More on the potential risk to America’s car and truck fleet posed by E15 – gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol that has EPA approval: Just-released research indicates that more than 5 million existing cars and light trucks, which EPA says are OK for E15 use, could develop engine problems as a result.

Why this discrepancy?  The Coordinating Research Council (CRC), a non-profit entity supported by the automotive and oil and petroleum industries, tested the durability of engines using tests that have been conducted for more than a decade to determine how well engines would hold up with a new fuel. 

On the other hand, the Department of Energy (DOE) and EPA tested the catalyst system and then used the results of those tests to say the engine would be fine.  It’s a bit like taking a rea... more »

A recent post on the White House Blog updates the administration’s effort to see federal agencies make at least $2 billion in energy efficiency upgrades over the next two years. Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, writes that agencies have identified $2.1 billion in projects that will pay for themselves using performance-based contracts. Zichal:

“Of the $2.1 billion in energy upgrade projects identified by agencies, more than $100 million in Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) and Utility Energy Savings Contracts (UESCs) have been awarded already, and an additional $1.2 billion in projects are in development – demonstrating strong momentum towards meeting the President’s goal.”

Later, Zichal notes that increased energy efficie... more »

We've said energy shouldn't be a zero-sum game - that pursuing some energy resources shouldn't come at the expense of others. America needs all the energy it can develop. Most Americans seem to recognize this, and the notion that energy winners and losers are being picked probably is a factor in new polling that shows less than 14 percent think the country is on the right energy track.

That said, a new study by T2 and Associates shows the oil and natural gas industry is doing more than talking about an all-of-the-above energy strategy, having invested $71 billion in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2010.

That's almost as much as the rest of private industry combined ($74 billion) and way more than the federal government ($43 billion) over the same period.

The administration is trumpeting a newly released plan it says could save $10 billion over five years by eliminating hundreds of regulations and streamlining the federal bureaucracy. Cass Sunstein, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs:

"Today, we are announcing that agencies are releasing their final regulatory reform plans, including hundreds of initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency. As the plans demonstrate, a great deal has been achieved in a short time. Significant burden-reducing rules have been finalized or publicly proposed from the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Transportation."

Writing in the Wall Street Journal [subscription requi... more »

Yesterday, our oil sands tour took us an hour south of Fort McMurray to ConocoPhillips' (COP) Surmont facility where we viewed the oil extraction process called steam assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD. The bitumen, or oil and sand mixture, is well below ground at this site. To give you an idea on how deep it's buried, you'd have to take an elevator 90 floors beneath the earth to get to it. The bitumen in its virgin state is very hard--like a chunk of honey. Our Canadian guides like to compare it to a hockey puck.

The SAGD process uses steam to soften the bitumen underground so that it can be extracted, processed and transported through a pipeline for further processing. Two parallel wells are drilled on each well pad: One for steam injection to heat the bitumen-rich sand, and another run... more »