Peak Oil Has Arrived! The 3 Largest Oil Fields in the world have peaked!
The 3 Largest Oil Fields in the world are "going down".
The #1 Saudi Aramco Ghawar field:
Saudi fields overall are in decline at 8% a year:"There are published reports that Ghawar has from 30-64% water cut. 50% means that half the fluids brought up the well are water. Today the decline rate is 8%. Thousands of barrels of water per day of production must be added each year.
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The ZAP Alias
See page on the ZAP electric cars & scooter
The ZAP Alias incoporates many of the advances ZAP has announced for the ZAP-X, but in a smaller, sportier oval design that amps up the performance while creating a transportation alternative that can be economical and functional. This unique, two-passenger vehicle uses an advanced wheel-motor drive system capable of unprecedented acceleration and handling in street-legal vehicles. With a top speed of 120 miles per hour and a range of 100 miles
The Zapino electric scooter
The hub motor in the rear wheel creates more room on-board for additional batteries, greater functionality and performance. This eliminates the need for belts, or chains, resulting in a more enjoyable ride with less vibration and noise, and a smoother acceleration while reducing overall maintenance.
Europe may restrict their oil imports to the US
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Large US imports of gasoline, mainly from Europe, are starting to raise questions. Last weekend gasoline in Germany went over $7 per gallon and analysts are talking about the possibility of $8 gasoline later this summer. The Europeans note that the US is now importing roughly 1 out of every 8 gallons of gasoline consumed and that there is no end to this imbalance in sight.
Some Europeans are beginning to ask whether their governments should be taking action to slow the exports to the US.
Oil refineries rack up record gross profits
By Steve Raabe Denver Post Staff Writer 05/19/2007
Gross profit margins at the nation's refineries hit an all-time high of $37.48 a barrel on Friday, or nearly $1 a gallon, according to an analysis of commodities prices by petroleum analyst Bryant Gimlin of Fort Lupton-based Gray Oil Co.
Before this month, the previous record high for refinery profits was $31.71 in 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"At the first of the year, refiners were stating that the heavy maintenance schedule was to enable full production prior to summer demand," Gimlin said. "Yet it seems they have learned running at reduced rates is very good for (profit) margins. That's nice work if you can get it."
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The Peak Oil Crisis: Alarms Are Sounding
By Tom Whipple Thursday, May 17, 2007
In Paris, the International Energy Agency has announced that the demand for oil is likely to exceed the supply later this year, unless, of course, OPEC steps up production. In the Middle East OPEC spokesmen reiterate time after time that all is well, there is plenty of oil, and there is no need to increase production.
[Sep. 26, 2005 issue of TIME magazine:
"The likelihood that Saudi Arabia can increase its output to even 15 million bbl. a day is remote. The bottom line: the global oil supply has probably peaked."]
In Ottawa, a parliamentary hearing on energy security broke up in turmoil last week when a distinguished professor pointed out that, unless Canada stops selling 60 percent of its oil to the US, Canadians would soon be "freezing in the dark." In Nigeria, Chevron is evacuating hundreds of employees to forestall the possibility that they too will be hauled off to the swamps as hostages in an increasingly bitter insurgency. The Chinese just announced that their April oil imports were 23 percent higher than last April`s. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela -- everywhere you look - there are unmistakable warnings of troubles to come.
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Big Oil buys Sacramento
May 16, 2007, Los Angeles Times
Who's afraid of Big Oil? Apparently, California's elected officials. Gasoline prices are stuck well above last year's record highs and about 50 cents above the national average. Yet state politicians are not saying or doing a thing, except for raking in political cash from the oil companies and flying around the world on their dime. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ... once claimed that he was so rich he did not need anyone else's money. Yet as gasoline prices were breaking last year's record of $3.38 a gallon, Schwarzenegger collected a $100,000 check May 1 from Chevron, the West's largest refiner. Just three days earlier, it reported a $4.7-billion first-quarter profit, up 18% over the same period last year. The contribution brought Schwarzenegger's take from Chevron to $665,000 (making it his 15th largest donor) since 2003, and his total political tribute from the energy industry is now $4 million. (more...)
Miles electric cars; the ZX40S
Miles Automotive
The company plans to introduce a model comparable to the Honda Accord in late 2008, with a top speed of more than 80 mph and a battery that needs to be recharged every 200 miles.
see the Miles electric cars at www.milesautomotive.com
EPOD also working on vehicle ultracapacitor
May 11th 2007
by Sebastian Blanco
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, ZENN
There's been lots of speculation about the EESTOR ultracapacitor and just what kind of impact - if any - it will have on the hybrid and all-electric vehicle market. Just look below at the list of stories we've run in the past on the EESTOR and ZENN, which is the vehicle company the EESTORs are destined for. With so much already unknown, why don`t we introduce another ultracapacitor into the mix, this one made by the Canadian company EPOD. EPOD's ultracapacitor "can be manufactured for small scale applications like cellular phones or larger scale applications such as batteries for Hybrid Motor Vehicles and Wind Mills," according to EV World.
Recently, EPOD "received approval for a $300,000 grant from the government of Canada for further development on the revolutionary new battery that it has been developing for the last two years in conjunction with the Molecular Mechatronics Lab in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia," EV World writes. The predicted capabilities are astounding: charge it in less than a minutes and a lifetime of full cycles in excess of 100,000 times. We'll see how much of this is real sometime down the road.
On-going voter fraud initiated by the Bush Administration
RFK: Rove And Rove's Brain, Should Be In Jail, Not In Office
NEW YORK - Monday, May 7, 2007
Voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for prison time for the new US Attorney for Arkansas, Timothy Griffin and investigation of Griffin's former boss, Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President Bush.
"Timothy Griffin," said Kennedy,"who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through 'caging' techniques - which are illegal."
Kennedy based his demand on the revelations by BBC reporter Greg Palast in the new edition of his book, "Armed Madhouse." On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the caging lists.
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Honeybee Die-Off Threatens Food Supply
Thursday, May 3, 2007 by Associated Press
by Seth Borenstein
BELTSVILLE, Md. - Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation`s honeybees could have a devastating effect on America`s dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.
Honeybees don`t just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.
In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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The first refugees of global warming
Bangladesh watches in horror as much of the nation gives way to sea
By Laurie Goering, Tribune foreign correspondent, Posted May 2 2007
ANTARPARA, Bangladesh -- Muhammad Ali, a wiry 65-year-old, has never driven a car, run an air conditioner or done much of anything that produces greenhouse gases. But on a warming planet, he is on the verge of becoming a climate refugee.
In the past 10 years the farmer has had to tear down and move his tin-and-bamboo house five times to escape the encroaching waters of the huge Jamuna River, swollen by severe monsoons that scientists believe are caused by global warming and greater glacier melt in the Himalayas.
Now the last of his land is gone, and Ali squats on a precarious piece of government-owned riverbank -- the only ground available -- knowing the river probably will take that as well once the monsoons start this month.
"Where we are standing, in five days it will be gone," he predicts. "Our future thinking is that if this problem is not taken care of, we will be swept away."
Bangladesh, which has 140 million people packed into an area a little smaller than Illinois, is one of the most vulnerable places to climate change. As the sea level slowly rises, this nation that is little more than a series of low-lying delta islands amid some of Asia's mightiest rivers -- the Ganges, Jamuna-Brahmaputra and Meghna -- is seeing saltwater creep into its coastal soils and drinking water. Farmers near the Bay of Bengal who once grew rice now are raising shrimp.
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GM Announces Intention to Produce Plug-in Hybrid SUV
May 2 2007
Saturn Vue Green Line Will Use Modified 2-mode Hybrid System, Lithium Ion Battery
LOS ANGELES - General Motors Corp. intends to produce a Saturn Vue Green Line plug-in hybrid that has the potential to achieve double the fuel efficiency of any current SUV, the automaker announced at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show. (more...)
More powerful, Smaller batteries!
Watertown, Mass. - January 4, 2007
A123Systems batteries will be evaluated in prototype Saturn Green Line Vue plug-in hybrid SUVs later this year. GM recently announced its intention to produce a Vue Green Line plug-in hybrid SUV that has the potential to achieve double the fuel efficiency of any current SUV.
There are a few paragraphs about the A123 on the Tesla Roadster blog
Martin Eberhard CEO of Tesla Motors mentions the $15 million grant given to A123 Systems (more...)
Income + Gasoline Taxes + Sales etc.
The taxman's hand may be deeper in your pocket than you realize
By David Fleshler
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted May 2 2007
At the gas pump, for example, the posted price reflects the after-tax price. Nothing on the pump or receipt indicates that your purchase represents a bonanza for the government. For every gallon you buy, Broward or Palm Beach County collects a tax of 18.2 cents, the state of Florida collects 15.3 cents and the federal government collects 18.4 cents. The government's take on a 20-gallon purchase: $10.38. ($.519/gal) [If you drive 10,000 mi/yr, thats $5,190/yr. 12,000mi = $6,228/yr. compare: How much do you pay in federal income tax? State?] (more...)
contact Obama! 