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Dispatches from the heart of oil country

I am here in sunny Houston today with Carl Pope, our executive director, who will be addressing today's huge energy confab.

Oil City USA is about what you'd expect. (I have some expertise on the subject, having briefly called Houston home a few years ago.) Instead of expanding public transport to its rapidly-growing Western suburbs, Houston decided that spending billions to tear down buildings and seize land within a thousand feet on either side of a 20-plus mile stretch of the freeway and expanding it to an even more obscene size was the better option.

I can only assume that my daily cursing of the D.C. Metro's foibles resulted in the karmic payback of being forced to crawl along in my rented Prius at ten miles per hour or less today for the better part of an hour as I headed to the conference.

(I spent this time dipping into my reserve of outrage as I listened to the President's press conference and his contradictory answers on skyrocketing gas prices and ridiculous attacks on the renewables tax package that the House passed by sizable margin yesterday.)

I'll be providing updates on the goings-on here throughout the day. They cap off with a speech this evening from Sen. Hillary Clinton. If the barrage of campaign ads from Hillary, Obama, and even Ron Paul is any measure, the battle for Texas ahead of March 4 is pretty fierce and I am quite interested in her remarks to these energy heavyweights.

Ralph Nader chooses running mate

Ralph Nader has chosen former San Francisco City Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as a running mate for his 2008 presidential bid. Gonzalez was elected as a San Francisco supervisor in 2000 — the first Green Party candidate to hold the job. In 2003, Gonzalez narrowly lost a bid for San Francisco mayor to Gavin Newsom, the […]

The dangers of funding new coal-fired plants

Indeed. This paper (PDF) on the risks of investing in new coal-fired power plants is worth reading.

Suboleski withdraws; remaining Appalachian mountaintops breathe sigh of relief

A while back I noted that Bush had nominated one Stanley Suboleski for the position of assistant secretary for fossil energy at the DOE, where he would "oversee projects such as developing clean-coal technologies and carbon sequestration, and polices related to fossil fuels" — including FutureGen, which the dept. recently shitcanned. Suboleski is a long-time […]

A timeline of changes in automotive fuel economy

This should be perfectly obvious, but automotive technologies have changed an awful lot over the last few decades. From about 1975 through 1987, federal standards prompted massive and surprisingly rapid improvements in fuel economy. Cars designers focused on nimbleness and efficiency over raw power, and the fuel savings were enormous.

But since the late 1980s, most engineering advances have focused on making cars more muscular, and fuel efficiency has taken a back seat.

For graphic proof, take a look after the jump at a nifty chart ...

NYC unveils new stepped-up emission standards for ‘black taxis’

New York City has unveiled new emission standards for its fleet of 10,000 “black taxis” (aka, limos and town cars) that service mostly corporate clients. The plan effectively mandates shifting to hybrid vehicles by 2009 to meet the increased standards of 25 miles per gallon in 2009, and 30 mpg by 2010. The fleet now […]

Mr. Straight Talk voted against requiring double-hulled tankers after the biggest oil spill

You’re likely aware that the notorious Exxon Valdez case is back in court yet again. Yesterday, the Most Profitable Company of All Time argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it shouldn’t have to pay $2.5 billion in damages to Alaskans harmed by the spill. (That was reduced from the original $5 billion, but Exxon […]

Could Canadian oil be the most destructive on earth?

Check out this new report from Environmental Defence Canada. The title sort of says it all: "Canada's Toxic Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project On Earth" (PDF).

I found the title a bit overheated at first, but take a look before you decide. The claim may be debatable, but it's also not mere hyperbole: the tar sands oil extraction very well could be the most destructive project on earth. In fact, it's already yielding catastrophic results for human health, not to mention for a vast swath of North America's ecology. (In any case, I've had the privilege of working on climate policy a bit with one of the authors, Matt Price, and I can attest that he's a smart guy, not prone to exaggeration.)

I won't summarize the study here, but just point out that among the many problems with tar sands oil, is that it can only be extracted and processed with very large energy inputs (which means huge carbon emissions):

Air doing OK, say officials; water, perhaps not so much

Beijing officials were recently accused of falsifying statistics and manipulating data to make the city’s air pollution seems less of a problem in the run-up to the Summer Olympics. Unsurprisingly, a spokesperson for the city’s Environmental Protection Bureau refutes the accusation, insisting, “We will honor all the environmentally related pledges made during the Olympic bid. […]

California must seek permission to implement ship-emissions rule, court says

A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down a California rule aimed at reducing smog-causing emissions from ships in the Los Angeles area. The state had argued that it had the authority to implement the rule without seeking permission from the U.S. EPA since it was simply regulating the fuel used in older, more-polluting auxiliary […]