DrumBeat: July 24, 2009

Study shows big savings with Cash for Clunkers

Car-buying research Web site Cars.com on Thursday released a list of five new cars and five new trucks, crossovers, and minivans that it believes will give new-car shoppers the biggest benefit under the government-backed incentive program.

Understanding the deals and then actually qualifying for one is another matter all together, however.

Solix Biofuels begins large-scale algal oil production | Northern Colorado Business Report

Digg TOD’s ’40 Oil Producing Countries Past Their Production Peak’

Peak Fuel Report Offers Sober Assessment of San Francisco’s Energy Future

The report is broken into seven sections: economy, energy, food, architecture and buildings, infrastructure, societal functioning, and transportation. The latter category, transportation, is particularly important to the report, since automobile use accounts for 45 percent of total energy use in San Francisco.

It offers a stiff set of recommendations for reducing transportation-related energy use: converting to electrical vehicles alone, it says, won’t make much of a dent.

Citing a recent study, the report notes that, “given current capacity, California’s electric grid would be unable to handle the conversion of more than 15 percent of the current automobile stock to electric vehicles.”

Business Spectator – News – Iraq’s burning question – Michael Klare, Salon.com

Texas cleaning up oil blobs on South Padre Island

At least seven 55-gallon drums of oil have been removed since Wednesday morning after tourists began calling in reports of seeing blobs of oil on the beach, Suydam said.

“We don’t know the source. We suspect it’s coming from south of the border,” he said. Texas authorities are in the process of contacting Mexican officials for help pinpointing the contamination, he said.

UPDATE 1-Colombia says oil field holds 500 mln barrels

A Colombian oil field, operated by state petroleum company Ecopetrol ECO.CN and Canada’s Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp (PRE.TO), is estimated by the government to have 500 million barrels in reserves.

If the estimate is correct, it would make the field, located in the southern province of Meta, the biggest producer in Colombia.

The Andean country is in a race against time to increase production in order to avoid becoming a net petroleum importer.

Business Books: Costly gas is good for you

The rising price of fuel will slash school busing, nearly empty the skies of airplanes, and turn many resorts into ghost towns. But Americans will become fitter, breathe cleaner air, and eat healthier food.

That’s the future Christopher Steiner paints in “$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better” (Grand Central Publishing, $24.99).

Ecuador signs contract to export oil to China

Ecuador has signed a deal to export crude oil to China for which the Andean country is going to receive $1 billion as an advance payment, state-run Petroecuador said on Thursday.

USGC: Ethanol co-product ready for global demand

“We have to realize the maximum value of the co-products, said Hany. “Simply put, exports are absolutely necessary in order to maintain the U.S. market as production continues to increase.”

Europe Eyes Africa for Solar Power: Scientific American

Geothermal Energy Is the Most Efficient Renewable Energy Alternative and Improves Fastest | New Energy and Fuel

YouTube – Energy From Thorium: A Nuclear Waste Burning Liquid Salt Thorium Reactor

Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes: Areva launches at Newport News

Green Energy for All by 2030? « Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist

ExplainingTheFuture.com: Mining Helium-3 On the Moon Video

Alternative, Renewable Energy Investing, Business, Case Studies, Opportunities

Petroleum Industry Fundamentals 2009

Irving Oil scraps plan for N.B. refinery – The Globe and Mail

NYMEX-Crude seesaws, eyes equities, mogas supports | Markets | Reuters

Negative folly by The Mogambo Guru