Forums: Fuel Injection

San Francisco, California – Proposed U.S. fuel economy rules will mean that seven million Americans will not be able to afford to buy a new car or truck in 2025, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). NADA director Forrest McConnell, a Honda and Acura dealer in Montgomery, Alabama, said that proposed fuel economy rules by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will create a US$3,200 increase in vehicle prices over those in 2010, and will limit the ability of many consumers to buy the vehicles they want or need. Testifying at an EPA hearing regarding the rules, McConnell said...

According to a recent NY Times article, gasoline refineries will pay a $6.8 million penalty for failing to meet the fuel blending requirements under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. There is only one problem: the quantity of commercial biofuel needed to meet the blending requirements does not exist. In a press release issued by the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association on this issue, Association President Charles T. Drevna stated: “Once again, [the Environmental Protection Agency] has acted unwisely to make a bad law worse with regulations not based on reality and science. Once again, refiners are being ordered...

Key US oil supplier may cut off spigot SundayCHRIS KAHN, AP Energy Writer Saturday, January 14, 2012 NEW YORK (AP) — One of the biggest suppliers of oil to the United States may shut off the spigot this weekend, pushing crude and gasoline prices higher for Americans. Nigeria, which supplies 8 percent of U.S. oil imports, could see production halted if striking workers walk off the job Sunday. Workers are demanding the return of a vital government fuel subsidy that has kept gasoline prices low in that impoverished and restive nation of 160 million people. It’s unclear how much of...

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota granted a fourth extension of state aid for study of a plan to build a coal-to-liquid fuel factory, while the project's developers wait to see if the political climate in Washington changes after the presidential election. Dallas-based North American Coal Corp. and Headwaters Inc. of South Jordan, Utah, formed American Lignite Energy LLC in 2007 to oversee construction and operation of the $4 billion plant at a yet-to-be chosen site in western North Dakota. David Straley, a North American Coal Corp. spokesman said a decision on whether to start construction depends on a change of political climate...

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law. But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist. In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required...

James Woolsey is one of the green movement's more intriguing leaders. Since leaving public service - his career includes being head of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993-1995 - he has become an energy expert and Clean Tech Investor for VantagePoint Venture Partners and Lux Capital. Behind his clean technology focus lies a desire to reduce the United States' dependence on fossil fuels imported from the Middle East. He is one of the driving forces behind the Open Fuel Standard Act. The Open Fuel Standard Act, if enacted as law, would require auto manufacturers to ensure that an increasing percentage...

Quetta, Pakistan - Assailants torched more than 20 tankers in Pakistan carrying fuel for U.S. and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan on Thursday, in the first reported attack since Islamabad closed the border to protest coalition airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops last month. Several hundred trucks have been stranded at poorly guarded terminals around the country as they wait for Pakistan to reopen its two border crossings into Afghanistan. Around 40 percent of the non-lethal supplies for U.S.-led troops in landlocked Afghanistan travel across Pakistani soil.

Keeping American vehicles rolling in Afghanistan while avoiding the perils of hauling in fuel via ground transportation is costing the military big time. Frosty relations between the U.S. and Pakistan - which led to Pakistan closing its border to Afghanistan-bound truck traffic- haven't helped, either. The Pentagon is increasingly relying on parachute drops of fuel and other supplies to bases in remote parts of Afghanistan, and as Nathan Hodge of the Wall Street Journal reports, the military estimates such deliveries are spiking the ultimate price of a gallon of fuel to as much as $400 per gallon.