The University of Michigan study, Total Cost of Ownership: A Gas Versus Diesel Comparison, was conducted for Robert Bosch LLC and the results were released at the 2013 Alternative Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo in Washington D.C.

Highlights from the diesel-gasoline comparisons include:

Total Cost of Ownership: In the three-year timeframe comparison, diesel vehicles in the mass market, passenger car segment are estimated to save owners a significant amount of money with the VW Jetta owner saving $3,128, the VW Jetta Sportwagen owner saving $3,389, and the VW Golf owner saving an estimated $5,013.

In the luxury segment, all the diesel versions of the Mercedes-Benz E Class ($4,175), Mercedes-Benz GL Class ($13,514), Mercedes-Benz M Class ($3,063), Mercedes-Benz R Class ($5,951), and VW Touareg ($7,819) save owners money in the three-year timeframe.

Fuel Efficiency: All of the diesel vehicles had better miles per gallon than the gasoline versions with the diesels having between 8- to 44-percent higher miles per gallon.

Fuel Costs: All of the diesel vehicles had lower fuel costs than all the gas versions of comparable vehicles, with 11 of the 12 vehicles showing double-digit reductions in fuel costs, ranging from 10 to 29 percent.

Similar to the three-year comparisons, five year estimated fuel costs for diesel vehicles are less than those of comparable gas versions. The percentage difference in terms of the reduction from gas to diesel costs decreased for some diesel-gas comparisons as diesel prices began to increase around the 2005 timeframe.

Depreciation: Eleven of the 12 diesel vehicles held their value better than comparable gas vehicles over the three-year timeframe with eight vehicles showing double-digit percentage savings ranging from 17 percent up to 46 percent.

Nine of the 10 diesel vehicles hold their value better than comparable gas vehicles over the five-year timeframe, with five vehicles showing double digit percentage savings ranging from 10 percent up to 39 percent.

The report analyzed the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for clean diesel vehicles and comparing their TCO to their gas vehicle counterparts. The study developed three and five year cost estimates of depreciation by modeling used-vehicle auction data and fuel costs by modeling government data. The study also combined these estimates with three and five year estimates for repairs, fees and taxes, insurance, and maintenance from an outside data source.

According to Allen Schaeffer, the executive director of DTF, some of the major findings of the new research include:

• California is the number one state today in overall diesel car and pickup truck registrations.
• From 2010-2012, California was the number one state with the fastest growth in registrations of new diesel cars and SUVs.
• California has the third highest registration (20 percent) of the new generation (2007 and later) clean diesel commercial trucks (Class 3-8).

2005‐2012 light-duty diesel engines have saved California consumers:

• 0.7 million tons of CO_2.
• 110 million gallons of gasoline.
• 2.5 million barrels of crude oil.

Conservative estimates of fuel savings and CO₂ reductions for 130,000 new light-duty diesel engines sold each year between 2013‐2020 will save California consumers an additional:

• 165 million to 240 million gallons of gasoline.
• 1.0 to 1.3 million tons of CO_2.

In addition, according to ExxonMobil's 2013: The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040, not only will diesel surpass gasoline as the number one global transportation fuel by 2020, diesel demand will also account for 70 percent of the growth in demand for all transportation fuels through 2040. ExxonMobil also projects that natural gas will remain only a small share of the global transportation fuel mix, at 4 percent by 2040, up from today’s 1 percent.

The new 2.0L EA228 engine is designed to provide "scalable" options for expected legislation such as Euro 6 as well as California's Lev III standards.. The engine will come with an after treatment system including Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) and advanced Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) technology. Both DPF and SCR technologies are combined in one component saving space and costs.

The primary innovation of this new engine design is that the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) valve and the water-cooled intercooler have both been integrated with the intake manifold. That change, combined with many others including new piston rings and a two-stage oil pump, will result in improved emissions and decreased friction within the motor itself.

Displacement will remain at 2.0-litres, but output will jump by 10 horsepower to 150. Torque will remain constant at 236 pound-feet. While it will first roll out in four models, Volkswagen says this new engine will ultimately appear in all VW and Audi products.

VW is the leader in diesel sales in the U.S. – representing about 78 percent of the diesel sales for passenger cars, according to officials. Robert Bosch, a global multibillion-dollar engineering and electronics automotive leader, anticipates more than 50 light-vehicle diesel models to be announced or released by 2017 in the U.S. market. “Clean diesels” are 30 percent more fuel-efficient, produce lower CO2 emissions and maintain a higher residual value compared to traditional gasoline engines.

So this improvement in efficiency will achieve 45mpg average city/hwy and over 55mpg highway by our calculations. If there is no change to the current fuel tank capacity, this new engine will provide a road trip single tank range of over 1,000 miles. If drivers are burning B20 in these new engines, that calculates out to about 55mppg average and 65mppg for highway driving. So why are people still buying gasoline powered vehicles? Join the U.S. Migration!

So, per the DoE's EIA, we just need to install enough additional solar panels to generate 956 GW of energy - roughly $3T (including the land).

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the electric reliability organization certified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to establish and enforce reliability standards for three major electrical interconnections serving the United States, issues a reliability assessment each year. NERC estimated in November 2012 that the United States would have 966 gigawatts (GW) of electric supply capacity available for the summer of 2013. NERC estimated that about 786 GW would be needed to meet projected peak electricity demand and determined that another 117 GW should be available in case of supply outages or extreme weather (known as target reserve supply).

The United States has 63 GW of capacity above and beyond the NERC target reserve supply. The level of above-target capacity varies by region: some areas have significant excess capacity and others are more constrained. ERCOT, the region that makes up most of Texas is of particular concern and is projected to be below target capacity for the summer of 2013 forward. Because of the layout of the electric transmission grid, excess resources in one region cannot necessarily be used to make up for a deficit in another region (ERCOT is particularly limited when it comes to importing electricity).

The electricity industry has reserve capacity on hand to maintain reliability. Because large-scale electricity storage is not currently economic, electric systems must have sufficient supply resources available to meet electricity demand and replace unexpected losses of supply. Each NERC region has a reserve margin target—the amount of supply capacity over and above a region's expected hourly peak demand for the year needed for reliability. The NERC regions' reserve margin targets typically range from 14%-17% and together total 117 GW of supply capacity.

By Richard Heinberg

The piece is excerpted from the new book Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future.

We’re running low on cheap oil.

For the past decade I’ve been a participant in a high-stakes energy policy debate — writing books, giving lectures, and appearing on radio and television to point out how downright dumb it is for America to continue relying on fossil fuels. Oil, coal, and natural gas are finite and depleting, and burning them changes Earth’s climate and compromises our future.

In the past two or three years this debate has reached a significant turning point. Evidence that climate change is real and caused by human activity has become irrefutable, and serious climate impacts (such as the melting of the Arctic ice cap) have begun appearing sooner, and with greater severity, than had been forecast. Yet at the same time, the notion that fossil fuels are supply-constrained has gone from being generally dismissed, to being partially accepted, to being vociferously dismissed. The increasingly dire climate story has achieved widespread (though still insufficient) coverage, but the puzzling reversals of public perception regarding fossil fuel scarcity or abundance have received little analysis outside the specialist literature. Yet claims of abundance are being used by the fossil fuel industry to change the public conversation about energy and climate, especially in the United States, from one of “How shall we reduce our carbon emissions?” to “How shall we spend our new-found energy wealth?”

This is an insidious and misleading tactic. The abundance argument is based not so much on solid data (though oil and gas production figures have indeed surged in the United States) as on exaggerations about future production potential, and on a pattern of denial regarding steep costs to the environment and human health.

Permit me to use a metaphor to frame this discussion about fossil fuel abundance or scarcity. Since all debates are contests, at least superficially, it’s possible to summarize this one as if it were a game — like a soccer match or a bowling tournament. Of course, it is far more than just a game; the stakes, after all, may amount to the survival or failure of industrial civilization. But games are fun, and it’s easy to keep track of the score. So … let the metaphor begin!

First, who are the teams? On one side we have the oil and gas industry, its public relations minions and its bankers, as well as a few official agencies — including the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency — that tend to parrot industry statistics and forecasts. This team is respected and well funded. We’ll call this team “the Cornucopians,” after the mythical horn of plenty, an endless source of good things.

The other team consists of an informal association of retired and independent petroleum geologists and energy analysts. This team has little funding, is poorly organized, and hardly even existed as a recognizable entity a decade ago. This is my team; let’s call us “the Peakists,” in reference to the observation that rates of extraction of nonrenewable resources tend to peak and then decline.

These two teams have very different views of the energy world. Back in 2003, the Cornucopians were saying that global oil production would continue to increase in the years and decades ahead to meet rising demand, which would in turn grow at historic rates of about 3 percent per year (about the same rate at which the economy was expanding). Meanwhile oil prices would stay at approximately their then-current level of $20 to $25 per barrel. The Cornucopians’ message could be summarized as: “There’s nothing to worry about, folks. Just keep driving.”

This view was in stark contrast to that of us Peakists, who, based on geological evidence from around the world (depleting older super-giant oilfields, declining rates of discovery of new fields, and increasing costs to develop them), were saying that rates of global oil production would soon reach a maximum and start to diminish, while petroleum prices would soar. The Peakists’ argument wasn’t that the world would suddenly run out of oil anytime soon, but that the end of cheap oil and expanding rates of production was approaching. Since oil price spikes have had severe economic impacts in recent decades, the implication was clearly that societies would be better off weaning themselves from oil as quickly as possible.

Well, what has actually happened? How has the game progressed so far?

In 2005, world crude oil extraction rates effectively stopped growing. In that year the average global production rate was 73.8 million barrels per day (mb/d); in 2012, that rate had only increased to 75.0 mb/d — a relatively insignificant bump of less than 1.5 mb/d in seven years (a 0.3 percent average annual rate of growth). This was completely counter to the forecasts of the Cornucopians, but it fit the views of the supply pessimists well. Point for the Peakists.

With oil supply rates stagnant, prices went up — soaring from a yearly (inflation-adjusted) average of $35 per barrel in 2003 to a yearly average of $110 in 2012. Again, this development was completely unforeseen by Cornucopians, but had been clearly and repeatedly forecast by Peakists. Point for my side.

When the world oil price briefly shot up to nearly $150 per barrel in the summer of 2008, the global economy shuddered and swooned. Thus began the worst recession since the 1930s. Of course, other factors contributed to the crash — most notably, a bursting housing bubble in the United States and an unsustainable buildup of debt in nearly all the world’s industrial economies. But it’s clear that high oil prices added to financial fragility and the oil price spike of 2008 provided a sudden gust that helped bring down the house of cards. Peakists had been warning of the economy’s vulnerability to high oil prices for years; here was dramatic confirmation. Another point for my team.

Now we’ve arrived at the period 2008–2009; at that stage of the game, the score was Peakists 3, Cornucopians zip. Despite the fact that we Peakists had virtually no funding and limited media access, we were seriously in danger of winning the debate. The term peak oil went from being unknown, to being associated with conspiracy theorists, to being broadly familiar to those who followed energy issues.

The Cornucopians, however, were not about to throw in the towel. In fact, they were just shaking off the complacency that accompanied their status as reigning champs. And they were about to deploy a significant new game strategy.

The “peak” issue was not limited to oil. U.S. conventional natural gas production had been declining for years, and prices were soaring. Peakists said this was evidence of an approaching natural gas supply crisis. Instead, high prices provided an incentive for drillers to refine and deploy costly hydraulic fracturing technology (commonly referred to as “fracking”) to extract gas trapped in otherwise forbidding shale reservoirs.

Small- to medium-sized companies crowded into shale gas plays in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania, borrowed money, bought leases, and drilled tens of thousands of wells in short order. The result was an enormous plume of new natural gas production. As U.S. gas supplies ballooned, TV talking heads (reading scripts provided by the industry) and politicians all began crowing over America’s “game-changing” new prospect of “a hundred years of natural gas.” We Peakists hadn’t foreseen any of this. Point to the Cornucopians.

Not only did supplies of natural gas grow, but prices plummeted. In the pre-fracking years of 2001 to 2006, gas prices had shot up from their 1990s level of $2 per million Btu to over $12. But after 2007, as the hydrofracturing boom saturated gas markets, prices plummeted back to a low of $1.82 in April 2012. Gas was suddenly so cheap that utilities found it economic to use in place of coal for generating base-load electricity. The natural gas industry began to promote the ideas of exporting gas (even though the United States remained a net natural gas importer), and of using natural gas to power cars and trucks. Again, Peakists had completely failed to forecast these developments. Point Cornucopians.

Then, using the same hydrofracturing technology, the industry began to go after deposits of oil in tight (low-porosity) rocks. In Texas and North Dakota, U.S. oil production began growing. It was an astonishing achievement, especially since the nation’s oil production had generally been declining since 1970. Suddenly there was serious discussion in energy policy circles of America soon producing more oil than Saudi Arabia. None of us Peakists had predicted this. Point Cornucopians.

That brings us to the present. As of 2013, the game is tied and headed into overtime. Cornucopians have the momentum and the historic advantage, so they’ve been quick to proclaim victory. Meanwhile, at least one prominent Peakist has publicly conceded defeat: in a widely circulated essay, British environmental writer George Monbiot recently proclaimed that “We were wrong on peak oil.”

It doesn’t look good for my team. It appears to most people that the “Shale Revolution” (the tapping of shale gas and tight oil, thanks to advanced drilling techniques) has changed the game for good. Is it time for us to exit the playing field, heads bowed, shoulders slumped?

No. The game is about to turn again.

Almost no one who seriously thinks about the issue doubts that the Peakists will win in the end, no matter how pathetic my team’s prospects may look for the moment. After all, fossil fuels are finite, so depletion and declining production are inevitable. The debate has always been about timing: Is depletion something we should worry about now?

Readers who’ve seen articles and TV ads proclaiming America’s newfound oil and gas abundance may find it strange and surprising to learn that the official forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is for America’s historic oil production decline to resume within this decade.

But the EIA may actually be overly optimistic. Once the peak is passed, the agency foresees a long, slow slide in production from tight oil deposits (likewise from shale gas wells). However, analysis that takes into account the remaining number of possible drilling sites, as well as the high production decline rates in typical tight oil and shale gas wells, yields a different forecast: Production will indeed peak before 2020, but then it will likely fall much more rapidly than either the industry or the official agencies forecast.

And there’s much more to the story: shale gas wells that cost more to drill than their gas is worth at current prices; Wall Street investment banks that drive independent oil and gas companies to produce uneconomic resources just so brokers can collect fees; official agencies that have overestimated oil production and under-estimated prices consistently for the past decade.

The data I’ve surveyed suggest that, through the technology of hydrofracturing, the oil and gas industry will generate 10 or fewer years of growing fuel supplies. (In the case of shale gas, the clock started ticking roughly five years ago; for tight oil, about three years ago).

Let me be clear: I am not saying that the United States will run out of shale gas or tight oil sometime in the next five to seven years, but that the current spate of oil and gas supply growth will probably be over, finished, done and dusted before the end of this decade. Production will start to decline, perhaps sharply.

The temporary surge of production may yield a very few years of lower natural gas prices and may temporarily improve the U.S. balance of trade by reducing oil imports. What will we do with those years of reprieve? In the best instance, the fracking that has already been accomplished could provide us a bonus inning in which to prepare for life without cheap fossil energy. But to make use of this borrowed time we must build an energy infrastructure of wind turbines and solar panels rather than drilling rigs and pipelines. This will constitute the biggest investment, and the most ambitious project, of our lifetimes. Currently, instead, many renewable energy efforts are being hampered by the false perception of vast, long-term supplies of cheap natural gas.

We are starting the energy transition project of the 21st century far too late to altogether avert either devastating climate impacts or serious energy supply problems, but the alternative — continued reliance on fossil fuels — will ensure a future far worse, one in which even the bare survival of civilization may be in question. As we build our needed renewable energy system, we will also need to build a new kind of economy, and we must make our communities far more resilient, so as to withstand environmental and economic shocks that are inevitably on their way.

Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry is doing everything it can to convince us we don’t have to do anything at all — other than simply keep on driving. The purveyors of oil and natural gas are selling products that we all currently use and that we still depend upon for our modern way of life. But they’re also selling a vision of the future — a vision as phony as the snake oil hawked by carnival hucksters a century ago.

Richard Heinberg is a senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute and author of 11 books, including The End of Growth and, most recently, Snake Oil.

The new engine puts out 180 horsepower and 280 lb-ft of torque. It will have the same urea injection exhaust treatment as seen on other BMW diesels in order to meet U.S. emissions standards.

The 328d will be offered in both sedan and wagon body styles. Rear-wheel drive will be standard, with all-wheel drive offered as an option. The 328d wagon will be available only with all-wheel drive.

BMW's new 8-speed automatic will be the only transmission offered. It is more efficient than a manual and therefore the best fit for a car focused on maximizing fuel economy.

The 328d will have a "premium" over the 328i, which uses a turbocharged 4-cylinder gasoline engine. Production will begin in July 2013, and sales are set to kick off in July or August.

The new BMW 328d looks like a win-win, offering better fuel economy, likely twice the longevity, lower maintenance and higher resale value than the gas-powered 328i, without sacrificing performance. The base price will be below $40K USD.

It was anointed a Guinness World Record, so it's more than your neighbor bragging about his eco-abilities.

The team of auto blogger Wayne Gerdes and electronics engineer Bob Winger ran up 8,122 miles, using 104.94 gallons of fuel, covering the 48 contiguous states in a Passat diesel built at VW's Chattanooga factory and delivered for the drive as it came off the line, VW says.

VW itself set the previous record for a Passat diesel, 67.9 mpg in 2009.

The U.S. government's official highway mileage rating for the Passat diesel is 43 mpg.

The Passat TDI drive began June 7 from VW's U.S. headquarters in Herndon, Va., and ended when the team returned there June 24.

"Obviously, we employ some specialized techniques to achieve such figures, but there's no reason why owners of TDI vehicles shouldn't be able to achieve great mileage," Gerdes says.

A key tactic: Anticipate conditions. "Look for impediments or topography 15 to 45 seconds ahead, rather than reacting to where you're currently driving," he says.

Equipment on the mileage run:

•Shell ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel.

•Continental PureContact with EcoPlus Technology tires, which have low rolling resistance. Those aren't available as a factory option on Passat TDI, but are available from tire sellers and were approved by Guinness.

•Linear Logic ScanGauge II to precisely measure fuel economy

ETC has contacted the team of Wayne Gerdes and Bob Winger with the intention of setting a new record for MPPG from our biodiesel.

For a fifth-grade science fair, Evie Sobczak found that the acid in fruit could power clocks; she connected a cut-up orange to a clock with wire and watched it tick. In seventh grade, she generated power by engineering paddles that could harness wind. And in eighth grade, she started a project that eventually would become her passion: She wanted to grow algae and turn it into biofuel.

After four years of tinkering in her garage for about an hour each day, Sobczak (pronounced sob-chek) has finally figured it out. Her algae-to-fuel project won first place and best in category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, beating 1,600 other finalists from 70 countries. The Intel ISEF is one of the largest and most prestigious science fairs in the world.

"When I got there, I looked at all the projects and they were amazing, but I trusted that my project has a lot of capabilities to be used in the real world, so I thought I had a good chance of winning," said Sobczak, a rising senior at Shorecrest Preparatory School in St. Petersburg.

The project's official title: Algae to Oil via Photoautotrophic Cultivation and Osmotic Sonication. In less dizzying terms, Sobczak cultivated, harvested and extracted algae oils and turned them into biofuel.

Biofuel is made by taking a mass — such as grass, sugarcane or corn — and converting it to fuel. The process leaves out harmful chemicals, like chloroform and hexane, which are used in making biodiesel and other types of fuel. Also, the use of algae biofuel reduces reliance on fossil fuels.

Some research shows that algae fuel could one day be a significant part of the nation's energy supply. But the cost of producing it remains high and scientists are working on ways to bring it down.

"All these Floridians think that algae is bad because it causes red tide, but it can be used as a positive to help our environment and our economy," Sobczak said.

Among a trove of awards and scholarships from the Intel ISEF, Sobczak was given the opportunity to visit NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, where workers control the Mars rover, for three days this month.

"(Sobczak) will get a behind-the-scenes experience of how JPL works: how we conceive and design missions, how we build and operate spacecraft, and then she'll meet scientists who will speak about how they use spacecraft to discover new science," said Larry Bergman, a program manager at the lab.

The world's attention has been on Mars because of the Curiosity rover landing and the Intel ISEF took that into consideration when selecting a prominent research lab to send a student to, Bergman said. In the past, students have gone to places like CERN, the nuclear research lab in Switzerland notable for having the world's largest particle accelerator.

"Going to the JPL is not something that everyone can experience, so I am very excited to be able to go," Sobczak said. "I can't wait to see them and talk to them about my project."

Also this summer, she will volunteer in the postpartum unit at St. Petersburg General Hospital and will be involved with a beach restoration project.

"She's motivated, she's driven, she's a grinder," said her mom, Lila Sobczak. "Until she finds the answer, she doesn't stop," she said.

Sobczak fell in love with science just by doing her schoolwork at Shorecrest. She says her teachers inspired her by getting her involved with science fairs early on.

"Evie has two things going for her," said David Hyink, her biology teacher. "She loves science and she has amazing enthusiasm for it. I think those are the two key ingredients to be able to do this."

Sobczak hopes to get into Columbia University or MIT to major in biochemical engineering. She's excited to work in a college lab where she can expand her algae project. Sobczak's dream job: working with other engineers to make algae a biofuel in the United States.

Between devoting countless hours to her algae project, keeping up with schoolwork and trying to hold on to her social life, Sobczak gets frazzled. But to that she simply says: "Stress means you're doing a lot of work, so it has to be a good thing."

We can't help but to notice that biodiesel from 2nd generation feedstock is the focus of the most respected engineering and scientific organizations on the planet.

The environmentalist group 350.org takes its name after the 350 parts per million threshold that scientists say is the maximum atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for a safe planet. In a statement on the parts per million number hitting 400, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben said, quote, "The only question now is whether the relentless rise in carbon can be matched by a relentless rise in the activism necessary to stop it."

To find out more about the impacts of crossing the threshold, study the books of leading climate scientist Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State University, author of the recent book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.

So, this number, 400 parts per million, what does it mean? It’s the number of molecules of CO2 for every million molecules of air; 400 of them are now CO2. Just two centuries ago, that number was only 280 parts per million. So if we continue to add carbon to the atmosphere at current rates, we’ll reach a doubling of the pre-industrial levels of CO2 within the next few decades.

We have to go several million years back in time to find a point in earth’s history where CO2 was as high as it is now and, of course, we’re just blowing through this 400 ppm limit. If we continue to burn fossil fuels at accelerating rates, if we continue with business as usual, we will cross the 450 parts per million limit in a matter of a couple decades. We believe that with that amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, we will all experience what can truly be described as dangerous and irreversible changes in our climate.

California, Massachusetts and New York are the fastest growing states for diesel car sales, while Texas, California and Florida have the most diesels on the road.

NBC News explains why her super-oily algae have an advantage in the push to make commercially viable algae-based biofuels:

Other researchers have approached the problem by tweaking the algae genome or selecting the prime environmental conditions for algae growth. Volz’s approach, she said, is different and lower cost. It relies on an herbicide that kills algae cells with low levels of an enzyme crucial to making oil.

“The idea is, if you introduce this chemical, you kill everything with really low oil production,” she explained. “What you are left with is a population of cells with very high oil production.”

We salute anyone who decides to live with tubes of algae under their bed in service of the greater good. (And Volz is so hardcore, she’s also decided to sleep on the same light cycle as her little green charges.) But we also salute Volz for being an all-around awesome geek: She’s field captain of her high school’s Science Olympiad Team and captain of the Science Bowl team. Also, she likes improv and musical theater. She’s going to MIT next year, and, other incoming MIT freshmen, if we were you, we would totally request her as a roommate.

Very interesting to note that one of the most successful and most respected Research Funds in the world awarded their top prize to a project that demonstrates micro algae to biodiesel. If only the rest of our population were as aware of the opportunity, our nation's economic issues, dependency on foreign petroleum (including Canada), high emissions from gasoline powered cars and even the high emissions and insane mineral requirments from EV's and hybrids, ..., would fade away in about 5-6 years.

The large scale production of biodiesel sourced from 2nd generation feedstock is the only scalable, economically viable, environmentally friendly and truly sustainable replacement for petroleum we have today. U.S. citizens have wasted over $2T by purchasing hundreds of billions of lower energy density gallons of gasoline and burning that fuel in lower efficiency gasoline engines over just the past 10 years. There is a direct 1-to-1 relationship today between the strength of a nation's economy and the percentage of that nation's light fleet that runs on diesel fuel with biodiesel mandates.

Join the Migration.. http://etcgreen.com

Earlier this month the Obama Administration showed strong support for the biodiesel industry when it finalized a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volume increase for biodiesel. The EPA’s decision finalized the 2013 volume requirement under the RFS for biomass-based diesel to 1.28 billion gallons.

This represents a modest increase from the industry's record production in 2011 of nearly 1.1 billion gallons and puts the industry on course for steady, sustainable growth in the coming years.

"This was an incredibly important decision, and the Obama Administration got it right," said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board. "It will allow biodiesel plants across the country to invest and expand, creating thousands of jobs. At the same time, it sends a strong signal that the U.S. is standing firm behind its commitment to producing clean, American-made energy to strengthen our energy security and break our dependence on petroleum."

The EPA is responsible for developing and implementing regulations to ensure that transportation fuel sold in the United States contains a minimum volume of renewable fuel. The RFS program regulations were developed in collaboration with refiners, renewable fuel producers, and many other stakeholders.

"This decision will continue to diversify our fuel supplies so that we're not so vulnerable to global petroleum markets and this endless cycle of price spikes,” said Jobe. “The Renewable Fuel Standard is clearly working to do that, and the benefits of doing so are clear: We'll continue to create good jobs, expand our economy and reduce harmful emissions. It's just smart energy policy."

Japanese auto giant Honda Motor Co Ltd is set to introduce its first diesel vehicle in India — an entry-level sedan based on the Brio platform — in the next financial year. The move comes at a time when Honda is battling slowing sales of its petrol vehicle.

The move is significant as its Indian subsidiary, Honda Cars India Ltd, is battling slowing sales as its portfolio of petrol vehicles is becoming less attractive in a market which is increasingly preferring diesel-powered vehicles.

In today’s action EPA is establishing an applicable volume of 1.28 bill gallons for biomass-based diesel (BBD) for 2013. EPA is setting this volume based on consideration of the factors specified in the statute, including a consideration of biodiesel production, con­sumption, and infrastructure issues. As required under the statute, EPA also assessed the likely impact of BBD production and use in a variety of areas.

Under the Clean Air Act Section 211(o), as amended by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, EPA is required to determine and promulgate the applicable volume of BBD that will be required in 2013 and beyond, as the statute specifies a minimum volume for the BBD category (of 1 billion gallons) for years after 2012. EPA proposed a volume requirement for 2013 of 1.28 billion gallons on July 1, 2011. EPA is able to take final action now after sufficiently evaluating the many comments on the proposal, as well as gathering additional information to enhance our analysis.

• Final Rule (PDF) (65 pp, 808K, signed September 14, 2012)

EV's and Hybrids are not our Future

EV Tech - Postmortem

BMW diesel lovers still have options in the 2013 U.S. market lineup with the X5 35d (EPA 19/36MPG) and the new 3-series sports wagon is expected to get a diesel version as well. There are also some rumblings about a 7-series diesel coming to the U.S. market so BMW might one day actually compete with Daimler and Audi per their full-line fleet offerings in the U.S. Market.

The 2013 328i offers similar EPA emission and mpg results as the outgoing 2012 335d suggesting that BMW dropped the "d" version because their diesel engine tech had slipped in relation to their economical petrol-sipping variety. Then again, the new BMW 328i comes with a small turbocharged and direct-injected 240-bhp 2.0-liter N20 inline-4. BMW calls this engine TwinPower not because of twin turbocharging, but because of the combination of its double VANOS variable camshaft timing and Valvetronic variable valve timing with a twin-scroll single turbocharger fed by two separate exhaust banks. The result is a healthy bump of 10 bhp and 60 ft.-lb. of torque compared to the previous 328i equipped with a 3.0-liter inline-6 engine. In fact, BMW tells us the N20 delivers its 260 ft.-lb. of peak torque at 1250 rpm, helping the new 3 Series sprint to 60 mph in 5.7 sec (with the 6-speed manual transmission), or 5.9 sec (8-speed automatic).

One significant concern this engine presents is a short life-cycle. Gasoline powered engine blocks with high temp turbo chargers rarely pass the 120,000 mile mark without major engine repair. Anyone who understands the advantages of diesel over gasoline powered vehicles knows the life cycle of a diesel is x2 that of the comparable gasoline car. This results in a lower environmental impact by almost 50%. It also reduces the life cycle cost per mile by nearly 50%. For the penny & pound wise, diesel vehicles have a considerably higher resale value than gasoline vehicles with the same mileage. Most importantly, it helps position the U.S. light fleet to take advantage of the U.S. Migration where biodiesel blends can extend the remaining petroleum supply for decades to come.

From the performance perspective, speed limits on U.S. roads can be achieved by even the lowest-end economy cars. The sensation of torque is the factor that really matters to the serious driver so we are confused as to why so many people continued to purchase the 2012 335i that produces only 300 lbs/ft of torque while the 2012 335d produces 425 lbs/ft of torque. Then again, BMW drivers have a reputation for a very short list of motivations so environmental impact, economy, longevity, national economics and energy independence are probably not considered by most. There was a time when a BMW gasoline powered vehicle was actually a desirable possession not unlike the gas guzzling Detroit muscle cars of the '60's and '70's.

The EPA does not measure mpg for diesel engines in MPPG (Miles Per Petroleum Gallon). So it appears that BMW may have made a hasty decision in that there are 7 U.S. states that have biodiesel mandates on the books today and the Federal EPA just recently submitted new legislation to make a biodiesel blend a national mandate. Biodiesel can be produced at $2/gallon today, next year, 5, 10, 20, 40, ... years from now and biodiesel can be blended with petrodiesel at any percentage. Compare this to the rapidly rising price of petroleum - from the recent $2.30 gallon at the pumps to the current $4 and the projected $7 gallon at U.S. pumps within a few years and the public will make the right decision to Join the U.S. Migration. Here is where we are today - this is not sustainable... (total cost of fuel at the pump in red with government taxes per gallon in blue)

The U.S. Migration plan will ease the economic pain significantly and almost immediately and will provide the infrastructure that will support and utilize the large scale production of biodiesel sourced from 2nd generation feedstock. This is the only scalable, economically viable, environmentally friendly and truly sustainable replacement for petroleum we have today. U.S. citizens have wasted over $2T by purchasing hundreds of billions of lower energy density gallons of gasoline and burning that fuel in lower efficiency gasoline engines over just the past 10 years. There is a direct 1-to-1 relationship today between the strength of a nation's economy and the percentage of that nation's light fleet that runs on diesel fuel with biodiesel mandates.

Join the Migration.

Click to embiggen.

And once again, the past 12 months have been the hottest 12 months ever in the contiguous U.S. So was the prior 12-month stretch, and the one before that.

Shell's chief executive told The Financial Times the company expects natural gas prices in the U.S., which are near 10-year lows, to double by 2015.

In an interview, chief executive Peter Voser said Shell is using a price of $4 to $6 per million Btu for 2014-2015, up from the current $2.55.

The price increase will be driven by increased demand, "as coal is replaced by gas in electricity generation, and natural gas in transportation takes off."

Shell is also looking into turning U.S. natural gas into diesel. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Shell is considering building a plant in Louisiana similar to an existing gas-to-liquids facility in Qatar.

At $6 is NG still a bargain for transportation fuels? In a word, no. About the time the NG market hits $8 and above, there will be a significant amount of remorse from all those fleet managers for ever considering CNG conversions. CNG requires high maintenance compressors, a multi-$Trillion distribution system, serious environmental impact for extraction (fracking) and is not only the most volatile (unstable and explosive) transportation fuel, but also has the most volatile price history of any energy source over the past 10 years. CNG is a fossil fuel with a finite volume available. It has little future for achieving large scale production status for transportation. [2010 - $75 petroleum barrel equiv.; 2008 - $340 barrel equiv.; 2006 - $225 barrel equiv.]

Join the Migration ...

The new law, the Renewable Energy Sources Act in English, will likely not take effect until early 2013.

The announcement was made by Poland's deputy minister, Mieczyslaw Kasprzak, at a press conference 27 July 2012.

Other former East Bloc countries have introduced feed-in tariffs for renewable energy with varying degrees of success and consistency, most famously the Czech Republic.

Poland, however, through its long association with émigré communities in the U.S., and its early rebellion against Soviet rule, became the poster child of neoliberal "reforms" following the fall of Communism. Thus, any move by the generally conservative Polish government to move away from its troubled system of Tradable Green Certificates and toward feed-in tariffs is potentially groundbreaking.

Perhaps it's not unrelated that the other conservative bookend of the European Union, Great Britain, had previously made a decision to scrap its Quota system (Renewable Portfolio Standard in US terminology) and introduce a form of feed-in tariffs dubbed Contracts for Difference. Britain had previously introduced a wildly successful feed-in tariff for microgeneration that resulted in the installation of more than 1,000 MW of solar photovoltaics.

Few details of the draft bill circulating within the Polish government are available in English. From news reports and partial machine translation, here's what little is known.

• Program expansion will be limited by a budget.
• Microgenerators will receive expedited interconnection.
• Reviews every three years.
• Wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, biogas, biomass, wave, and tidal power will be included.
• New renewable target of 15.5% by 2020
• Contract term: 15 years with the exception of co-firing.
• Exemption of excise tax on generation.

Currently there is only 2,000 MW of wind capacity installed in the country, generating 2.8 TWh per year or less than 2% of supply.

Most "renewable" generation in the country is through the questionable practice of "co-firing" coal-fired power plants with biomass. Co-firing allows utilities to trade in and profit from "green certificates" under the Polish renewable obligation system. Demand for biomass by utilities — some foreign owned — has become so great that it has exhausted domestic resources and led to rising imports. The proposed Renewable Energy Sources Act will be introduced in part to redress this imbalance.

The proposed act will limit the terms of co-firing to only five years.

European and Polish environmentalists had long criticized Polish reliance on "co-firing" as a means of meeting its renewable obligations. However, it was the foreign exchange costs of importing biomass to meet Poland's demand for "green certificates" that moved the government to action.

Poland is not part of the Euro currency zone, though it is a member of the European Union and consequently has a legal obligation to meet its renewables target.