Plug-In Hybrid Leads Toyota’s Drive Beyond Oil

June 11, 2008 in science
Tags: Chevrolet Volt, GM, oil dependence, plug-in hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrids, Toyatas for 2010, Toyota

An article about the release of Toyota’s plug in Hybrid scheduled for release in 2010:

It’s no secret Toyota’s been working on a plug-in hybrid to compete against the forthcoming Chevrolet Volt, but Wednesday’s announcement sets a firm deadline and makes it clear Toyota has no plans of ceding the green mantle to General Motors. It also underscores how quickly the race to build a viable mass-market electric car is heating up.

read more | digg story

Technorati Tags:gas prices, plug-in hybrids, plug-in hybrid vehicles, toyota 2010, chevrolet volt. gm, recharge your hybrid from the wall socket
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Tax incentives go up in smoke, businesses still fail to make money

November 6, 2007 in education, environment, science, science and society, sustainability
Tags: biofuels, corn ethanol, cost of biofuels, environment, ethanol, fuel economics, green, oil dependence

As reported by Timothy Gardner of Reuters, ethanol prices are so low that producers are not making any profit.

U.S. weekly ethanol margins still in the dumps

by Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) – U.S. ethanol margins ticked a few cents higher this week as producers fetched slightly higher prices for the renewable fuel, but the average producer was still making next to no profit, analysts said Friday.

So, production of ethanol is

• ruining the food economy
• polluting the rivers (and streams and Gulf of Mexico and everything else) with agricultural runoff
• eliminating grasslands
• using up water in water-poor regions

and the bad news is … nobody is even getting rich off this behavior! Oh, and it is having zero impact on our need for foreign oil. The robber barons of old must be turning over in their graves.

More from Mr. Gardner:

“When gasoline prices are much higher than ethanol prices, some blenders add more ethanol to gasoline than required by law, which eventually boosts prices for the renewable fuel.

But the slighter better ethanol margins were not enough to line the pockets of renewable fuel producers

“When you consider overhead costs, you’re probably below break even,” Ron Oster, an ethanol analyst at Broadpoint Capital, Inc, in Missouri, said in an interview.”

Why such trouble? Because the corn-ethanol business faces problems like

“rising prices for natural gas, used to power most bio-refineries, [that] cut profit margins down to about break even”

Read the whole article for bleak projections of profit, more explanation of high production costs and revelations about the poor efficiency of many ethanol plants.

Why are we subsidizing this industry, and why are we pretending that it is good for the environment?

© James K. Bashkin, 2007

Technorati Tags:ethanol, corn ethanol, tax incentives, biofuels, economics of biofuels, false green policies, energy cost of ethanol, environmental cost of ethanol
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator