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by Puneet Kollipara

FuelFix

Public support for putting federal money toward research on certain renewable energy sources has fallen significantly since early 2009, a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll found.

Overall, 68 percent of Americans support spending federal dollars to support research into solar, wind and hydrogen-based energy, but that number is down from 82 percent in early 2009 when President Barack Obama took office.

The poll found that virtually all the decline in public support comes from self-identified Republicans. Collectively, their support fell from 82 percent in early 2009 to 53 percent now. Support among Democrats was in the low 80s, virtually unchanged from past polls.

Support for the idea that government investment is necessary to develop renewable technologies has fallen six points since early 2009, from 58 percent to 52 percent, the poll found. Support remains strong among Democrats, at 68 percent, while support among Republicans is far lower, at 36 percent.

The poll’s release comes amid the ongoing Republican investigation into a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to Fremont, Calif., solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early September.

Pew notes that Americans still support research into solar, wind and hydrogen energy more than they support expanded oil and gas drilling in offshore waters and expanded mining and drilling on federal lands. On both policies, Americans’ level of support is 58 percent.

But support for drilling and mining is highly polarized based on political affiliations. Republicans’ level of support for those energy policies is more than 30 points higher than among Democrats.

Support for expanding nuclear power is less polarized, but a majority of Americans oppose it, 53 percent to 39 percent.

The poll’s results are based on a random national sample of 1,005 American adults — including 387 Republicans and Republican leaners and 461 Democrats and Democratic leaners — who were interviewed by telephone.

Interviewing was done by the firm Princeton Survey Research Associates International, an independent research firm. The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points among all Americans, plus or minus six percentage points among Republicans and Republican leaners, and plus or minus 5.5 points among Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Original Article

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By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top officials at the White House circulated a plan calling for the ouster of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and other top Energy Department officials as the administration braced for a political storm brewing over the failing solar energy company Solyndra.

An email from a clean-energy activist and former official in President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign said Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was a brilliant man but “not perfect” for other critical DOE missions, including creating jobs. The Feb. 25 email from Dan Carol, a former issues adviser in Obama’s campaign, was circulated by then-Chief of Staff Peter Rouse and seen by at least 18 White House officials, including senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and then-energy adviser Carol Browner.

The emails were released late Friday by the government in response to a subpoena by House Republicans, who are investigating a $528 million federal loan received by Solyndra Inc. of Fremont, Calif. The firm later went bankrupt and laid off its 1,100 workers.

A White House spokesman said Friday the plan to oust Chu was not taken very seriously.

Dan Leistikow, a spokesman for Chu, called Carol “an activist with an agenda” and said his email was not solicited by the White House. His suggestion about Chu was not taken seriously, Leistikow said.

Rouse, in a March 14 email to Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle, passed along Carol’s proposal, saying he was “not that interested in Dan’s criticism of Secretary Chu,” but said Carol was smart and shared the president’s views on energy policy. Rouse asked White House officials to comment on Carol’s analysis of the administration’s energy policy.

In the three-page email, Carol said Chu should be reassigned as chief scientist at Energy, where he could “reinspire and reorganize” DOE’s labs.

“This is a HUGE job and he would be perfect for it,” Carol said, adding that Chu “is a wonderful and brilliant man, but he is not perfect for the other critical DOE mission: deploying existing technologies at scale and creating jobs.”

The memo also says the energy secretary should be “comfortable meeting with bankers,” adding that the bookish Chu is not comfortable doing that. Carol also recommended an overhaul of Energy Department staff, including Chu’s deputy, the department’s chief of staff and its undersecretary.

Carol acknowledged that Obama was unlikely to replace Chu, “out of personal affection or perhaps concern of perceived public perception of failure.”

Even if Chu were not reassigned, Carol added, the Energy Department should redirect its efforts on the $38 billion loan guarantee program and other spending. “There is a still A LOT of money over there that could be repurposed to better uses,” he wrote.

Carol suggested Navy Secretary Ray Mabus as a replacement for Chu, adding that the new secretary should not come from Silicon Valley. Such an appointment “will get caught up in the wave of GOP attacks that are surely coming over Solyndra and other inside DOE deals that have gone to Obama donors and have underperformed,” Carol wrote.

Solyndra’s implosion and revelations that administration officials rushed to complete the loan in time for a September 2009 groundbreaking have become an embarrassment for Obama and a rallying cry for GOP critics of his green energy program.

The Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee has subpoenaed White House communications on Solyndra and has released thousands of pages of emails related to the company.

The White House on Friday rejected the GOP subpoena, calling it overly broad. Instead officials provided 135 pages of documents that administration officials said meet the “legitimate oversight interests” of congressional investigators.

In a letter to top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee Friday, White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said the documents “do not contain evidence of favoritism to political supporters or any wrongdoing by the White House in connection with the Solyndra loan guarantee.” GOP lawmakers have said the loan to Solyndra appears politically motivated, and that major Obama donors received unusual access to the White House.

GOP Reps. Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns, who lead the energy committee and a subcommittee on investigations, respectively, said in a statement Friday that they appreciated the White House response to the subpoena.

“We’re hoping this is the beginning of an effort to finally make public these missing pieces of a process that left us all holding the bag for over 500 million dollars,” said Upton, of Michigan, and Stearns, of Florida.

Chu is scheduled to testify before the energy panel on Thursday.

Chu’s spokesman, Leistikow, said the emails released Friday, and others released by the administration in recent weeks, “reaffirm that decisions were made on the merits and that all of the baseless allegations about political considerations just aren’t borne out by the facts.”

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To the Editor:

Re “Questions About the Safety of Fracking” (letters, Nov. 9):

Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, Democrat of New York, does not mention the economic benefits of natural gas development in regions long plagued by widespread unemployment. As a result of investments in safe shale gas technology by natural gas companies, people are working and communities are again thriving. Repeated tests have shown that hydraulic fracturing in thousands of wells protects water supplies, and state and federal tests have found no groundwater contamination.

Mr. Hinchey would have us believe that because the federal government doesn’t regulate it, there is lax regulation of hydraulic fracturing — or none. Hydraulic fracturing operations are indeed rigorously regulated by states, which are best equipped to regulate because hydrologic and geologic conditions vary greatly from state to state, making a nationwide system unworkable.

Shale producers have a commitment to the environment and the communities in which they operate. They’ve adopted numerous industrywide standards to ensure safe and clean operations, as well as programs such as FracFocus.org, a Web site about fracking that lists the components of hydraulic fracturing fluids on a well-by-well basis.

JACK N. GERARD

President and Chief Executive

American Petroleum Institute

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By Aaron Clark

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Premiums for low-sulfur oil in the U.S. Gulf Coast weakened to benchmark West Texas Intermediate as WTI gained versus its European counterpart for a third day.

The discount of WTI to Brent December contracts narrowed 64 cents to $15.93. The spread for prompt month contracts has narrowed 43 percent since settling at a record of $27.88 a barrel Oct. 14.

When Brent decreases versus WTI, it weakens the value of low-sulfur U.S. grades that compete with West African oil priced against the European benchmark.

Heavy Louisiana Sweet’s premium fell $1 to $18 a barrel at 2:07 p.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while Light Louisiana Sweet decreased $1.20 to $17.05 above WTI.

The premium for Mars Blend dropped $1.85 to $13.15 a barrel. Poseidon lost $2.25 to $13.25 a barrel over WTI.

Southern Green Canyon’s premium shrank $2.75 to $12 a barrel and West Texas Sour’s discount was unchanged at 70 cents. Thunder Horse’s premium dropped $2.55 to $15.45 above WTI.

The discount for Western Canada Select narrowed 25 cents to $11.90 a barrel.

Syncrude’s premium narrowed 15 cents to $5.75 a barrel. Syncrude is a light, low-sulfur synthetic oil derived from the tar sands in Alberta.

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* Sale scheduled for Dec. 14 in New Orleans

* Involves all available areas in western Gulf of Mexico

* 3,913 unleased blocks offered nine to 250 miles offshore

* Potential 423 million barrels oil, 2.56 Tcf natural gas

Nov 10 (Reuters) – The first Gulf of Mexico lease sale since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill will be held Dec. 14 in New Orleans, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced Thursday.

Lease Sale 218 will offer all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf Planning Area offshore of Texas, a news release said.

The announcement follows BOEM’s completion of a supplemental environmental impact statement analyzing the effects of the April 2010 explosion of Transocean Ltd’s Deepwater Horizon rig as it completed drilling BP Plc’s Macondo well.

The explosion killed 11 workers, sank the drilling rig and triggered the worst marine oil spill in U.S. history offshore of Louisiana. The accident spewed more than 4 million barrels of crude into the Gulf.

The sale will offer 3,913 unleased blocks covering 21 million acres (8.5 million hectares) from 9 miles to 250 miles (402 kilometers) offshore in water depths from 16 to 10,975 feet (3,345 meters).

BOEM estimates the sale could result in production of 222 to 423 million barrels of oil and 1.49 to 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the news release said.

The Final Notice of Sale published Thursday includes an increase in the minimum bid for blocks in water depths greater than 1,312 feet (400 meters) from $37.50 to $100 per acre. In shallower depths, the minimum bid will remain $25 an acre.

“Raising the minimum bid will discourage companies from inventorying offshore acreage that they are unlikely to explore during the lease term,” the news release said.

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by Bill Chappell

A final decision on building a new oil pipeline to connect Alberta, Canada, to U.S. refineries near the Gulf of Mexico will not be made until after the 2012 presidential election, the State Department said Thursday.

TransCanada’s proposal to build the Keystone XL pipeline had come under pressure from environmentalists, as well as government officials in Nebraska. It would cost an estimated $7 billion to build.

For NPR’s Newscast desk, Richard Harris filed this report:

The Keystone XL pipeline seemed like a done deal, until environmentalists decided to make it a rallying point and a test of President Obama’s environmental credentials.

A Canadian company was poised to build the 1,700-mile pipeline from Alberta to Texas, and was just waiting on a few final approvals from the U.S. State Department. Soon after activists made this an issue, it also came under bipartisan attack in Nebraska, where the pipeline would cross some sensitive water supplies. Nebraskans want the pipeline to be rerouted. And the State Department has now agreed to study alternative routes.

Some labor unions support the pipeline because of the construction jobs it will create. And the administration has supported it on the grounds that it’s better to buy oil from friendly Canada than to buy it from the Middle East.

President Obama released a statement supporting the postponement, citing a “need to seek additional information” about the proposed pipeline.

“The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people,” the president said.

Over at It’s All Politics, Frank James looks at how the delay might affect Obama’s standing with voters swayed by environmental issues.

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(CBS MoneyWatch)

By Jerry Edgerton

What if you could buy a car that costs $1 to $2 a gallon less than gasoline to refuel but drives almost exactly like a gasoline model? And what if that fuel was produced right here in the USA?

If you like that idea, Honda hopes you may be ready for the 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas. Starting in December, the natural gas model — previously available in only four states — will go on sale at 200 dealerships in all of the 36 states that have natural gas refueling stations.

Refueling is, of course, the major challenge to owners of natural gas vehicles. Only about 1,000 stations nationwide currently offer natural gas refueling, according to Dr. Kathryn Clay, executive director of the Drive Natural Gas Initiative, who appeared at a Honda press event in New York City this week. (That compares with about 115,000 stations dispensing gasoline.) Her group, supported by natural gas producers and utilities, argues that the nation should capitalize on recent discoveries of huge shale-formation reserves of domestic natural gas by using it to power more cars.

Currently, stations are concentrated most heavily in California (where natural gas costs about $2.50 per gallon of gasoline equivalent, vs. $3.84 average for gasoline), New York (also about $2.50 vs. $3.68), and Utah and Oklahoma. Because of state policies in the latter two states, both of which are home to natural gas producers, stations are widespread and prices are low — under $1.30 per gallon of gasoline equivalent in Utah, and under $1 in Oklahoma. To see if you have stations in your area, check this map and click on your state.

Drives well & ranks greenest

Honda is hoping that the natural gas Civic will lure a new set of buyers focused on environmental, financial or even geopolitical advantages.

Drivers will notice virtually no differences from traditional gasoline models — not even the unfamiliar noises of gas-electric hybrids. Driving the gasoline and natural gas models one after the other in New York City this week, I detected little variation except for slightly sluggish acceleration when the Civic Natural Gas was set in Eco mode, aimed at maximizing mileage. (The expected MPG equivalent ratings are 27 in city driving, 38 on the highway).

And if you care about environmental principle, you can feel virtuous. The natural gas car is low on both traditional air pollutants and greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. The 2011 model of the natural gas Civic (previously known as the Civic GX) topped the greenest cars list compiled by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy — winning for the eighth straight year and topping new electric competitors like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt.

Even drivers motivated by pure self-interest may want to take a look. The natural gas model lets even solo commuters hop into the fast High Occupancy Vehicle lanes in two of the most congested areas in the country: Southern California and the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. And if you use the Civic Natural Gas to commute, you might be able to install a home refill station in your garage using the natural gas supply that you have for your stove or other appliances. Prices for such overnight refills often cost about half the price of natural gas refill stations.

Challenges remain

But wider acceptance of the natural gas vehicles still faces challenges — which is why natural gas has been used chiefly to date for city buses and fleet trucks (for companies such as UPS and Frito-Lay). For now, Honda plans to build only about 2,000 of the natural gas models.

Among the obstacles:

Price: With the Civic Natural Gas based on the high-end EX model instead of the base model, as in the past, list price will start at $26,255 or $27,655 with built-in navigation (including a function to find the nearest natural gas station). That is about a $4,200 premium over the most expensive gasoline EX. In surveys, consumers repeatedly show interest in alternative fuel vehicles including hybrids, but then say they are unwilling to pay a higher purchase price even if they will save money on fuel.

Lack of widespread financial incentives: An earlier federal $4,000 tax credit for the natural gas Civic has expired. Utah will give you a tax credit of up to $2,500, and Oklahoma offers a credit of up to half the added cost over a conventional vehicle. But other states, including New York and California, don’t have such credits — although California may in some cases subsidize up to $1,000 on the cost of a home fueling station.

Limited range: As with electric cars in need of regular recharging, drivers will need to closely monitor how far they can drive before refueling. Honda says the Civic Natural Gas tank holds the equivalent of eight gallons of gasoline and has a range of about 250 miles.

For now, Honda is the only automaker producing a natural gas car in the U.S. — but advocate Clay hopes to see other manufacturers join the crowd. “All the major companies have natural gas models that they sell in other countries,” she says. “But they say they want to be sure the refueling structure is set up before they try to sell them here.”

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By Andrew Restuccia – 11/10/11 05:01 PM ET

The State Department insisted Thursday that the Obama administration’s plan to delay a final decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline until after the election has nothing to do with politics.

“This decision is based on the process that we’ve been going through,” State Department Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters on a conference call. “This is not a political decision.”

Jones said the White House played no role in the decision, though the State Department informed officials about their plan to reevaluate the proposed route, delaying a final ruling on the pipeline until after the election.

“The White House did not have anything to do with this decision except we consulted with them as we were moving toward it,” Jones said. “There was no effort to sort of influence our decision. It was our decision.”

The State Department announced Thursday that it will conduct an assessment of alternative pipeline routes through Nebraska, citing public concerns about the impact of the project in the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region of the state. The Nebraska state legislature, for example, is in the middle of a special session aimed at changing the pipeline route.

“This message about the Sand Hills of Nebraska has been coming strong and with increasing intensity,” Jones said.

But proponents of the pipeline nonetheless alleged Thursday that the decision to review alternative routes was intended to prevent President Obama from having to weather the political fallout that would come with making a final decision on the project.

“President Obama is putting a far-left environmentalist agenda before jobs, the economy and national security,” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said in a statement.

“Politics has trumped jobs in this decision and we can only wonder if the Administration’s delay will cause Canada to turn their pipeline west and ship their energy and American jobs elsewhere,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue said in a statement.

Environmental activists and others have mounted a massive opposition campaign to TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas.

They have positioned the decision as a referendum on Obama’s energy policy, warning that they’ll withhold valuable resources that could aid the president’s reelection campaign if he greenlights the project.

Opponents of the pipeline have also been critical of the State Department’s review of the project. They’ve faulted the department for allowing Cardno Entrix, a contractor with financial ties to TransCanada, to conduct an environmental review of the pipeline.

Jones, on the call with reporters Thursday, defended the department’s decision to use Cardno Entrix. She also said the department would consider using the company to evaluate the alternative route.

“They would be considered as anyone else would be,” Jones said.

Meanwhile, President Obama is under intense pressure from proponents of the project to approve the pipeline. Industry groups and many Republicans argue that the project is essential because it will boost the economy and create jobs.

Original Article