Propane isn't just for barbeques anymore.

CleanFuel USA has received a $12.9 stimulus grant from the Department of Energy that it will use to install liquid propane pumps at 100 gas stations. The startup is working with ConocoPhillips on spreading the propane news so expect to see many of these first propane pumps to pop up there. 

The first station will be installed in Atlanta, followed by Chicago, Houston, Denver and Sacramento. The second phase of the project will target 14 other cities, including Los Angeles, Austion, Kansas City, Orlando, Seattle and New Orleans.

Propane is cleaner burning than gasoline, according to CleanFuel CEO Curtis Donaldson. While it may not be the perfect alternative, propane has a few big advantages over cellulosic ethanol or algae-based biodiesel for vehicles, he says.

It’s available now. It won’t take Nobel Prize-quality breakthroughs in research and development to bring it to market and it’s not outrageously expensive.

Propane prices, like gasoline and diesel, have grown. But while they are higher than they’ve ever been, propane prices haven’t risen as much. It costs about $2.30 per gallon, not including a 50 cent-per-gallon federal credit, Donaldson said.

It also is domestically produced.

There are already around 300,000 cars and 5 million forklifts running on propane in the U.S. Propane will likely compete more directly with natural gas and methanol for the fleet car business as time goes on.

If everyone swapped their cars for electric ones, could we bankrupt OPEC?

Close. If all the cars and trucks in the U.S. could be traded in for electric cars, approximately 81 percent of U.S. oil imports could be eliminated, said Winfried Wilcke, IBM Program Director at the Almaden Institute, a two-day conference on energy storage taking place at IBM's Almaden laboratory south of San Jose, Calif.

The U.S., he noted, consumes 20 million barrels a day and 14 million barrels of that total, or around 70 percent, are imported. Light vehicles (aka cars) consume 63 percent of the oil in the U.S.

How much oil is 20 million barrels in real world terms? If you had a lake that was 100 meters square, it would have to be 396 meters deep, or 1,300 feet deep, to accommodate the fluid from 20 million barrels.

Scientists at Purdue University have devised a new coating for glass, plastic and other surfaces that lets you wipe away oil stains with plain water.

“You add water, and the oil just comes right off like magic,” said Jeffrey Youngblood, Ph.D., lead researcher on the project, in a prepared statement that one day could also serve as a sales pitch. Oh, Billy Mays, how we miss you.

Easier-to-clean surfaces would ultimately reduce demand for harsh industrial household cleaners. A paper on the material, delivered at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), asserts that the same coatings can be added to window cleaning sprays and used to prevent bathroom mirrors or automobile windshields from fogging up. The trick is that the material itself is coated with an upper layer of a Teflon-like substance that causes oil to slip away.

Others have experimented with putting nano-scale bumps onto a surface to cause water drops to roll off. Some animals in Africa's harsh deserts have microscopic bumps in their skin to capture dew from breezes, which the animal then drinks.

 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Electric cars will be great, says Alan Shaw, CEO of biofuel maker Codexis, particularly for drivers that may not be born yet.

"One day we might get there," he said during a roundtable discussion at the Western Energy Summit taking place at NASA Ames in Mountain View today. "But the existing infrastructure supports the internal combustion engine. That is not going to change lightly. I'm not sure if it will change in our lifetime."

"Oil and gas and diesel are the fuels of today and the internal combustion engine is the transportation of choice today," he added. "The internal combustion engine will stay, although the fuel will change... The electric car for me is a bit of a dream."

Well, there's a way to make friends. Shaw makes some very good points, even if they may not sit well with everyone or may be a bit pessimistic. Electric cars are expensive, batteries still need to be technologically enhanced, and swapping out the existing car infrastructure will take years. Some cars go for 30 and 40 years. After Californians drive them, many go to emerging nations where they drive on for decades.

"One day we might get there" with electric cars, he added.

Others, such as the Director of Sustainable Development in the R&D division of the Environmental Protection Agency, pointed out that these "new" fuels to replace oil, diesel and gas will take years too. Biofuels only make a fraction of the world's liquid fuels and U.S. is already behind, by many estimates, in meeting its goals for cellulosic ethanol.

Shaw actually agreed with this. It will take $50 billion to $100 billion in investment for the U.S. to meet its renewable fuel standards. Startups just don't have that. Ultimately, biofuel companies will have to link up with petroleum giants. The consolidation process will begin soon.

It will be like musical chairs.

"There are so many chairs. When all of the chairs have gone, there is nowhere to sit," Shaw said. "When all of those investments [from large oil companies] are made, that could be it... The large industrialists will really drive this sector."

Cap-and-trade legislation is being debated in Washington D.C. for the first time in several years, and that has unleashed a barrage of lobbying and advertising, says the Guardian.

The fossil fuel industry spent $44.5 million in the first three months of the year lobbying, a 50 percent increase, according to the paper. Advertising is also way up:

"On advertising, the ratio is about three to one. The oil and coal industry spent $76.1m on ads from 1 January to 27 April, according to CMAG data seen by the Guardian. Environmental groups, led by Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, the Environmental Defence Fund and the Sierra Club, spent $28.6m on ads in the same period," The paper writes. The stats come from Evan Tracey, founder of the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), who has tracked the proliferation of climate change ads.

Will cap-and-trade occur? The House of Representatives will likely try to pass something this year, but it is going to be tough to get a law in place. Carbon programs are difficult to construct and there are vested interested and unusual political alliances all over the map. Labor in many states will be aligned with corporations against legislation and in other states, businesses will push for legislation.

KC Mares, a well-known consultant, suggested making cap and trade regional – i.e., putting clauses in the legislation to ensure that money paid in Michigan returns to the state – could make cap-and-trade more palatable. It would likely ease some of the tensions.

Steve McBee, meanwhile, has predicted that cap and trade legislation won't pass this year, but probably before the 2010 elections. Others have said it might not come until a second Obama administration. (Historical Note: Kennedy discussed ending the Vietnam War, after he won a second term.)

 

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Crude oil and natural gas prices plummeted with the global economic collapse, one of the few bright spots of that debacle. West Texas Intermediate dropped from an average of $100 a barrel in 2008 to an expected $42 a barrel in 2009, according to the short-term outlook published by the Energy Information Agency. But prices are going to rebound as demand and the economy recover. The average price for a barrel of oil will rise to $53, slightly lower than earlier forecasts but still an upward trend. Gas prices dropped to $1.69 a gallon in December, the lowest price since February 2004. Last month, however, they rose to $1.92. For 2009, the average will likely come to $1.96. For 2010, expect to see average prices of $2.18. The same is occurring with natural gas. The average price for a thousand cubic feet dropped from $9.13 in 2008 to $4.70 this year, but it will rebound to $5.90. The EIA is working off an assumption that the GDP will decline by 2.8 percent this year and grow by 1.9 percent in 2010. A rise in prices, of course, makes those biofuel investments look that much better.

Midday events at Stanford University attract a crowd of students, professors, George Schultz in a red jacket and a bunch of retirees.  I mean, who else can attend a speech by the CEO of ExxonMobil in the middle of the day? Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil recited a speech on Tuesday afternoon in an event sponsored by the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP). GCEP's purpose is to conduct pre-commercial research that will lead to technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  ExxonMobil is GCEP's largest sponsor and plans to invest up to $100 million in the program over 10 years. In 1968, there would be have been howls of protest in the face of an oil company underwriting an environmental program. These days, Stanford students just hope for employment after their studies. Mr. Tillerson, a civil engineer by training, joined Exxon in 1975.  He became CEO and Chairman of Exxon in 2006.  According to Wikipedia, The Rockefeller family sponsored a non-binding resolution to separate the CEO and chairman positions that Tillerson holds in order to maintain a system of checks and balances. The Rockefeller family also wanted Exxon Mobil to invest more in alternative energy. The resolution did not obtain the necessary majority, and Tillerson held on to both job titles.  According to Forbes' CEO compensation data, he made about $6.86 million in compensation in 2007. Here are some quotes from Mr. Tillerson:

• "The world economy will recover and when the world economy recovers -- so will energy demand."
• "'Hydrocarbon energy is available and abundant and will account for the majority of the world's energy demand at least until 2030"
• "No single energy source will meet all needs or reduce emissions, there is no one perfect solution on the shelf or on the drawing board."
• "Solar needs to drop an order of magnitude to about $0.30/W from $3.00/W."
• "With much further R&D, algae could play a role in transportation fuel supplies and reducing GHGs."
• "We believe that a carbon tax would be a more effective policy than a cap-and-trade system."
• "It is rare that a business person like myself would support a new tax but it is my judgment that a carbon tax would be the best solution."
• "We need a 30-year energy policy, 10 years won't do it."

On peak oil:

• "We endorse the assessment of the USGS -- the current conventional oil resource base is three trillion barrels and there are another one to two trillion barrels in heavy oil and one trillion barrels of shale oil.  We have consumed one trillion barrels since we started using oil.  There is a large endowment out there.  USGS updates have always gone up -- it is a technology phenomenon.  With technology advancements like 3D seismic imaging to a whole host of other technologies.  We have gone from 600 feet to 10,000 feet ocean drilling.  It's ongoing technical advances that open up and identify that resource endowment -- imaging in sub salt basins in West Africa and below basalt imaging.  The technology keeps moving and the resource base keeps growing,  We are confident that we can access much more. We have sufficient hydrocarbon resources to meet the world's needs for the next century."

On climate change:

• "Climate science is one of the most complex sciences out there today.  We don't believe in scientific consensus.  That's an oxymoronic statement.  We support scientific investigation.  We have to submit to the continuation of scientific study.  Its too important to fail.  C02 concentration is going up and temperature is going up but what is the relationship?   We have an issue about how people use the models.  First and foremost we need to support good unencumbered scientific investigation.  As far as policy -- it is a risk management issue -- probabilities of outcome.  We need to actively manage that risk.  Our position hasn't changed.  The science has been so contaminated by the political process."

Why not drill in the U.S.?

• "The U.S. has a rich resource endowment that has not been fully explored or tapped.  It is withheld from our beneficial use -- our government water and our government lands.  We've been set in the mindset of the 1960s  It is purely and simply an environmental issue.  If you live by the precautionatry principle -- get out your tent and your matches and your horse.  We have to help the public understand."

We can't drill our way to energy independence. The  Energy Information Administration (EIA) has reported that offshore drilling will have little effect on oil and gas production or on prices before 2030. Meanwhile, Big Oil swims in record profits and the U.S. is the top global warming polluter in the world. We need a new vision for our future.  We should focus on reducing our need for oil -- which is where real national energy security lies.