes-tribune.com -- The Natural Gas Energy and Alternative Rewards, or NGEAR, Act would create a rebate of up to $15,000 for buying public transit or school buses that run on alternative fuels and extend tax credits for using alternative fuels or building refueling stations through 2016.
Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling/casey-plans-bill-to-promote-natural-gas-as-vehicle-fuel-1.1267213#ixzz1lQBPBC4t  (go to article)

MarketWatch -- National Oilwell Varco Inc. led gains among energy stocks Friday, rising as the oil service firm set plans to buy a pipe firm for $670 million on the heels of a better-than-expected profit report.

Oil service shares and petroleum producers turned in the healthiest advance among energy stocks, boosted by a stronger-than-forecast January jobs report.

National Oilwell Varco jumped 6.6%, sprinting to the front of the pack among shares of big oil service companies.

National Oilwell said it’ll pay $670 million in cash to buy NKT Flexibles. A joint venture between NKT Holding and Subsea 7 SA, Denmark-based NKT Flexibles makes flexible pipe for the offshore oil and gas industry.

NKT recently signed a supply-framework contract with Petrobras PBR +0.32% , Brazil’s state-run oil company.  (go to article)

The Financial Post -- Fossil fuels are an integral part of the global economy, and will be for many years. But that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to introduce alternatives into Canada’s energy mix or explore new, innovative fuel sources. One of the greatest hurdles we have to overcome isn’t technological or structural — it’s debunking myths and misperceptions about renewable fuels that prevent us as a society from seeing the benefits clearly.

 (go to article)

MLIVE -- Jennifer Anderson’s car is having electrical problems when she pulls to the left side of eastbound Interstate 96, cars whizzing by as rush hour approaches.

The road is snow-covered and slick, so Anderson is cautious as she pops the hood. She knows how to restart the car with a screwdriver.

She never sees the 2002 Honda Acura — its driver distracted by her cellphone — as it crosses three lanes and crashes into her 1997 Pontiac Sunfire.

Three years later, she still finds curious what went through her mind after she was propelled through the air and lay in a ditch.  (go to article)

Torque News -- What should the price for gasoline be? That's a huge question with major political, economic and environmental consequences. Some complain about the high price of gasoline and look to expanding oil drilling to bring the price down. Some see the subsidies given to oil companies, and wonder why this happens when the oil companies are immensely profitable. Some see the environmental cost for refining and burning oil, and to incentivize alternatives call for even higher gasoline prices. Some see the immense oil imports and the economic cost of selling dollars to buy oil, and also call for alternatives to oil. Some see the Middle East wars as being an externalized cost to the price of gasoline, see it as about gaining control over oil supplies, and also call for alternatives to oil.  (go to article)

USA Today -- Prison inmates who make decals for the Vermont State Police slipped a pig into the official seal, and up to 30 patrol cars wound up sporting the subliminal epithet, the Burlington Free Press tells us.

The police emblem features a cow, an evergreen tree and snowy mountains (along with three unidentifiable creatures). Back in 2008, an inmate artist at the Northwest State Correctional Facility went into the computer file and modified one of the cow's spots to resemble a pig, the common derogatory term for police, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito told the Free Press, like USA TODAY a Gannett paper. In 2009, the state police ordered 16-inch door decals.  (go to article)

Reuters -- * Democrats say bill would ensure Keystone benefits US

* Republicans have been pushing to approve pipeline

* Republican says U.S. needs more exports

By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Democrats unveiled legislation on Friday that would block export of any oil transported by the Keystone XL pipeline, as they challenged claims that the delayed project would boost U.S. energy security.

 (go to article)

Forbes -- Exxon Mobil announced that the gas flow from its two exploratory wells drilled in Poland did not justify bringing them into production. [1]

Analysts have speculated that the technical challenges associated with shale exploration in the country made it commercially non-viable to explore the resources.

If so, this would be a major setback for Exxon’s plans to expand shale exploration in Europe as Poland has some the best shale prospects in the region and the government has been eager to exploit the resources to reduce dependence on Russian gas. Competitor Chevron is also drilling exploratory wells in Poland.
 (go to article)

Popular Science -- Installing a solar roof on your home could one day be as simple as mixing your yard clippings into a stew of inexpensive chemicals and painting the resulting mixture right onto your rooftop. An MIT researcher has developed a method of manufacturing solar panels on the spot from agricultural waste, sidestepping the need for silicon and making ready-to-mix solar cheap and abundant virtually anywhere.

But first things first. What MIT’s Andreas Mershin has done here is pretty interesting. His chemical cocktail extracts the photosynthesizing molecules from plant matter--including chlorophyll--and stabilizes them such that they can be spread on a glass substrate. Said substrate is coated in nanowires and titanium dioxide “sponges” that help convert photons to electrons and then ferry those ele  (go to article)

physorg.com -- As the United States transitions away from a primarily petroleum-based transportation industry, a number of different alternative fuel sources—ethanol, biodiesel, electricity and hydrogen—have each shown their own promise. Hoping to expand the pool even further, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have begun to investigate adding one more contender to the list of possible energy sources for light-duty cars and trucks: compressed natural gas (CNG).

Compressed natural gas is composed primarily of methane, which when compressed occupies less than one percent of the volume it occupies at standard pressure. CNG is typically stored in cylindrical tanks that would be carried onboard the vehicles it fuels.

Because the domestic production of natural gas  (go to article)

ABC News -- Israeli facilities in North America -- and around the world -- are on high alert, according to an internal security document obtained by ABC News that predicted the threat from Iran against Jewish targets will increase.

"We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase … on both our guarded sites and 'soft' sites," stated a letter circulated by the head of security for the Consul General...

The head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, told an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv recently that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targets because of what it believes are Israeli attacks on it nuclear scientists. Yoram Cohen said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the same militant wing of the government linked to the recent alleged plot against the Saudi ambassad  (go to article)

technology review, published by MIT -- Semprius, a startup that makes miniscule solar cells capable of capturing concentrated sunlight without costly cooling systems, announced this week that it had made the world's most efficient solar panel.

The company's solar panels use tiny solar cells made of gallium arsenide—the record-breaking solar module contains hundreds of such solar cells, each about the width of a line drawn by a ball-point pen, arranged under lenses that concentrate sunlight 1,100 times.

Gallium arsenide is far better at absorbing sunlight than silicon, the material used in most solar cells, but it's also more expensive. Furthermore, although concentrated solar modules use less semiconducting material, they usually require expensive optics, cooling systems, and tracking systems to keep them aimed at the sun.  (go to article)

Wired Magazine -- The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) is launching a campaign to help cars lose weight in order to gain efficiency and performance.

By bringing together members of the aluminum and plastics/composites industries, CAR hopes that automakers will reap the benefits of new lightweight materials to meet stricter fuel economy standards without sacrificing acceleration or handling.

While overall fuel economy has increased dramatically in the past few decades, so has the weight of passenger vehicles. MIT economist Christopher Knittel recently found that the average vehicle’s curb weight increased 26% between 1980 and 2006. If today’s powertrains were fitted to cars as light as the Chevettes and Civics of yore, the average fuel economy of cars sold in the US would be as high as 37 mpg in 2012.  (go to article)

Mywesttexas.com -- "We were involved in drafting the bill," pointed out Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association. "Our members were supportive of the bill, we think it's the right thing to do. Transparency is good and we think being transparent will help dispel some of the myths around hydraulic fracturing. Fracturing has become an overused, misused word."

Nye said many Texas operators werealready voluntarily reporting hydraulic fracturing chemicals since the FracFocus website went live on April 1, 2011. "In fact," she said, "as of January 31, 2012, of the 10,914 total wells nationwide voluntarily reporting disclosures on the FracFocus website, 4,169 of the wells are in Texas."  (go to article)

RigZone -- Every day legions of men and women report to work at oil and gas installations worldwide, ensuring that global energy markets receive a steady supply of hydrocarbons and refined products. Although these individuals regularly work in hazardous environments such as offshore drilling rigs and oil refineries, they consistently demonstrate their ability to negotiate the risks inherent in their jobs.

Given the extensive skill and experience that these workers demonstrate and their employers demand on a daily basis, having world-class know-how and safety policies and procedures in place can ironically introduce a very real danger into the mix. When an individual, workforce or facility owner becomes excessively certain of their ability to safely operate a complex oil and gas facility, a mindset  (go to article)

The Globe and Mail -- As the contentious Northern Gateway project – a key part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s goal to take Canadian resources to Asian markets – remains under review, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark is trumpeting a plan to do the same thing.

Her plan, however, involves liquefied natural gas, not oil, and so far has not faced the opposition that surrounds Northern Gateway, a twin-pipeline project that would ship oil from Alberta to Kitimat and condensate back to Alberta along the same route.

 (go to article)

.heartlander news -- New York legislators are debating extending the state’s de facto moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for another year. The current moratorium on permits for new fracking projects, imposed in 2008, is set to expire on June 1, 2012  (go to article)

Popular Mechanics -- The defense research group DARPA wants better vehicles, and it wants them faster and cheaper. To make it happen, the Pentagon's mad scientists are taking a cue from computer-circuit builders.

During the 1980s, the integrated-circuit-manufacturing industry began a sea change away from the traditional manufacturing model: Design was separated from manufacturing as a stand-alone function, with designers outsourcing manufacturing to dedicated fabrication plants, or fabs. The result has been an industry more responsive to the rapid pace of innovation that we all know and love today.

DARPA helped bring about that computing revolution and now aims to do the same thing to vehicle design. Announced last year, DARPA's Adaptive Vehicle Make program, or AVM, is a suite of interlocking programs tha  (go to article)

Popular Mechanics -- The next generation Corvette, the 2014 C7, won’t debut until early next year. But as 2013 creeps closer, we probably will learn much about the all-new ’Vette—and what we learn probably won’t shock or awe anyone.

Every new generation of Corvette spawns wild rumors of incredible technology and revolutionary powertrains. Since the 1970s, we’ve heard that the next “new Corvette” will be midengined and perhaps it will use a turbocharged V-6 or a rotary engine. It might also have wild bodywork. And yet, as far back as the 1950s, Corvettes have used a rear-wheel-drive chassis with a V-8 upfront. And for the past 40 years, Corvette styling has evolved consistently, like the Porsche 911’s. There have been no great leaps in styling since 1968.

The new C7 probably won’t be any different. There mo  (go to article)

The Gazette -- Japanese automobile sales rocketed more than 40 per cent in January after the government restored subsidies for eco-friendly vehicles.

Sales of vehicles with engine sizes above 660cc stood at 263,267 in January, up 40.7 per cent on the previous year, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said.

The figure includes larger vehicles such as lorries and buses as well as cars.

January was the first complete month of sales after Tokyo re-introduced subsidies for eco-friendly vehicles that can cut thousands of dollars from their price tags, in a move aimed at boosting the automobile industry.

Toyota was the biggest overall beneficiary of the move, selling 124,633 vehicles, up 47.1 per cent on the previous year, but Honda and Isuzu sales went up proportionately even more, at 59.2 per cent  (go to article)

Detroit News -- Lansing— Michigan would swap its 19-cent gasoline tax for a penny increase in sales tax under plan reviewed by the House Transportation Committee today.

The plan provides an alternative to Gov. Rick Snyder's road proposal, introduced as a 17-bill package in the House last week. That House package would replace the gas tax at the pump with a 28.3-cent tax on the wholesale price of fuel, and increase car registration fees by 67 percent.  (go to article)

Huffington Post -- NEW YORK -- When travelers from abroad come to this city, the financial and cultural capital of the world's richest nation, two dilapidated and depressing airports greet them. The clogged runways, the leaking roofs, the maddening taxi lines, the lost travelers bumping into each other -- all these depredations are just part of flying the friendly skies to JFK or LaGuardia.

Jetsetters' laments about subpar airports, now almost a cliche, may not have been foremost on President Obama's mind when he gave his State of the Union address on January 24. But they may actually be more representative of the country's nagging infrastructure problems than the images invoked by the "crumbling roads and bridges" he referenced in that speech.

The problems America faces with its infrastructure are often m  (go to article)

WinnipegSun -- TEHRAN - Iran’s supreme leader threatened on Friday to retaliate against the West for sanctions, a day after a U.S. newspaper said defense secretary Leon Panetta believed Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months to stop it building a nuclear bomb.  (go to article)

Reuters -- Factory activity rose in Germany, the U.S. and China last month. Germany's output was up for the first time in four months, and China's exceeded expectations. "There is an awful long way to go yet, and given the headwinds that these economies face, I would be cautious about being too optimistic," said Peter Dixon of Commerzbank.  (go to article)

UPI.COM -- Florida voters support the increased production of the country's oil and natural gas resources, according to an American Petroleum Institute-commissioned survey. "Our economy will demand large amounts of oil and natural gas for at least several more decades even as the role of alternative energy increases," said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of API. "Common sense says we should have Americans producing that oil and gas here at home as much as possible."  (go to article)

TheIndyChannel.com. -- Though gas prices jumped about 30 cents a gallon at most stations in central Indiana on Thursday, the state's prices are below the national average.
Gas prices hovered around the $3.20 to $3.30 mark at most stations a few days ago before jumping to about $3.60 a gallon on Thursday.
More: RTV6 Gas Gauge
The increase coincided with the influx of visitors for the Super Bowl, but there was no clear indication that the event had anything to do with the increase.
Indiana's average price is up about 15 cents from a week ago, but about the same as a month ago.
The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded is $3.47, according to AAA.
Oil prices also increased Friday, after a government report that the U.S. economy added more jobs last month, which could drive up fuel demand with more people  (go to article)

Washington Post -- Oil prices rose Friday after the government reported that the U.S. economy added more jobs last month, which could drive up demand for fuel with more people heading back to work.

That would include gasoline for cars if there are more commuters on the road. Gasoline futures increased by 3.04 cents to $2.8993 per gallon

Benchmark crude rose by 76 cents to $97.12 per barrel in New York on Friday. Brent crude rose by $1.54 to $113.61 per barrel in London.

Prices jumped after the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs in January. That was an unexpectedly big increase for the first month of the year and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. The government says companies hired across the pay scale, from high-salary professional services to manufacturing.

At th  (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- An article by a Londer Finance newspaper spells out what I've been trying to let our GasBuddy family know- that I believe rejection of the Keystone pipeline will allow Canadian oil prices to remain at huge discounts to other global crude oils.

Now the proof is here in the pudding according to the LSE:

"Canadian heavy crude differentials began to slide two days ago, falling from the low $20s a barrel under benchmark West Texas Intermediate to as much as $32 a barrel under WTI on Friday."

See? The above paragraph is showing that the price of Canadian crude oil is falling- even faster than changes in other types of higher quality crude oil!

The same story goes on to say "Traders of Canadian crude had...  (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog --
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a "strong possibility" that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear installations this spring, it was reported today.

That belief, is based on intelligence data gathered by NBC News that was produced by unidentifed military and civilian experts to assess the likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran; the potential impact on the middle east, the U.S., and the global economy.
Here is an excerpt from that report:
Q: What are the chances Israel attacks Iran?

A: Officials agree the chances for an Israeli attack on Iran are at least 50-50, maybe higher. More than one former official has suggested the possibility is as high as 70 percent, but events can move...  (go to article)

WBSRV.com -- ATLANTA — The Georgia General Assembly will see a bill on Friday that would give tax breaks to cars that are converted to run on compressed natural gas, Channel 2 consumer investigator Jim Strickland has learned.

Officials will gather Friday in DeKalb County to mark the opening of the county's first CNG pump open to the public.

David Abroms' truck runs on CNG. He met Strickland at the fueling location on Lithonia Industrial Boulevard where the fuel is selling for the equivalent price of $2.499 per gallon.

"That dollar a gallon can add up really quick. At $2.50 a gallon, that's a lot less than you're paying for gasoline, and it's less than you're paying for diesel," Abroms said.

Dunwoody's PS Energy Group is putting pumps at four metro outlets in partnership with a company owned by b  (go to article)

NPR -- The boom in cheap natural gas in this country is good news for the environment, because relatively clean gas is replacing dirty coal-fired power plants. But in the long run, cheap natural gas could slow the growth of even cleaner sources of energy, such as wind and solar power.

Natural gas has a bad rap in some parts of the country, because the process of fracking is not popular. But many people looking at cheap natural gas from the global perspective see it as a good thing.

Henry Jacoby, an economist at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT, says cheap energy will help pump up the economy.

"Overall, this is a great boon to the United States," he says. "It's not a bad thing to have this new and available domestic resource."  (go to article)

Auto News -- TURIN -- Fiat-Chrysler will delay the launch of a new Jeep compact SUV planned for production in Italy.

The new Jeep, which is code-named B-SUV, had been due to go into production in 2013 in Fiat's Mirafiori plant in Turin. Fiat now says production will begin in the second quarter of 2014.

The B-SUV will be smaller than the Jeep Compass and Patriot and will be sold in the United States, Europe and other markets. A sister model for Fiat brand will begin production at the factory earlier in December 2013. This will replace the Fiat Sedici currently built by Suzuki in Hungary.
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120203/COPY01/302039897#ixzz1lKYiXjZ1  (go to article)

Autoweek -- Dan Lungren lives in Gold River, an unincorporated community outside of Sacramento, Calif., that wants desperately not to be seen as part of its undesirable neighbor Rancho Cordova--despite the fact that most in the area who don't live there see it as a community of confused, affluent people who like to pretend they don't live in Rancho Cordova.

Lungren, in his capacity as the U.S. representative for California's 3rd District, also wants to offer one of the Detroit Three a billion dollars. A billion dollars? For the auto industry? From a Republican? Ah, but there's a catch!

Lungren's proposed legislation stipulates that the money will go to the first U.S.-incorporated automaker that can sell 60,000 gasoline-powered cars that get more than 100 mpg. The bill, H.R. 3872,...  (go to article)

FORTUNE -- After 30 years of government largesse that would have made even Nancy Pelosi blush, Congress in December let expire the roughly $6 billion annual subsidy for corn ethanol. That's bad news for the big refiners that were paid 45¢ for each gallon of corn ethanol they blended into gasoline supplies. But it's good news for those worried about the "food-fuel dilemma" when the demand for corn to make ethanol has been raising the price of some foods...

...The irony is that a study done at Princeton suggests that corn ethanol does little to reduce greenhouse gas compared with gasoline. It has helped the U.S. reduce its dependence on foreign oil, but with new sources of domestic oil coming online, the role of corn ethanol in achieving national energy security will become less significant.

 (go to article)

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/224588.html -- The European Union (EU) sanctions on imports of petroleum from Iran over the country's peaceful nuclear program can lead to the closure of Italian oil refineries, European oil industry sources say.  (go to article)

PressTV -- The 12.5 kilometer long pipeline, aimed at increasing the exports of jet fuel will come on stream in Bandar Abbas, the center of the Hormuzgan province, in February, Alireza Zeighami said on Friday.

 (go to article)

Fox Business -- SEOUL – Talks between South Korea and the U.S. about Iranian sanctions might lead to an agreement for Seoul to reduce its imports of Iranian crude oil by as much as 50%, an industry official said Friday.

SK Innovation Co. (096770.SE), one of two Korean refiners that imports Iranian crude, will "actively cooperate" with any agreement on a reduction in Iranian imports but any cuts would probably take place slowly, said Jo Eun-kee, head of corporate planning at SK Innovation's refining unit SK Energy.

Speaking on a conference call, Jo said the talks on cutting South Korea's Iranian crude imports could lead to a reduction of as much as 50%. SK Innovation said in a statement that figure was an example of how deep cuts could go, and that the company was prepared for various scenarios.
 (go to article)

Bloomberg -- Oil headed for a weekly decline before a report that may show U.S. employers hired fewer workers last month than in December. Brent crude’s premium to the New York price is set for the largest weekly gain in a month.

Futures traded near a six-week low after dropping a fifth day yesterday, the longest losing streak since August. The U.S. added 140,000 jobs in January after gaining 200,000 in December, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists before a Labor Department report today. London-traded Brent’s premium to West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, widened 30 percent this week to the most since Nov. 12.

“Payroll numbers will dominate macro-driven trading today,” said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London, who predicts prices may decline fur  (go to article)

Reuters -- Brent crude rose above $112 on Friday after Iran's supreme leader warned of retaliation over an oil embargo “at the right time,” although caution before the latest U.S. jobs data and worries about the euro zone kept gains in check.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a defiant speech to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said Tehran would not yield to international pressure to abandon its nuclear program.

“Sanctions will not have any impact on our determination to continue our nuclear course ... In response to threats of oil embargo and war, we have our own threats to impose at the right time,” Khamenei told worshippers in a live broadcast on state television.

Front-month Brent crude [LCOC 14.555 --- UNCH (0)] was up 26 cents at $112.33 a barrel, gaining for a fourth  (go to article)

Investors Business Daily -- In recent days we learned sales of the Volt and Leaf cratered, President Obama's failed green jobs program is under investigation, and another "clean energy" company's in trouble. Green is the new red.

Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama administration's obsession with so-called clean energy is an increasingly costly failure.

January car sales data out this week provided additional proof that consumers are turning their backs on electric cars, making President Obama's pledge to get a million of them on the road in three years look even more ridiculous.  (go to article)

AP -- COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Gov. John Kasich prepares to deliver his State of the State speech in the heart of Ohio's shale drilling region, a liberal policy group is proposing that he and other policymakers bring the state's taxes on oil and gas profits in line with those of Texas.

Columbus-based Innovation Ohio said Thursday that its analysis of industry data is also leading it to seek passage of a Landowner Bill of Rights and a Hire Ohio plan to ensure residents get their fair share of proceeds and jobs from the coming shale boom.

Spokesman Dale Butland emphasized that the report is about economics, not environmental factors such as drilling using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, or a series of earthquakes in the Youngstown area near a deep injection well for disposing of drilling waste  (go to article)

Daily Mail -- A new natural-gas-fired power plant near Dresden, Ohio, has begun producing electricity. It is expected to save Appalachian Power's West Virginia ratepayers about $5 million a year.

The plant at Dresden, which is 16 miles north of Zanesville, Ohio, will produce 580 megawatts of electricity. Running at full capacity, Dresden will produce enough power to supply 145,000 homes. It is owned by Appalachian Power, which is an operating unit of American Electric Power, also known as AEP.

Nick Akins, AEP's president and chief executive officer, said, "This is another step in the transformation of AEP's generating fleet as we continue to diversify our fuel mix to improve our environmental footprint and provide economical electricity for our customers.

"Natural gas will become an increasing  (go to article)

Reuters -- Iran tension will be heating up oil prices for a long time, but they are unlikely to sky-rocket, according to Leonid Fedun, Vice-CEO of Lukoil.
­“I don’t expect any disaster. Of course, the situation with Iran would stoke the oil market, prices would remain at the current level”, said Mr Fedun. “I suppose, the price would be higher than $100 for barrel."

He went on saying: “In the case of military intervention in Iran the price could be artificially lifted. There could be a repeat of the situation in the 90s, when there was a short-time oil price jump after events with Iraq. But it would be speculative push. You see, the market reacted calmly when Libya reduced its oil production by 2 million tonnes”.

Mr Fedun stressed, Russia has stable relations with Iran despite recent hiccups, but  (go to article)

The Seattle Times -- Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposal to impose a $1.50 charge on every barrel of oil refined in Washington state has hit a dead end.
The barrel charge – to raise $2.75 billion for highway maintenance, in a $3.6 billion package for state and local transportation – lacks support, a pair of leading senators said Thursday.
“We’ve stripped the $1.50 out, and we’re looking now at (driver) fees,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee.
Such fees could include additional weight charges on motor vehicles, higher fees to renew driver’s licenses and surcharges on studded tires.
Fees can be increased by lawmakers without a citizen vote, and nearly were in 2011.
Haugen said a barrel charge probably would be declared a general tax by Lt. Gov. Brad Ow  (go to article)

WNEM TV-5 -- SAGINAW COUNTY, MI (WNEM) -

People in Michigan love their cars, but fueling them does not always inspire the same love affair.

With the price at the pump anyone's guessing game from day to day, many are left on empty when it comes to why?

From a small office in a Chicago high rise, Patrick DeHaan tries to fill in the blanks.  (go to article)

Wichita Eagle/AP -- BALTIMORE — The view off the mid-Atlantic shore in the next decade could include giant wind turbines generating electricity for homes in several states if federal efforts to speed approval for the projects shave years off the process as officials intend.
It usually takes at least five years from the time contractors say they want to lease a site to the turbines being installed, an offshore wind developer official said. But still, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Thursday that the future of the renewable energy source took a big step forward with the completion of a review that showed no major environmental damage was expected from the installation along the coasts of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey.
Salazar said that clears the way for auctions and leases later this  (go to article)

Time -- Mainstream environmental groups have struggled to find the right line on shale natural gas and the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process. Gas has a much smaller carbon footprint than coal—according to most scientists—and produces far fewer air pollutants. That was enough for many major green groups to give support to gas as a “bridge fuel” to a cleaner energy future—the next best domestic alternative to coal as an electricity source while alternatives like wind and solar scaled up. But for grassroots members of those groups—especially in parts of the country where fracking was already underway—the risk of local pollution wasn’t worth the national and global climate benefits of greater gas consumption...
 (go to article)

MLIVE -- This is a running digest to help you navigate our extensive series examining traffic crashes involving cellphones and other forms of distracted driving, and the lives they have changed.

Come back every day for new links at the bottom of the blog, to keep stories in chronological order.
Thursday, Feb. 2

• More than 9,000 crashes involving cellphones occurred across Michigan in the past decade. More than 34,000 others involved different forms of distracted driving. Here's an overview of our distracted driving series.  (go to article)