An oil refinery burns in Ichihara. Image: Cranky5

The unimaginable scale of devastation in Japan has brought a temporary halt to production of Japanese automobiles. Mazda has announced a temporary shutdown of their Hiroshima and Hofu plants through the night shift on March 16, with further announcements on production expected on March 17. Honda is suspending production at most of their Japanese facilities through March 20, and an announcements are expected from Nissan and Toyota today. Although the bulk of Japan’s auto industry lies south of the most heavily damaged areas, the massive damage to the country’s infrastructure will impact the delivery of parts to automakers as well as the delivery of completed vehicles to ports. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has ordered rolling power blackouts to conserve electricity, and it may be some time before we fully understand the extent of the disaster’s impact on the world’s economy.

Japan is the world’s third largest consumer of crude oil, and the scope of the disaster will have a significant impact on the amount of oil imported into Japan. Experts expect to see a short term drop in consumption, as Japan gets refineries back on line and roads rebuilt. In the long term, it’s likely that Japan will see an increase in demand for crude oil, as it will take significant resources to rebuild the damaged infrastructure. In the short term, it’s likely that the crisis in Japan will drive down crude oil prices, but the long term results remain anyone’s guess.

Source: Autoblog Green

When I made my car related predictions for the coming year, I said that gas would top $4.00 a gallon by the end of 2011. I also said that it probably wouldn’t slide back below $3.00 per gallon, as we’ve grown accustomed to over the years. Recent political unrest in the Middle East appears to have accelerated the timeline for that gasoline price jump, and energy tracking company DTN is predicting that it’ll rise even higher. In fact, they say we should be prepared to spend as much as $5.00 per gallon by this summer.

At issue is political unrest in Libya, which contains the largest known oil reserves in Africa. The current situation has reduced Libyan oil output by three-quarters, but OPEC still has a global surplus capacity of 5 million barrels per day. There’s concern, however, that political unrest in Libya will spread to other parts of the Middle East, eventually impacting oil supply. That concern alone is enough to drive up the price of crude oil, currently trading at near record highs of $119 per barrel.

I wouldn’t press the panic button just yet, but I would re-think buying a 40 foot motorhome about now. On the other hand, if you don’t have a motorcycle license, it may be a really good time to go and get one.

Source: Left Lane News

Announcing that you’ve just invented synthetic fuel that produces zero carbon emissions and costs just $1.50 a gallon is a great way to get oil company commandos to burn down your house. But that’s just what a company in the U.K. has done. Cella Energy, an advanced materials lab, says it can turn hydrogen into a fuel that’ll free the world from grasp of fossil fuels.Not surprisingly, the announcement has been viewed with some skepticism. In all honesty, it’s like saying you’ve developed a cure for cancer that uses distilled teddy bear kisses.

So what, exactly, has Cella developed? Tiny, tiny little bubbles that can trap hydrogen. As we all know, hydrogen goes boom really well when you put a match to it. But it’s nearly impossible to store. It’s the lightest and smallest element around and likes to squeeze through the tiniest cracks or even push through porous materials. The best hydrogen tanks leak, there’s simply no way around it. Until now. Cella uses a nanostructuring technique called coaxial electrospraying to trap hydrogen in tiny bubbles. These bubbles are so small that when you put a ton of them in a vial, teacup, or gas tank, they act like a liquid. That liquid burns just like gasoline in an internal combustion engine. And you can store it at room temperature in uncompressed tanks.

It sounds too good to be true. One question pops into my mind: What are the bubbles made of? What happens when you burn them? Well, the bubbles are themselves made up of hydrogen compounds, so they combust with the gaseous hydrogen within them. And when you burn hydrogen, the resulting exhaust consists of nothing more than water vapor.

Cella says the most likely use for its fuel is as an additive to existing gasoline or diesel fuels. Cella hydrogen additive would reduce carbon emissions drastically. What about pure Cella hydrogen fuels? Not likely. Extracting pure hydrogen from water or other hydrocarbons like natural gas is energy intensive and expensive. Of course, those processes may become more efficient and cost effective in the future. And remember, the resulting pure hydrogen Cella fuel just needs to be cheaper or the same price as gasoline, which isn’t getting any cheaper.

Source: Cella Energy

Buried deep in the bottom of the news last week was the fact that the EPA gave its approval for E15 fuel to be sold alongside current gasoline and gasoline / ethanol blends. If you own a motorcycle, use gas-powered lawn equipment and drive cars older than the 2007 model year, this is potentially bad news. Why the concern? There are several reasons, but the big one is that fuel formulated with 15% ethanol may damage plastic and rubber components used in automotive fuel systems prior to 2007. In motorcycles using plastic fuel tanks, there is already significant evidence that E10 formulations cause the plastic to distort, creating the potential of a fuel leak and associated fire. If you’re the owner of a small gas station or convenience store, the news gets even bleaker.

Since E15, like diesel fuel, can’t be used by every car on the road, station owners may be required to install separate tanks just for E15 fuel. Installing new underground tanks (and, presumably, more pumps) is a major financial burden, particularly when the product in question has limited demand. Worse, what happens when you need gas in your bike (or pre-2007 car) and find that only E15 is available? Do you roll the dice and hope that one tank won’t cause permanent damage? Will that even be an option, since E15 is technically not “approved” for pre-2007 vehicles?

You can call me an alarmist, but a group of engine manufacturers (the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute) recently sued to block the approval of E15 fuel. If they’ve got concerns that E15 may not be safe to store in existing underground storage tanks, or use in outdoor power equipment or older engines, maybe you need to be concerned as well.

Source: New York Times

The guys over at Edmunds Inside Line always put out some great stuff. Take this quick video they did on the differences between conventional motor oil vs. synthetic. Sure it’s not that long, but it doesn’t have to be to answer a few simple questions that the general public has been asking for years. Obviously at the end of the day you want to read your cars owners manual for the straight truth as it pertains to your specific vehicle. At least now though you’ll have a better understanding of what makes your car tick.

Source: Insideline.com

The latest numbers on gasoline consumption are in from the American Petroleum Institute, and to no one’s surprise overall demand is down nearly 1% in the first six months of this year. Demand for the month of June is lower by 0.5%, marking the lowest demand in the month of June since 2004. As Autoblog points out, gas was selling for an average of $2.00 a gallon back then, compared to $2.70 per gallon today. There have been higher spikes in pricing with no corresponding drop in demand, but that was back in the days when the economy was relatively healthy and people had jobs.

Chief economist for the API, John Felmy, added his interpretation to the reported numbers:

“The listless economic recovery continues to take a bite out of gasoline demand. It’s clear from the gasoline deliveries data that consumer confidence in the economy remains shaky. This certainly supports API’s position that increased taxes or other anti-jobs policies by Congress or the administration could increase unemployment and harm our economic recovery.”

Politics aside, one thing is clear: the decrease in demand is not due to Americans converting to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. From where I sit, it’s simple economics – if you don’t have to drive, and you need to save money, cutting back on the use of a car is one place to start. I know far too many good people who are still unemployed to believe the whole “economic recovery” fairy tale that the news media is trying to propagate, and I really hope things start to turn around soon.

A barrel of oil holds 44 gallons of crude, but what is that crude oil turned into? The folks at The Daily Green recently took a look at what happens to those 44 gallons of crude, as illustrated by the above chart. It’s pretty clear that a barrel of oil gives us 18.56 gallons of gasoline, 10.31 gallons of diesel and 4.07 gallons of jet fuel, but what about the “Other Products” category? What does seven gallons of crude oil from every barrel go into making?

Some things won’t come as a surprise, since everyone knows that petroleum is used to make plastics. Did you know that it’s used to make antifreeze? How about anesthetics? Petroleum based products are used to preserve food, make medicines (cortisone and antihistamines, to name two), create paints for cars and houses and even create detergents to clean the stuff we get grease on. Synthetic rubber? Oil based. Glycerin? Made with oil.

Even when we do find a viable replacement for oil to power our vehicles, heat our houses and generate electricity, it’s going to be a while before we shed our overall dependence on petroleum products in our daily lives. After all, no one’s figured out how to make plastic wood out of hydrogen.

Photo: NASA

Coast Guard officials are reporting that oil from the sunken Deepwater Horizon may have reached the coast of Louisiana. A massive coordinated effort to contain the spill is underway, including teams from the U.S Navy and civilian contractors. Containment booms have been placed at strategic points along the Louisiana coast, and teams are working to skim as much of the oil as possible. A separate effort is underway to contain and ignite some of the spilled oil, preventing it from reaching shore.

Attempts to block the flow of oil since the rig sank eight days ago have failed, and the rig continues to leak an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil per day. To put this in perspective, the Exxon Valdez leaked approximately 250,000 barrels when it ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in March of 1989. BP, the company that leased the Deepwater Horizon, is cooperating with Federal authorities in attempting to find a solution and plug the leaking well. Key to this is activating the rig’s blowout preventer, and six deep water submersibles are currently engaged in activity to fix the the blowout preventer valve.

No one knows exactly how much oil is left hidden beneath the earth’s surface, but we can all agree on one thing: it is a finite supply. The U.S. military is well aware of this, and is looking at developing alternative energy solutions for troop and material deployment to preserve the fossil fuel we have left. As you’d imagine, the Department of Defense probably has more than a few people assigned to the task of projecting just how much fermented dinosaur juice remains untapped. Their recent findings don’t bode well for those of us who enjoy the sound of a V8 at full throttle.

Per the D.O.D’s less-than-optimistic projections, surplus oil production will cease as soon as 2012, with production falling behind demand to the tune of 10 million barrels per day by 2015. Worldwide demand for oil is expected to exceed 86.6 million barrels per day in 2010, exceeding the record of 86.5 million barrels per day set in 2007, before the global economy was flushed down the crapper. Add in the growing demand for automobiles in places like China and India, and you can safely bet that worldwide demand for fossil fuel isn’t going to be decreasing any time soon.

Let’s hope that these projections are truly the dire worst case; after all, our military isn’t known for viewing the glass as being half full. As unpleasant as it may be, I can learn to embrace a future without gasoline powered cars and motorcycles (once the bugs are worked out of electric vehicles, of course). It’s the rest of the baggage associated with the collapse of the oil industry that concerns me.

Source: US Military Sees Massive Oil Shortages As Soon As 2015

If you haven’t had a chance to see the hundreds of youtube videos of bored Middle Eastern dudes with too much money to spend doing insane stunts on sandy roads, then perhaps this wild custom motorcycle commissioned by the Abu Dhabi Police Department and built by Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers fame won’t make much sense. To be frank, even if you have, it might not. Car culture and conspicuous consumption have been exploding in the oil-rich Gulf nations, and the Abu Dhabi “Barbican Turbo” car show is a sign of the times.

The Abu Dhabi police hope that the bike will help them bond with the public at large, and is set to go on a full-on tour of the city, surrounded by a full police escort, as part of an outreach campaign (as opposed to the usual police outreach involving water cannons, rubber bullets, and healthy applications of riot batons). In addition to the Falcon bike, there will be a European Drift Championship, a show car competition (with, interestingly enough, prizes provided mostly by Swiss travel companies), a “United Arab Emirates National Dyno Shoot-Out” engine challenge, and a Marc Ecko graffiti competition. It sounds wild and improbable, and sort of makes me wish I had a few million in oil wealth so I could go play in the sand with the sheiks and their cars.

[Source]