Free Republic

<p>YONGIN, South Korea (AP) — Hyundai Motor Co. said Monday it believes hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are the future for eco-friendly cars despite challenges of limited infrastructure and slow sales.</p> <p>South Korea’s largest automaker has sold or leased 273 Tucson fuel cell SUVs since beginning production in 2013, lower than its 1,000 target, mostly in Europe and California.</p>

Twelve years ago, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) began testing a unique — and outlandishly expensive — automobile in California: a car powered by hydrogen fuel cells. This so-called FCHV (fuel cell hybrid vehicle) was an electric car that didn’t need to be plugged in. Its electricity was generated by a stack of fuel cells that ran on compressed gaseous hydrogen, a relatively cheap fuel that gives off no harmful emissions; its only byproduct was water vapor. The FCHV never made it to dealer lots, however. Production of plug-in electric cars proved more viable, partially because the FCHV technology was...

While the Obama administration was taking a victory lap last week after the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to uphold the president’s signature legislative accomplishment, Obamacare, the Interior Department was using the media black hole to release a much-awaited five-year plan for offshore drilling. That plan reinstitutes a 30-year moratorium on offshore energy exploration that will keep our most promising resources locked away until long after President Obama begins plans for his presidential library. (snip) In the past three years, the government has collected more than 250 times less revenue from offshore lease sales than it did during the last year...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Co's mostly electric Chevy Volt turned in a lackluster performance for efficiency in its first series of road tests by product raters at Consumer Reports. "We would have really liked to have loved it," David Champion, director of Consumer Reports auto test center told Reuters on Monday after announcing the organization's top picks for 2011. "It was fun to drive and the ride quality was pretty good. But when you look at the finances, for us it doesn't make any sense," Champion said. He said consumers seeking value and top fuel efficiency would be better...

...and he filled tanks feeding the boat’s 200 horsepower Mercury engine with gas that had been blended with 10 percent ethanol. “I heard a station in Greenville had straight gas, but I just took it to the next one I could find. Within 10 minutes, my engine started failing,” Gray said. “(The ethanol) had crystallized and crumbled and had clogged my fuel line, and I had to tear out all of the fuel system.” Gray saved hundreds of dollars by repairing it himself, but his troubles with the motor are nothing new to marine shop owners, lawn mower mechanics and...

Newt Gingrich got himself in a bit of hot water in some conservative circles recently with his support of Ethanol subsidies. It drew the scorn of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who implied that the former speaker might have more than a passing financial interest in propping up King Corn. On Thursday Newt took to the “letters” pages of the WSJ to fire back. In the interest of fairness, we should allow him to make his case. Second, I am not a lobbyist for ethanol, not for anyone. My support of increased domestic energy production of all forms, including...

Rick Santorum's nascent presidential campaign has died with a whimper fueled by a pander. And no matter whether it was born out of ignorance, political expediency or both, there's no excuse. Mr. Santorum, the former U.S. senator and representative of Pennsylvania, spoke to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Tuesday last in Des Moines. All U.S. vehicles should be required to burn ethanol and other biofuels in addition to gasoline, he said. "This is purely and simply a national security issue," said Santorum, a one-time opponent of taxpayer subsidies for alternative fuels, noting that some oil-producing countries are hostile to the...

After almost two decades of effort to reduce vehicle emissions, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will retire its last diesel bus Wednesday and become the only major transit agency in the nation with a fleet that is totally equipped with alternative-fuel technologies. In an urban area where diesel buses began operating in 1940, the MTA now has 2,221 buses powered by compressed natural gas, as well as one electric bus and six gasoline-electric hybrids. Transit officials estimate that the elimination of diesel engines has reduced the release of cancer-causing particulates from the bus fleet by 80% and greenhouse...

Last week, Tom Waterman, the editor and publisher of The Ethanol Monitor, published a list of the top ten enemies of ethanol. Here’s the list: #10: Business Week/Ed Wallace (Bloomberg) #9: GRIST #8: “Big Oil” #7: Grocery Manufacturers Association #6: David Pimentel #5: Robert Rapier #4: Tim Searchinger #3: Wall Street Journal (editorial board) #2: California Air Resources Board #1: Time Magazine (Michael Grunwald) Of course, Waterman can write whatever he likes, but the fact that the ethanol boosters would produce a list of enemies is indicative of just how paranoid the ethanol scammers are getting. And their nuttiness appears...

Energy: Earlier this year, Congress approved a scheme to pour $80 billion — on top of the tens of billions already spent — into renewables. A government report released last week indicates the money will be wasted. Renewable energy is the shiny gem that everyone wants but no one can have. Not even a president. Campaigning last year in Lansing, Mich., President Barack Obama said that it was his goal for the U.S. to generate 10% of its electric power from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025. But he cannot, by the force of will or executive order,...

We first saw Jay Leno's EcoJet mid-engine turbine coupe at the 2006 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Leno, with General Motors' Design Chief, Ed Welburn, and Frank Saucedo, who heads the automaker's west coast studio, penned the design concept. Leno has both a motorcycle and a pickup truck powered by "jet" turbine engines, so the plan was to create an automobile that would run on a similar powerplant fueled by biodiesel. The EcoJet was initially a static exhibit, but one thing about Jay's Garage is that everything runs. So Jim Hall, Bernard Juchli and the other wizards in the Burbank...

Local residents and officials took a peek into the future when they test drove cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells and heard about the need for more hydrogen fueling stations to bring the technology into the mainstream. The demonstration, held at Mahwah Township Hall, was organized by Mahwah Councilman John DaPuzzo and attended Thursday night by about 50 people, including Assemblyman David C. Russo, R-Midland Park, employees from the Oakland Department of Public Works, the Bergen County Police and residents. They got an up-close look at four Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicles that are part of a year-old program called...

The collapse of the ethanol boom continues as a Pratt-based ethanol producer is the latest to file bankruptcy. Gateway Ethanol LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, estimating it owes between $50 million and $100 million. The filing comes weeks after Minneapolis-based Dougherty Funding LLC sought to have Gateway placed in emergency receivership to preserve any money being returned to creditors. It moved to foreclose on the company’s plant in May, saying Gateway defaulted on a $54.3 million loan used to build the facility. In a motion field in the U.S. District Court of Kansas in September, Dougherty noted...

Energy Policy: The speaker of the House touts natural gas as an "alternative fuel like wind." Could it be that this time she's put her money where her mouth is?Somewhere in the universe there may be a planet where natural gas is considered an alternative form of energy, but on this one it's still considered a fossil fuel. Yes, it's clean-burning — "the cleanest of all fossil fuels," as the Natural Gas Supply Organization puts it. But it's still a fossil fuel formed deep within the earth, like its coal and petroleum cousins, by extreme pressure and heat. Speaker Pelosi,...

PARIS (AFP) - The OECD favours a moratorium on expanding biofuel production, a senior official with the Paris-based body said on Wednesday following the release of a report critical of vegetable-based fuels. "It would make a lot of sense to have a moratorium," Stefan Tangermann, head of agriculture and trade analysis at the OECD told AFP...

As Price of Grain Rises, Catfish Farms Dry Up By DAVID STREITFELD LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds. “It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil. As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.” Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price...

Up! Up! Up! The world is consuming more and more energy and, as if by miracle, the amount left to consume grows ever higher. Never before in human history has energy been accessible in greater abundance and in more regions, never before has mankind had more energy options and faced a brighter energy future.Take oil, the scarcest of the major energy commodities. In the Americas, proven oil reserves have increased from 170 billion barrels to 180 billion barrels over the last two decades, according to the 2008 Statistical World Review from British Petroleum. In Europe and Eurasia, proven oil reserves...

Finding direction in wind. T. BOONE PICKENS KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT THE ENERGY business, and right now he's really, really into wind. His private firm, Mesa Power, is buying leases in the American heartland for a massive wind-power project whose first phase includes about 700 windmills on 400,000 acres near Pampa, Tex. By its completion in 2014, Pampa should be the world's largest wind farm, generating enough electricity to light 1.3 million homes. The legendary Texas oil man isn't alone. Some $9 billion of new wind projects boosted U.S. wind-power-generation capacity 46% last year. That, says a U.S. Department of Energy...

I frequently travel through West Texas, eastern New Mexico, and the Oklahoma Panhandle and almost every time I am on an interstate in one of these three areas, I pass a caravan of tractor trailer rigs carrying blades for wind turbines. Wind turbines, which are popping up across the windswept southern plains or the elevated areas of eastern New Mexico, are roughly one hundred feet tall with three blades, each of which are approximately fifty feet long. Moreover, the construction of more of these “environmentally friendly” beasts is constantly pushed by those who believe one above ground oil rig would...

On the eve of the 4th of July, 2008, Americans are arguably as angry about being taxed without representation as at any time since they declared their independence from Great Britain. At the moment, they are furious about having no say over what amounts to a “tax” levied in the form of extortionate fuel prices driven by the supply-manipulating OPEC oil cartel. As was true 232 years ago, we must channel that anger into action. This will require not just declaring independence from the Saudi-led oil monopoly, but taking the steps necessary to secure our freedom. OPEC is able to...