Eideard

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

President Barack Obama pitched a plan on Thursday to boost U.S. use of natural gas and open more land for offshore drilling during a campaign-style tour aimed at bolstering confidence in his economic stewardship.

At a stop in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Democratic president sought to counter Republican criticisms of his energy policies as he proposed tax incentives for companies to buy natural gas trucks, which would help build demand for abundant domestic supplies of the fuel…

Obama said the United States needs an “all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above strategy” to develop energy resources at home and that doing so would create American jobs…”A great place to start is with natural gas,” Obama said during a visit to a UPS facility in Las Vegas, which received stimulus funding to invest in liquefied natural gas vehicles and build a public LNG refueling station.

“We’ve got a supply of natural gas under our feet that can last America nearly a hundred years,” he said. “Developing it could power our cars, our homes, and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way. The experts believe it could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade…”

Using domestic natural gas as a cleaner alternative to importing foreign oil has been heavily promoted by Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens and has attracted support from both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Still, Obama’s natural gas truck proposal, which would need congressional approval, could face an uphill battle to make it into law. Republicans, campaigning on promises to cut government spending, would likely resist costly energy subsidies…

Obama also announced that the Interior Department will hold the last scheduled offshore lease sale of the government’s current five-year drilling plan in June, offering 38 million acres for development in the central Gulf of Mexico…

Analysts said those results were a sign that drilling is rebounding in the Gulf after the administration temporarily shut down deepwater exploration after the BP disaster.

The Oil Patch Boys are still whining, of course, about oversight and regulations being resumed. They became accustomed to doing just about anything they wished during the Bush/Cheney years. Reality began to return with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – not that oil companies ever cared much for reality if it hinders profits.

We have the first natural gas-powered bus fleet in the country here in Santa Fe and it is a boon keeping our clean air clean. The cost in gasoline equivalent has risen over the years to $1.61/gallon. With serious federal help, it could be less.

The largest iron-ore mine in Australia will take a leap in efficiency starting next April: 10 automated trucks, one remote driver.

With demand from China and other steel-hungry industrializing economies rising, the massive trucks—programmed to haul ore and waste around the pit using the global positioning system—are part of a push by Rio Tinto PLC to to adopt automated technology to cut costs and ramp up production even in the face of a labor shortage.

Traveling precise routes around Yandicoogina mine and operating 24 hours a day, the trucks will be under the supervision of a single worker in a portable office at the mine, backed up by a control center in Perth that oversees all of the company’s 14 mines, as well as its rail lines and ports, in the distant Pilbara region of Australia’s northwest.

Rio Tinto, which last year said it didn’t have enough truck drivers, drillers or locomotive drivers, is alone among the major iron-ore producers in the Pilbara to adopt the experimental technology. But the Anglo-Australian company says it is confident the autonomous trucks, trains and drill rigs it is testing are creating efficiencies and helping it meet aggressive output targets.

Rio Tinto has been giving the automated trucks a trial at another mine, West Angelas, since late 2008, using five of them to haul waste. It said Wednesday it plans to double its fleet and deploy the trucks to Yandicoogina, where they will carry not just waste but the valuable ore.

“There’s nothing weirder than seeing one of these giant trucks with no driver in it,” said Karen Halbert, a spokeswoman for the company. “They even honk their horn before they back up.”

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One group of people who seem intent on being added to the list [of TV presenter bigots] are ‘Top Gear’ presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. It seems the trio are in the news on a monthly basis with some ignorant remark or another.

Last week Tweedledee, Tweedledum and The Other One insulted people from Mexico and Albania – an impressive feat to rile people from two countries in one week even by their standards. Here’s what they had to say about Mexican people:

Hammond: …Cars reflect national characteristics, don’t they, so German cars are very well built and ruthlessly efficient, Italian cars are a bit flamboyant and quick, a Mexican car’s just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight… leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus, with a blanket with a hole in the middle as a coat.
May: It is interesting, isn’t it, because they can’t do food, the Mexicans, can they? Because it’s all like sick with cheese on it, I mean…
Hammond: Refried sick!
May: Yeah, refried sick.
Hammond: I’m sorry, but just imagine waking up and remembering you’re Mexican: ‘awww, no’.
Clarkson: No, it’d be brilliant… because you could just go straight back to sleep again.

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That’s right. #1 seller in the U.S. is still the F-150

Toyota’s U.S. vehicle sales fell in 2010 while industrywide sales rose 11 percent and every other major automaker reported gains. Ford moved up to second place behind only General Motors…Deliveries in December accelerated to the fastest pace of the year…

“The black clouds from Toyota’s recalls just don’t seem to go away,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends for Santa Monica, California-based auto pricing website Truecar.com. “We saw Ford, GM and Hyundai-Kia come on strong. Brand loyalty isn’t what it used to be.”

Industrywide sales in 2010 totaled 11.6 million, according to Autodata Corp., based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. That’s up from 10.4 million the previous year for the first gain since 2005 and the largest percentage increase since 1984…

Like everything else associated with the Great Recession, you shouldn’t be surprised over dynamic percentage increases. Even the rate of jobs growth is larger than previous recessions – but, it doesn’t always feel like much since we’re starting back from the exceptional pit dug by neocon corruption and laissez-faire economics.

“This is a market that’s coming back significantly,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive, a researcher in Lexington, Massachusetts. “And with really strong products coming from GM, Ford and Chrysler, there’s a lot of opportunity for change in the marketplace…”

Ford was the best-selling make in the U.S. in 2010, displacing Toyota’s namesake brand, which fell to third behind GM’s Chevrolet. Ford sold 1.76 million Ford-brand vehicles last year, while GM sold 1.57 million Chevrolets and Toyota sold 1.49 million Toyota cars and trucks…

Rising consumer confidence and retail spending bode well for car sales and may help boost 2011 industrywide sales, including heavy-duty trucks, to 13 million to 13.5 million vehicles, Don Johnson, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales operations, said today on a conference call.

RTFA for details on each marque. They all bode well. Well enough, I guess, for partisanship to resume among those of us who were cheerleaders for TARP and keeping an entire national industry from going down the tubes to satisfy those who base their dollar politics on redemption tales and the Kool-Aid Party.

Long before recycling became a household word, a Paris prefect called Eugene Poubelle, introduced three separate containers for household waste – glass and pottery, oyster and mussel shells, and the rest – and had horse-drawn carts empty them. Six years later, his surname entered the Academy dictionary as the word for “dustbin”. Now, over a century later, a growing number of French towns are returning to horse-drawn kerbside waste collection, as a better way to recycle.

For Jean Baptiste, mayor of medieval Peyrestortes, near Perpignan and one of 60 towns now using horses to collect waste, the benefit above all is practical. “You can’t turn a waste collection vehicle around here. We used to block streets to traffic and keep waste in open skips.” He sold off a dustbin lorry and acquired two Breton carthorses instead. Asked whether the changes are saving money, he says: “It’s too early. But money isn’t the only reason. The exhaust smells have gone, the noise has gone, and instead we have the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.”

In Saint Prix, however, in Greater Paris, Mayor Jean-Pierre Enjalbert is certain he is saving money as the novelty of the horses has increased recycling rates. “By using the horse for garden waste collection, we have raised awareness. People are composting more. Incineration used to cost us €107 a tonne, ridiculous for burning wet matter, now we only pay €37 to collect and compost the waste.”

Well-established horse-drawn collections also succeed in Trouville, and in Vendargues near Montpellier, but many ventures last only a few months. Sita, France’s second biggest waste management and recycling company, has now integrated the “collecte hippomobile” into three refuse collection circuits in the Aube département in central France.

Sita’s Alexandre Champion, who instigated the idea, points to several factors behind the failed ventures: unsuitable horses, untrained workers or inadequate terrain, poor equipment. Housing estates or old town centres with flat terrain work best, with a circuit of under 20 km a day, he says. But even terrain problems can be overcome, and this autumn Sita starts horse-drawn collection in hilly Verdun, with a pair of strong carthorses…

In Sicily, another place bringing back four-hoofed transport, Mario Cicero, mayor of 14th-century town Castelbuono, disagrees [with naysayers]. He pioneered glass and cardboard collection using two packsaddle donkeys in 2007. Three years on, Cicero has done his sums and calculated a cost saving of 34%, as well as winning over a sceptical population and putting more donkeys to work.

“Compared with €5,000–7,000 annual running costs for a diesel truck, an ass costs €1,000–1,500 and can live 25-30 years. A truck costs around €25,000, lasts around five years and can’t reproduce,” says Cicero, whose four asinelli have now produced 25 offspring, so he won’t even be buying any more.

I knew I recalled blogging about this a few years ago. The Sicilian idea really rocks – and breeding donkeys to expand your workforce, eventually selling to other municipalities is a terrific idea.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

India lives in its villages, Gandhi said. But increasingly, the people of India are dying on its roads.

India overtook China to top the world in road fatalities in 2006 and has continued to pull steadily ahead, despite a heavily agrarian population, fewer people than China and far fewer cars than many Western countries.

While road deaths in many other big emerging markets have declined or stabilized in recent years, even as vehicle sales jumped, in India, fatalities are skyrocketing — up 40 percent in five years to more than 118,000 in 2008, the last figure available.

A lethal brew of poor road planning, inadequate law enforcement, a surge in trucks and cars, and a flood of untrained drivers have made India the world’s road death capital. As the country’s fast-growing economy and huge population raise its importance on the world stage, the rising toll is a reminder that the government still struggles to keep its more than a billion people safe…

The breakdown in road safety has many causes, experts say. Often, the police are too stretched to enforce existing traffic laws or take bribes to ignore them; heavy vehicles, pedestrians, bullock carts and bicycles share roadways; punishment for violators is lenient, delayed or nonexistent; and driver’s licenses are easy to get with a bribe…

International safety experts say the Indian government has been slow to act. Bringing down road deaths “requires political commitment at the highest level,” said Dr. Etienne Krug, director of the department of violence and injury prevention at the World Health Organization. India’s government is “just waking up to the issue,” he said…

RTFA. Detailed, responsible article.

Predictable excuses are at hand – money is always the lead rationale. But, it always comes down to establishing priorities on behalf of ordinary citizens doesn’t it?

General Motors has signed up to a $293 million joint venture with the Chinese state-owned carmaker FAW to make light trucks and vans.

The vehicles will initially be sold in China under the FAW brand, but could in future be exported under the GM brand.

They will be produced at existing FAW facilities in the cities of Changchun and Harbin.

GM sold 818,442 vehicles in China in the first six months of 2009, compared with 1,094,561 in the whole of 2008…

“We are well established in passenger vehicles and mini commercial vehicles and we haven’t had a presence in the truck segment.”

Yes, they may show up on the streets of North America, someday soon.

If only the other manufacturers of diesel-powered vehicles had their act together as well as Audi, we’d be in a better situation here in the United States.

Diesel is cleaner, diesel is cheaper. We’d be saving money as families and as a nation. We’d lower our dependency on foreign oil – because there’s hardly anything easier and cheaper to produce than biodiesel. Yet, new biodiesel refineries are closing because of underutilization.

If you know anyone with a diesel-powered vehicle – who has tried biodiesel – they’ll tell you their critter ran better and cleaner with the veggie product than the stuff refined from petroleum.

Yet, almost every manufacturer who sells a diesel-powered car or small truck somewhere else in the world – is afraid to market it in the United States. Something else we can thank General Motors for – the crap diesel cars they sold decades ago ruined the market for the fearful.

Of course, like Toyota did with the hybrid, manufacturers like Audi [and Volkswagen] have the smarts and cojones to get the jump on everyone else and establish themselves as the source for clean, powerful, economical diesel-power ahead of all the others who could be doing the same.

Like Toyota, Honda, GM’s Opel, Ford – all candyass manufacturers with diesel cars and small pickups they could be selling here.

Here they come, again!

President Barack Obama has promised his administration will move quickly to open U.S. roads to Mexican trucks to end $2.4 billion of Mexican retaliation on U.S. goods, a Mexican official said on Thursday.

Mexico imposed the retaliation in March after Obama signed legislation canceling a pilot program to allow Mexico trucks to operate in the United States, as required under a U.S. commitment to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

U.S. lawmakers said they were canceling the program because of safety concerns, but Mexican officials said the real reason was U.S. protectionism.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood has been leading the Obama administration’s effort to develop a new proposal that would open the border to Mexican trucks.

Safety concerns must not be diminished by cross-border politics.

If we let Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways without requiring them to match standards for driving hours, safety inspections, proper tires – all qualities where Mexican standards aren’t up to U.S. requirements – we’re just adding to existing over-the-road dangers.

The standing joke about the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach used to be that they were like the diesel version of elephant graveyards: the place where old trucks went to die. But lately, they have become a proving ground for technology that produces little or no pollution.

On Tuesday, the first of 25 heavy-duty all-electric trucks rolled off a new Los Angeles assembly line. All are slated to work at the Port of Los Angeles or to make short hauls to and from the harbor. The small fleet results from a partnership involving the Port of Los Angeles, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and a small business called Balqon Corp…

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have launched the nation’s most ambitious port cleanup effort, which bans the oldest and dirtiest trucks and charges cargo fees to help fund the purchase of thousands of new clean diesel and natural gas trucks. The ports also have been offering seed money for promising new technologies.

The Nautilus E30 has a range of 40 miles (under a full load) to 60 miles (when not hauling). It powers up by plugging into a 230-volt or 480-volt charger for about three hours.

Balqon Chief Executive Balwinder Samra received $527,000 from the L.A. port and the air board to fund development of the electric truck. As part of the deal, Samra moved his company from Orange County to Harbor City, near the port, and he will pay a royalty of $1,000 to the port and the air board for every truck he sells that isn’t used at the port.

Bravo! I spent way too much time on the export side of international commerce watching tired old diesels roll down to wheeze and wait to offload at cargo terminals.

I wonder if they’ve gotten rid of the need for bribes to get your shipment out in time, as well.