Michael Giberson
Geoff Styles, on OPEC and oil prices, “That $75 per barrel figure from OPEC is interesting for many reasons.” Styles explains.
Archive for December 1st, 2008
Do you know what the car company of the future should look like?
December 1, 2008Michael Giberson
From the Steven Mufson article in the Washington Post, The Car of the Future — but at What Cost?:
Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like.
“A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week. “We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car.”
But the car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a “sustainable U.S. auto industry” that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create.
That’s because car manufacturers still haven’t figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them….
In his “60 Minutes” interview on Nov. 16, Obama said that before backing a big loan package he wanted to be sure “that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere.”
U.S. automakers have spent enough years fighting Washington-D.C.-based policymakers and regulators that they certainly know what they are asking for when they go to Washington asking for money. That they are, nonetheless, going to Washington and asking for money is a troubling sign.
And speaking of opportunities to subsidize the cars of the future, Randall Stross objects to the idea of giving federal money to Tesla Motors, maker of the high-end electric roadster.
“Power reports battle it out” and other energy news from the Houston Chronicle
December 1, 2008Michael Giberson
The Houston Chronicle has long been one of the best newspapers for energy news, perhaps why it is frequently cited here at KP.* (You can subscribe to an RSS feed focused on Chronicle energy stories.) Over the last few days:
- “Power reports battle it out” — “A new crop of studies offering competing takes on Texas’ electricity markets has been released in recent weeks, all part of a biennial ritual aimed at promoting or preventing new laws in the regular Texas legislative session that convenes every other year.”
- “Texas power grid project to cost twice as much” — “A project aimed at preventing problems like the price spikes that helped drive some electric retailers out of business last spring will be twice as expensive and two years overdue, the state’s main power grid operator said Wednesday.”
- “TXU sibling to pay fine in power price case” — “The power plant operator formerly known as TXU Wholesale has agreed to pay $15 million to settle allegations it manipulated Texas power prices, just a fraction of the $210 million fine regulators originally proposed.”
- “Biodiesel tax break backfires: U.S. producers reap federal subsidy while selling most of the fuel overseas” — “Federal subsidies to the U.S. biodiesel industry were supposed to help wean the nation from foreign oil, and a new law in 2009 will bolster the effort, but the money has fueled a controversial side business… selling huge quantities of biodiesel in Europe and in other foreign markets, where prices are often better.”
They’ll also reprint good material from elsewhere:
- From the LA Times, Solar squabble burns brightly in California.
- From the Washington Post, Cars of future may be money-losers.
The Washington Post‘s own online title for that last story soft-pedaled the ‘money losing’ angle: The Car of the Future — but at What Cost?
*By my count, newspapers in order of frequency of citation on KP: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, then others.
