Globeandmail.com -- By Bob English

Excerpts

In the motoring age’s early days, the affluent few who could afford cars purchased gasoline from fuel company depots and then in cans or from hand-operated pumps installed by entrepreneurial general store owners.

"Dedicated “gas stations” began to appear by about 1910 as oil companies started to create distinct brand identities ...with its capacity of about 600 or so gallons (2,300 litres)..."

The modern tankers ...haul 30,000 litres or more to meet the volume demands of the 20 million vehicles now on Canada’s highways and 250 million on U.S. roads, which now consume some 400 million U.S. gallons (1.514-billion litres) of fuel a day – more than a gallon (four litres) for each and every one of us.
 (read more)

Lancaster Sunday News -- The nationally averaged cost of a gallon of regular, 10-percent ethanol blend was $2.71 last week. It's typically cheaper than straight gas. But motorists go out of their way to buy the pricier stuff from John's Gulf, 517 Union St., owner John Kirchner said.

"The conventional gas is definitely better," he added. "As long as we can get it we'll keep selling it."

Gasoline/ethanol blends have become standard service station fare since passage of a 2007 federal renewable fuel standard intended to cut pollution and foreign oil dependence.

Nationally, said Al Mannato of the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, "About 90 percent of the gasoline in the United States has 10 percent ethanol in it."

Straight gas isn't fading without a fight, though...  (read more)

MSNBC / Associated Press -- BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — Federal officials now estimate that more than 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled into a major river in southern Michigan, and the governor is sharply criticizing clean-up efforts as "wholly inadequate."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the update Wednesday night, shortly after Gov. Jennifer Granholm lambasted attempts to contain the oil flowing down the Kalamazoo River. She warned of a "tragedy of historic proportions" if the oil reaches Lake Michigan, which is still at least 80 miles downstream from where oil has been seen.

Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the EPA and Enbridge Inc., which owns the pipeline that leaked the oil, were "wholly inadequate."
 (read more)

MSNBC / Associated Press -- NEW ORLEANS — A ruptured wellhead in Louisiana's Barataria Bay has spread a slick of oil covering 6 square miles, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Wednesday.

Oil, natural gas and water spewed from the abandoned underwater wellhead hit by a barge pushed by a tug.

The Coast Guard ordered the last recorded owner of the well, a company called Cydeco, to pay for the clean-up costs.

Wild Well Control Inc. of Houston has been hired to secure the well and Environmental Health and Services has been hired to manage the cleanup, the Coast Guard said.

By late Wednesday, 10,500 feet of containment boom and 3,000 feet of absorbent boom has been deployed to contain the spill.

Thirty-one boats have responded to the spill, said Coast Guard Capt. John Arenstam.

The Coast Guard said a tow  (read more)

UPI.com -- NEW YORK, July 30 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices continued a see-saw week, closing near $79 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Crude oil prices climbed sharply off a morning low of $76.83 to $78.98 per barrel, despite disappointing gross domestic product data.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday the GDP in the second quarter grew 2.4 percent, slightly less than expected, but confirming a general slowdown in economic growth. In the previous quarter, the GDP grew 2.7 percent.

August contract No. 2 heating oil prices gained 0.0146 cents from a prior settlement to $2.0518 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline
for August delivery added 0.0228 cents to $2.1202 per gallon.

Henry Hub natural gas prices for September fell 0.075 cents to $4.902 per million British the  (read more)

inhabitat.com -- By Ariel Schwartz

Excerpts

E.coli may not be the smartest thing for your body to ingest, but this bacteria could be just the thing to get vehicles up and running around more efficiently. A team of researchers at LS9 — a self-described “renewable petroleum company” — have discovered that the unsavory Escherichia coli could be used to make so-called “drop-in” biofuels at existing pipelines and refineries.

According to LS9, a diesel-like fuel can be yielded by feeding glucose to E. coli bacteria — one of only two known pathways for engineered microbes to produce pure hydrocarbons,...E.coli can be grown simply on any sugar, including second-generation (read: non-food) biofuel feedstocks like grass.

"LS9 hopes that the the price point of E.coli-produced fuel could ring...$50 a barrel."  (read more)

marketwatch.com -- Credit is allowed under federal rules, company says in earnings report

BP PLC will reduce its contribution to U.S. coffers by roughly $10 billion due to a tax credit the company is claiming it incurred from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The oil giant said Tuesday that it is incurring a charge of $32.2 billion from the Deepwater Horizon disaster response, and as such, it is claiming a $9.9 billion taxation credit.

Asked in a conference call Tuesday about whether it has discussed the tax credit with President Barack Obama's administration, BP's outgoing chief executive, Tony Hayward said: "We have followed the IRS regulations as they're currently written."

The Internal Revenue Service said it's not allowed under federal law to discuss individual taxpayer issues.

But the issue  (read more)

GreenCarReports.com -- By John Voelcker - If you've been to New York City lately, you may have noticed an increasing number of hybrid taxis on the roads: mostly Ford Escape Hybrid SUVs, but also Toyota Camry Hybrid and Nissan Altima Hybrid sedans, and a scattering of others too.

It's part of a long-term plan to green the fleet of 14,000 yellow cabs operating in the city, since they rack up far higher mileage than private cars--close to 100,000 miles a year when running two 12-hour shifts a day.
 (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- Well, if a picture is worth 1000 words, what is video worth? If one video is worth 10,000 words, then this blog post will be way too long!

For today's post, we'll send you to a website that has most of BP's ROV cams on one screen, so I hope you have a decent sized monitor! Even if you don't have a big monitor, you should be able to see a glimpse into what BP engineers watch around the clock. A few minutes watching this doesn't get too boring, but I can't imagine being the one to watch these cameras on 12 hour shifts!

To see the ROV cameras on one screen, head over to this website. Note- you'll be leaving GasBuddy, and we aren't responsible for any content on that site. Having said that, there are quite a few video feeds...  (read more)

The Reporter -- Three adjacent stories landed on the same page of my local newspaper on a recent morning.

Taken together, they add up to a message that is probably greater — and grimmer — than the sum of its parts.

The first was an update on the BP oil spill. By the time you read this column, the disaster's terrain may have shifted a bit, but then officials were trying hard to convince us and themselves that the end is in sight. The well is capped!

But it's disquieting to consider that plugging the familiar billowing gusher — the symbol of this catastrophe — has the effect of increasing the pressure elsewhere in the couple of miles of well casing between the oil reservoir and the ocean floor. The well's integrity is uncertain and capping it could produce unintended consequences.

Officials are  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- I didn't know how people in Louisiana and Florida felt about the Gulf spill. Its something you can't feel until it happens close to you, and this time, it did.

The oil spill in Marshall, Michigan is just a couple hours from me- and more significantly- the spill could impact Lake Michigan. Although no one wants to think about it or says its possible, the breaches that have already taken place suggest that the pipeline owner, Enbridge, has very little control and isn't doing enough to stop the slick from moving down the Kalamazoo River.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, lessons have already been learned via the Gulf spill. Almost immediately, the State of Michigan got the EPA, Coast Guard, and other federal and state agencies...  (read more)

youtube - MSNBC - video -- According to Hugh Kaufman, the public just can’t handle the truth when it comes to the poisoning of the Gulf Coast. Kaufman, who played a major role in exposing the EPA cover up of the air quality at ground zero, stated that dispersants mixed with oil in the water atomize the oil and prevent it from coming from the surface where it can be skimmed instead it is in small particles.

Dispersants do damage by causing bleeding from orifices in both sea mammals & humans. When the atomized oil and dispersant gets into the bloodstream it atomizes your cells, and that is why there is hemorrhaging.

Now we have hundreds of millions of gallons of oil mixed with 2 million gallons of dispersant spread out over thousands of miles. We have to be very careful of the seafood which we have now poisoned.  (read more)

reuters.com -- It could be years before some Gulf of Mexico beaches recover fully from BP Plc's massive oil spill and are declared free of toxic pollutants, including heavy metals, that can make people sick, a leading environmental advocacy group said on Wednesday.

"This is an unprecedented tragedy and environmental disaster in the Gulf that is raising unprecedented questions about how to manage beaches and other parts of the environment," said David Beckman, Water Program director with the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

"We've never had to confront before the question of whether the toxicity in a wave wash is such that people should stay out of the water," Beckman told reporters on a conference call.

...group issued its 20th annual report on water quality at U.S. beaches.  (read more)

CNN Money -- Exxon Mobil Corp. reported quarterly earnings Thursday that easily beat analysts' expectations on higher crude prices and improved refining margins.

The world's largest public energy company reported net income of $7.56 billion, or $1.60 a share, in the second quarter, up 91% from $3.95 billion, or 81 cents a share, in the same period in 2009.  (read more)

Bloomberg -- Congressional Democrats proposed tougher rules for offshore drilling in response to the worst oil spill in U.S. history, while spurning calls to place a price on carbon emissions.

House and Senate leaders presented legislation yesterday rewriting oil and natural-gas drilling rules more than three months after a rig leased by BP Plc exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The bills would strengthen safety and environmental standards for exploration in federal waters, give Congress direct oversight of offshore energy production, and require companies that cause spills to pay all damages.  (read more)

Fox News -- ODESSA, Fla. - It's hard to believe that A.J. Vizzi spent nearly $200,000 defending his right to park his own pickup truck in his own driveway.

When he first moved in back in 1997, Vizzi was told that parking his large truck in the driveway wasn't against the subdivision's rules. But years later, the Eagles Masters Association, which governs the entire community, said it did violate their rules and therefore, the truck had to go.

It didn't end there. Knowing the truck did not fit in his garage, Vizzi decided to stand his ground.

The homeowners association sued Vizzi, and for two exhausting years, the two parties battled in court.

"They just didn't care," Vizzi told FOX 13.  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- The Department of Energy released its weekly report on the condition of petroleum inventories in the United States today.

Here are some highlights:

Crude oil inventories increased by 7.3 million barrels to a total of 360.8 million barrels. At 360.8 million barrels, inventories are 12.9 million barrels above last year (3.7%) and remain above average. Supply at NYMEX delivery point, Cushing, Oklahoma increased some 100,000 barrels to 37.2 million barrels this week. Supplies at Cushing have increased for the third time in a month, and are approaching record territory once again.

Gasoline inventories increased 0.1 million barrels to 222.2 million barrels. At 222.2 million barrels, inventories are now 9.2 million...  (read more)

nytimes.com -- The rapid growth of wind farms, whose output is hard to schedule reliably or even predict, has the nation’s electricity providers scrambling to develop energy storage to ensure stability and improve profits.

As the wind installations multiply, companies have found themselves dumping energy late at night, adjusting the blades so they do not catch the wind, because there is no demand for the power. And grid operators, accustomed to meeting demand by adjusting supplies, are now struggling to maintain stability as supplies fluctuate.

...But peak wind and peak demand times do not coincide, raising questions about how Hawaii can reach its 70 percent goal. For now, the best option seems to be storage batteries.

In New York and California, companies are exploring electrical storage that  (read more)

New York Times By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN -- It is pretty much a tossup for me: Who poses a greater long-term threat to America’s Gulf Coast ecosystem: the U.S. Senate or BP? Right now, from what I’ve seen flying over the Louisiana coast at the mouth of the Mississippi, my vote is the U.S. Senate. BP at least seems to have finally gotten its act together and is cleaning up the oil spill. The Senate, in failing to pass even the most modest bill to diminish our addiction to oil and begin to mitigate climate change, has not even begun to do its job.  (read more)

CNN -- Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

So where did the oil go? "Some of the oil evaporates," explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist with the environmental group Oc  (read more)

Bloomberg -- July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Enbridge Energy Partners LP, the Houston-based pipeline company, has crews working to clean up an oil spill from a pipeline in southern Michigan that spread from a creek to the Kalamazoo River, affecting birds and fish.

The leak on line 6B, part of Enbridge’s Lakehead System, was detected at about 9:30 a.m. yesterday when pressure on the line dropped, the company said.

An estimated 19,500 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek near the company’s Marshall, Michigan, pump station before valves on either side of the leak were shut down, Enbridge Chief Executive Officer Patrick Daniel said on a conference call today.

“Oil entered the Tallmadge Creek and found its way to the Kalamazoo River,” Daniel said.  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- I ran across a story that Bloomberg picked up this morning about reliable old Goldman Sachs. If you're a frequent reader you know that I've already decided that anything they say publicly just reiterates their position in petroleum and tries to get investors to buy in to their theories which net them millions of dollars (while duping investors out of billions).

Bloomberg has Goldman Sachs as saying "Crude oil prices are significantly below the level warranted by fundamentals, offering hedging opportunities for this year and next, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said."

In English, Goldman Sachs is saying that fundamentals are strong (high demand, lower supply, low spare capacity, etc.) when in fact,

Lately- as in the...  (read more)

Battle Creek Enquirer -- A leaking pipeline spilled about 840,000 gallons of oil into a creek leading to the Kalamazoo River on Monday, according to estimates from Enbridge Energy Partners, the company taking responsibility for the spill.

The leak resulted from a pipeline malfunction that was still under investigation Monday, said Tom Fridel, general manager for Enbridge Liquids Pipelines in Chicago. The 30-inch pipeline carries about 8 million gallons of oil per day from Griffith, Indiana, to Sarnia, Ontario, according to Enbridge

The oil already has started to make its way west past the booms set up by workers in Marshall Township. The Emmett Township Department of Public Safety issued a warning on Monday evening telling people not to fish or swim in the river. The department said oil was leaking past barr  (read more)

-- HOUSTON July 27 (Reuters) - Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N: Quote) plans to restart its shut 235,000 barrel per day (bpd) Aruba refinery in September after completing an overhaul currently underway and if the plant can operate at a profit, Chief Executive Bill Klesse said in a statement. "When complete in September, this work will provide us the option to resume operations at the Aruba refinery if conditions are profitable and will enhance strategic alternatives for the refinery," Klesse said.  (read more)

-- The very first electric car plant in the United States is coming to Iowa. Envision Motor Company, an Ames company, signs a deal with Webster City to put together electric cars. It's a much needed development in the town, which will lose more than 800 jobs when the washer dryer company Electrolux moves out next year. The new company is starting small, hiring just 50 people, but in the next few years they hope their cutting edge technology catches on and they can hire hundreds more. "It turned into a fantastic deal. This is a great opportunity for this community with the creation of jobs. We just to bring positive news them," says Webster City Economic Developer David Toyer. The town is in need of some good news. Next year Webster City's biggest employer is shutting its doors, taking with it 800 precious jobs.  (read more)