Inhofe Op-Ed: Don’t Increase Ethanol Percentage in Gasoline

Most on-road and non-road engines, vehicles, and equipment are not designed to run on ethanol blends higher than E10. The available evidence indicates that lawnmowers, chainsaws, snowmobiles, recreational boats, motorcycles, and non-flex-fuel cars and trucks produce higher evaporative and engine exhaust emissions using mid-level ethanol blends. Also, mid-level ethanol blends are more corrosive on certain metals and plastics used in many fuel systems, and cause many gasoline-powered engines to run hotter and at higher RPM levels. In turn, this results in adverse impacts on starting, durability, operation, performance, and operator safety, due to the degradation of critical components and safety devices.

Governors still feeling their way through climate bill

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) prepared the visiting governors for Republican opposition. He welcomed them to the "halls of denial" and "fear."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said the bill needs to be changed to benefit the middle class and to impose a more aggressive renewable portfolio standard. But she told the governors that taking no action would siphon jobs from their states.

"We just can't sit on our hands and do nothing," she said. "If we do, other countries are going to fill the void. Other countries are going to beat us."

Baseball [team pays $500/game to pretend that their electricity was generated by the wind]

Debbie Castaldo, vice president of corporate and community partnerships for the Diamondbacks, told the Phoenix Business Journal that this event is the latest effort the team is making to become more sustainable. She said it will cost the team about $500 a game to purchase the wind-generated energy, and that officials felt it was a reasonable price to pay.

[How many of these people actually believe in Al Gore Warming?]: Integrated approach needed in the fight to reduce CO2 from road transportation

This was the key message that emerged from the first FISITA World Automotive Summit, held in Falkenstein, Germany from 15 – 16 July 2009 and organised by global automotive engineering association, FISITA.

Senior executives from global vehicle manufacturers, suppliers and energy companies joined with experts from academia, scientific bodies, government and NGOs to discuss the most effective ways to achieve significant CO2 reduction in road transportation, in advance of December’s United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15) in Copenhagen.