http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=286462&left...

Safety norms apply brakes on Reva

Reva, the only electric car which is exported to the UK market from India, may get a red signal from the UK government, owing to revised safety norms proposed by the UK Department of Transport.

The company has sold 2,000 units of the electric car, branded as the G-Wiz, so far in the UK. It is one of the largest selling mass-produced electric cars in the world.

According to the EU norms, Reva fits into the category called quadricycle — a vehicle with four wheels whose unladen mass is not more than 400 kg (excluding batteries if it is an electric vehicle) and whose maximum continuous rated power does not exceed 15 kw.

...

“But, due to increasing environmental concerns, new vehicles that qualify as quadricycles have come to the market and are becoming more popular for urban use. Therefore, it is right that we reconsider the regulations for this type of vehicle and make safety regulations more stringent.”

...

G-Wiz is marketed in the UK by GoinGreen. Because it is exempt from paying road tax, the London congestion charge and central London parking fees, the electric car’s sales in the country really took off. Besides this, other benefits include a grant for purchase of the car by customers, the lowest rate of tax as company car and 100 per cent tax writedown in year one for businesses.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/phillips_23157___article.html/no1_truck....

Springs man builds electric pickup truck

The result: “Sparky,” an electric-powered pickup, constructed on the bones of a dinosaur-sucking 1997 S-10 Chevrolet.

The transformation of the ordinary brown truck was a journey of exploration spurred, in part, by the challenge of building his own battery-powered vehicle.

“There were some nonbelievers who asked me why I was doing this,” said Phillips, an electrical engineer with Welkin Sciences. “Because I can. Why climb Mount Everest? Why do anything?”

...

Jeff Goodwin and his crew at Bud’s Muffler installed extra leaf springs in the rear to handle the weight of 1,300 pounds of batteries. Goodwin and his team also donated their time to pull the pickup bed off and construct bar-steel boxes to hold 16 of the 20 deep-cycle, six-volt batteries that give the truck its juice. They also installed a simple lift system for the bed so Phillips could get to his bank of batteries.

...

Phillips said he knew going in that the truck would have a limited range — he’s only driven it 38 miles before a recharge, but it’s designed to have a range of 60 miles.

What he wasn’t quite prepared for was hills. He said because of the gearing in the transmission, the truck struggles to do much more than 30 mph up the hilly streets leading to his home. But that’s OK, he said. He’s in no hurry; he stays in the slow lane; and folks seem to give him the space he needs once they read the signs on Sparky saying “100% Electric Vehicle.”

“I see people in the rear view mirror getting in the other lane, but no one’s flipped me off yet,” he said.

On a flat road, though, Sparky can move; Phillips has hit 60 mph on Powers Boulevard, with just the hum of the tires and the spinning of the transmission gears indicating motion.
“There’s nothing more satisfying that driving something you’ve built,” he said. “I understand car guys now.”

All told, the conversion — not counting his time — cost $12,000.

Figuring in the $1,800 he spent for the batteries and the kilowatts used during the six hours needed to recharge the truck, Phillips reckons his cost per mile is 12 cents. His other car is a Chevy Blazer, and the cost to drive that beast is 20 cents a mile.
There’s also an attractive side benefit: He will over several years be able to deduct 85 percent of the $12,000 spent on the project from his state income tax.
Still, he said, Sparky isn’t for everyone.

“It’s definitely a second car,” he said. “I have to think about where I’m going. I can’t just jump in and run a bunch of errands.

Anyone seen any confirmation for the claim in the following column that "Russian oil production is declining dramatically?"

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nina_khrushchev/2007/06/ill_be_your_...
From the Guardian:
Mirror images

Presidents Putin and Bush will meet at G8 next week. But they have much more in common than they think.
Nina Khrushchev
June 3, 2007 3:00 PM

The Russian public, habituated to authoritarianism, wants Russia's rulers to be firm. Yet the true test of a ruler is not to pander to his people's expectations, but to peer into the future and match the country's aspirations with its needs and capacities. In this, Putin's arrogance is failing Russia miserably. His monomaniacal drive to centralise power is driving out the very expertise that the country needs to flourish. Shell and BP are being expelled from the oil industry at the very moment that Russian oil production is declining dramatically. His embittered attempts to counter American power are equally short-sighted: helping Iran develop its nuclear program and selling high-tech weapons to China are hardly in Russia's long-term strategic interest.

It appears that tanker traffic into the Arabian Sea will be halted for at least 5 days! Gonu below 900 mill bars.
Wonder how Abu Dhabi & Dubai will fare with their sand Islands.

Well now we have a senario that no one has considered. A storm in the Persian Gulf to equal Rita and Katrina.
Will it tear up offshore and loading facilities. Also the empty tankers will not be getting into port. I don't know this but I would suspect that tankers already loaded are off loading for safty reasons.

Okay, this is the Car and Driver article I saw at the barbershop a few weeks ago:

Building our way out of congestion.
BY PATRICK BEDARD, May 2007

I’ll bet I know what you were thinking when you heard America’s people counter had rolled over 300 million.

Brake lights, right? Traffic jammed up as far as the eye can see? Mr. and Mrs. America trapped in traffic just as helplessly as those ancient Pompeians were trapped in lava when Mt. Vesuvius blew.
...
Commuters are coping the hard way. According to the National Research Council, about half of all new commuters since 1990 have shifted their drive times to off-peak hours: 25 percent of them leave for work between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., and another 12 percent wait till after 9 a.m. To serve the early birds, more than 90 percent of McDonald’s open an hour earlier now, at 5 a.m. Some commuters leave early to avoid the traffic and then nap in their cars until their cell-phone alarms wake them for work.

Blue-state wisdom says we can’t build our way out of this congestion with new roads; the concrete will barely have time to harden before they’ll clog up, too. Instead, blue-staters say, we have to limit population growth. It’s a quality-of-life issue, goes this wisdom: more for everybody if there are fewer everybodies sitting at the table.

(population figures ...)

Reducing the birth rate so we don’t outgrow our roads raises interesting questions. Hands, please — who thinks traffic will move faster when we have grandpa in every lane? Because that’s what happens when longevity improves in a country with a declining birth rate. The people, on average, get older. Compared with other developed countries, the U.S. has a relatively youthful population. The median age is 36.3 (the age at which half the population is older and half younger). Those countries in the world we think of as friends and allies, Germany, France, and Japan, for example, all have low TFRs. As a result, their populations are older, with median ages 42.2, 38.9, and 42.6, respectively,

(...)

The U.S. is a great nation today because the 48 percent of its people liberated from toil in the fields since 1900 have been doing more important work. The best measure of their cumulative accomplishment is this: American life expectancy during that period has been lifted by 28 years, from age 49 to 77. The question is: Will we get similar benefits from the roughly 63 million additional Americans expected by 2030?

Not if we fritter away their time and energy sitting in jammed traffic. We need to build more roads. We don’t wear the same size shoes we did as kids, and we don’t want the same road system, either, for the same reason. It’s already too cramped for the hale and hearty country we’ve become. The Reason Foundation has been doing original research on highways and mobility for two decades. Reason says we can build our way out of congestion. Details next month.

http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/12752/building-our-way-out-of-conges...

This is June's article:

Take the car or hop a choo-choo?

For a quarter of what we spend at the Home Depot each year, we could end congestion.
BY PATRICK BEDARD, June 2007

... Congestion won’t be a problem just for megacities, either. Between now and then, cities of 250,000 to 500,000 population will see their TTIs worsen the most, with increases of nearly 50 percent on average. Still, compared with L.A., their projected TTIs of 1.15 look relatively painless.

To fix the problem, we need an additional 104,000 lane-miles of capacity, the study says. That’s an increase of only 6.2 percent over the current system. So much for those who claim we’d need to pave the whole country. The cost would be $533 billion over 25 years, or convenient yearly payments of $21 billion.

Is that a lot? Maybe not. In 2005, we spent $41 billion at Lowe’s home-improvement centers, $82 billion at Home Depot, and almost $14 billion on pet food. The Congressional Research Service added up 16,500 earmarks in spending bills in 2005, for a bottom line of nearly $50 billion.

So the price is hardly shocking, but before it can be budgeted for lane-miles, we have to stop kidding ourselves. Are you going to hop the choo-choo to work? Me, neither. Yet “many planners are crossing their fingers and hoping to get people to shift behavior and leave their cars behind,” says the study. “In highly decentralized Los Angeles, where just 4.8 percent of people use transit to commute, over half of the long-range-plan money, $66.9 billion, is being spent on transit.”

That $66.9 billion, if shifted from transit, which commuters shun, to highways, where they swarm, would almost cover the entire $67.7 billion needed to relieve L.A.’s severe congestion.

When it comes to mass transit, I just happen to be an expert, master’s-degree equivalent, I figure, based on my 19 years of living in Manhattan. Everybody hated the “electric sewer,” as we called the subway, stinky and hot in the summer. Buses were worse—they were paralyzed by gridlock, and when they moved, they had to whoa every block or two for pickups and drop-offs. But we rode these systems anyway, and I quickly learned “the calculation.”

How to get there? For every minute of the day and every location on the island, we New Yorkers calculated our best transport choice. If you were within a block of a subway station, and if your destination were within a block on the other end, good deal. If either distance were more than four blocks, you groaned. If you had to change trains, oh, woe! For a group of two or more, share a taxi? No charge for extra passengers. Buses were hopeless, except after 7 p.m., when traffic was thinner, or if you just happened to see the right one bearing down on you. In the rain, you’ll pay up for a taxi, but so will everyone else, so all the cabs are busy.

This calculation was for Manhattan, where the subways stop every eight to ten blocks and any trip over eight stops is an epic. We chose our apartments and restaurants according to transit stops, and a woman worth a train change was a really special date.

I can still do “the calculation,” and it tells me that once you leave Manhattan and maybe Boston and Washington, D.C., “light rail” is a fraud on the taxpayers. Here’s why. Everyone is more than four blocks from the train stops, and so are their destinations. If you have to drive to the train, well, you might just as well keep driving. Even the worst traffic beats having some pierced-tongue gangbanger eyeing you as you wait on a lonely platform. ...

http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/12937/take-the-car-or-hop-a-choo-cho...

Notice he doesn't mention the trolley ...

New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down
The people ride in a hole in the ground,
New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!

'Flip This House' star under scrutiny

McGee and others say Leccima's episodes of "Flip This House," A&E's most popular show, were elaborate hoaxes. His friends and family were presented as potential homebuyers and "sold" signs were slapped in front of unsold houses. They say the home repairs -- the lynchpin of the show -- were actually quick or temporary patch jobs designed to look good on camera.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/bal-flip0604,0,6221424.s...

I watched this a few times. It was basically an advert for how easy it was supposed to be to make money in real estate. Like Trading Spaces, etc. all the construction seemed to happen almost overnight, by people working in their spare time.

Well I suspect gas prices will hit $4 as European crude imports are delayed and gasoline imports to the US are in short supply.

If we actually had gasoline shortages in this country due to a freakin' HURRICANE in the Persian Gulf, it would be the most deeply ironic event I have ever witnessed!

Regarding food, etc., prices, I suspect that those prices in currencies other than USD are pretty flat. Americans just don't get [yet!] that the global economy and a sinking dollar will be reflected in rising prices, especially when the energy costs are, for petroleum products anyway, three quarters external. In other words, the cost of oil in Euros hasn't risen nearly as steeply. If the dollar drops thirty percent and oil remains flat, prices will still rise. What hasn't been stated is that, in global purchasing power parity terms, the wage rate in the US has fallen pretty fast lately. Nevertheless, it's still really high and most folks earnings are being squandered more on mortgages than groceries.

As to pipelines for ethanol, what would the Prohibitionists have made of it? It certainly would help to curtail bootlegging to pipe it. But I guess the alkies have all died off and the problem now is crystal meth. We've come a long way from running applejack from New Jersey to New York.

Re that article about peak oil and racism...I'm not convinced.

It's like those posts we used to get here, wondering why no women were interested in peak oil. Actually, a lot of women were and are interested in it. A lot of the posters here and at PO.com who are widely assumed to be male are not. I suspect it's the same with race. The default setting of human is the U.S. is white, straight, male. It's what we tend to assume people are online, when we have no way of knowing for sure. (On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog. ;-)

I would agree that the poor are probably underrepresented in peak oil forums, but not for the reasons given in the article. Rather, I suspect they are underrepresented online, and in the groups who have the leisure, resources, and connections to attend peak oil conferences and talks. Moreover, those who are poor tend to focus on the very short term. Who cares what gas prices are going to be next year when you can't afford groceries this week?

And it's ironic that they think Doomerism is a turnoff for the poor, when many here accuse the so-called doomers of being the poor, who can't wait until it all goes to heck, so they get a chance to reshuffle the deck, so to speak, rather than play the hand they have.

Interesting take on the Qatar situation....

Dante says that the reason for the huge increase in trucks is that they are using them to build new energy infrastructure. And the fuel shortage is now impacting that construction.

There is already a shortage of trucks to carry building materials like cement, sand and steel, to cope with the rising demand in the booming construction sector and the diesel crisis has compounded the problem.

As it is, trucks are allowed to move within the city limits of Doha only for nine hours a day and now they have to wait in long queues for diesel, further aggravating the situation.

Building materials continue to be in short supply, but transporting stocks when they are available remains a perennial challenge.

Re: The 'Mysteries' of Bushenomics

Is this what "peak everything" feels like in America? Where the greatest return on investment comes not through investment in new and innovative people-employing technologies but rather comes from (1) cost cutting (off-shoring) and (2) from loaning funny-money to the stumbling middle class.

While I still haven't made up my mind how severely the comming PO crisis will unfold and how society will morph into its next stage, I'm reminded about the following :

- the oil business is no gentleman's party
- peak oil is not just only about peak energy, the oil business is far too entangled with the rest of the world affairs and thus PO will add strain to quite a number of systems.

Darfur, china and oil

Gas prices are budget busters for many

Local car advertising - Come buy the energy efficent cars we have
And the other variant (one who shows a bunch of individual used transport)- We have a great selection of trucks and large vehicles. Back at $3.50 gas, 10 to 1 low MPG to higher MPG. When gas prices dropped, so did the ratio - now its back up. A clever monkey (or who who cared) could write a script to watch the used car web sites.

Local mid level manager who drives 60 miles one way mentioned last year that he was spending $800 a month fueling his truck. Told 'get a car - save yourself money', Blew that advice off. at the time. In the last month he figured out he could save $500 or so a month by getting a older car for the work commute.

(I leave it to the reader to figure out where that puts GM and others who's highest margin sales were in the SUV/Truck category.)

900 miles per gallon - sure if ferment sugar and burn the alcohol in an ICE. Someone else calculated as wattage and had 120 mpg as his answer.

Book your trips now! Visit these places before global warming destroys them!

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP07-026/$File/rwp_07_026_muehlegger.pdf

Abstract
This paper examines tax evasion in the context of the diesel fuel market and the response of evaders to regulatory innovation. Diesel fuel used for on-road purposes is taxed, while other uses are untaxed, creating an incentive for firms and individuals to evade on-road diesel taxes by purchasing untaxed diesel fuel and then using or reselling it for on-road use. We examine the effects of a federal regulatory innovation in October 1993, the addition of red dye to untaxed diesel fuel at the point of distribution, which significantly lowered the cost of regulatory enforcement.

Baghdad Burns, Calgary Booms

_{Naomi Klein}

The invasion of Iraq has set off what could be the largest oil boom in history. All the signs are there: multinationals free to gobble up national firms at will, ship unlimited profits home, enjoy leisurely "tax holidays" and pay a laughable 1 percent in royalties to the government.

This isn't the boom in Iraq sparked by the proposed new oil law--that will come later. This boom is already in full swing, and it is happening about as far away from the carnage in Baghdad as you can get, in the wilds of northern Alberta. For four years now, Alberta and Iraq have been connected to each other through a kind of invisible seesaw: As Baghdad burns, destabilizing the entire region and sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms.

------

Now it turns out that the main river feeding the industry the massive quantities of water it needs is in jeopardy. Climate scientists say that dropping water levels are the result--fittingly enough--of climate warming.

Contemplating the collective madness in Alberta--a scene even the Financial Times has labeled "some dystopian fantasy"--it strikes me that Canada has ended up with more than Iraq's displaced oil boom. We have its elusive weapons of mass destruction too. They are out near Fort McMurray, in the jet-black goo beneath the earth's crust. And with the help of trucks, pipes, steam and gas, these weapons are being detonated.

Wyden blasts Bush for filling SPR

_{Senator 'astonished' at transfer to reserve}

As American gasoline prices hit record highs, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) on Monday questioned the timing of the Bush Administration's announcement that it will begin transporting 9.2 million barrels of "Royalty In Kind " crude oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Slated to begin July 1,this would be the first installment of a 27 million barrel transfer to the SPR.

In a letter to President Bush, Wyden expressed concern with the Administration's decision to forego the revenue from the sale of the Royalty In Kind oil - which at current prices could mean more than $1.6 billion for the U.S. Treasury - and further depress the supply of crude oil, which will likely mean higher gas prices for Americans.

Wyden writes: "Unless the Administration has figured out how to repeal the laws of supply and demand, it is economic malpractice to remove 27 million barrels of crude oil from the market when consumers are now buckling under the weight of record high energy retail prices for gasoline. I ask that these purchases be halted to prevent further pressure on oil and gasoline prices when Americans already are suffering from energy costs rising at a far greater rate than their paychecks."

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was created following the 1973 energy crisis, is the world's largest emergency supply of crude oil, with a current inventory of 690 million barrels.

Re: U.S., China to sign pact to develop non-grain bio fuels.

I can not let this pass without commenting. There are so many fallacies in this that it boggles the mind. I will list them according to importance:

1. The arable land area of the world and of any individual country is finite. If other crops are planted on it, the area of land available for food is decreased.

2. Infrastructure is critical in ethanol production because of the huge volumes involved. If sweet potatoes, cassava and sweet sorghum are to be used in place of corn, an infrastructure (futures markets, transportation and storage as well as farming equipment) must be developed on a massive scale that already exists with corn.

3. The last I heard the examples given as alternatives to corn are in fact food. Sweet potatoes for sure. Cassava is. And sweet sorghum is a grain if it is similar to the sorghum we grow here in Iowa. How can a grain be an non-grain? Am I missing something?

4. The basic problem with corn used for ethanol is that the market price for corn is still ridiculously cheap when its energy content is considered. The only way to stop corn ethanol is for the price of corn to rise such that it is no longer economic for ethanol. I believe that price is currently about $5.00 per bushel. At such a price corn would still be economic for food in many cases. Some producers such as pork would have to shut down until the price of food rose. We have had a cheap food policy with subsidies being paid to corn growers for so long that a market price for food which reflects the energy content of corn is now perceived as an outrage. In a post peak oil world with a market economy, energy forms should reflect the appropriate energy content in the price. Many here bemoan the amount of oil used in food production and yet fail to see that food and energy are the same thing. What is wrong is that food prices are not high enough to reflect the energy content in it. When that happens food will out bid ethanol and the problem should solve itself. Many will not like it, but IMO that is the way it has be if you don't want a command ecomomy similar to Castro's Cuba.