Gene Coan does not worry about the price of gasoline, nor is he concerned with his gas and electric bill. Gene powers his home and car with solar photovoltaics (PV) and also uses solar hot water heating. With his Zenn electric-vehicle (EV) Gene rides on sunlight. Fleets are using solar car ports. VW and Mitsubishi are demonstrating electric vehicles with solar roofs.
Oil prices neared $100 per barrel as hundreds of leading investors converged at the Pacific Growth Equities Clean Technology Conference. A number of exciting companies presented next generation biofuels that promise to reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign oil. Look for a freedom harvest including cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, and biogasoline.
Americans are screaming for lower gasoline prices. In São Paulo, Brazil, the price of gasoline is R$2.43/liter, ethanol is only R$1.48/liter, disclosed Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency. Brazil has reduced its petroleum dependency by 40% with sugarcane ethanol. The United States and Brazil together produce about 90 percent of global fuel ethanol. In the United States the current benefits of ethanol are far behind Brazil.
People buying new cars are asking if they should get a high mileage hybrid that runs on asoline, or a flex-fuel vehicle that could run on E85 ethanol. The United States DOE’s and EPA’s fueleconomy.gov, made it easy for car buyers to compare choices.
The United States Marine Corp (USMC), like all branches of the Department of Defense (DoD), is exploring the use of hydrogen and other forms of clean transportation. One major motivation is that the fuel which runs U.S. Defense operations comes from oil. That oil is increasingly controlled by countries that have declared their animosity to the United States. If military fuel is controlled by the enemy, then our ability to defend this country is crippled
Thank you to the millions that used less oil in 2006. For the first time in 20 years, the International Energy Agency show oil consumption in the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fell 0.6% in 2006. The drop was slight, but most encouraging to all who seek energy independence, averting a climate crisis, and healing an economy “addicted to oil.”