February 24th, 2013 
Eric Wilson 
Recent life changes have led to my wife and me filling up the tank to our car 5-6 times a month, up from probably 3 previously. We no longer live across the street from her work and now drive to her work and our children’s day care, where I usually catch the bus. As we [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Transportation 
Tags: Bus, Cars, Electric Vehicles, Oil, Oil Consumption, Peak Oil, Walking 
No Comments » January 28th, 2013 Justin Manger 
The Bakken oil fields in North Dakota are releasing so much gas that, according to The Financial Times, oil companies at the heart of the US shale oil boom are burning off enough gas to power all the homes in Chicago and Washington combined. In the photo from space at the bottom of this post, [...]
October 3rd, 2012 Justin Manger We all know the massive amounts of oil that poured into the Gulf of Mexico during the Macondo deep-water oil spill of 2010. Since then scientists have been working overtime trying to come up with unique ways to remove oil from water. Researchers at Rice University and Penn State University may be on to something. [...]
Posted in Clean Technology, Green Products, Justin Manger, Oceans Tags: Conservation, Environment, Oil Consumption, Pollution No Comments » September 20th, 2012 Chris DeArmond A while back, we posted about cutting the speed limit as an easy way to increase fuel efficiency. If speed limits nationwide were reduced to 55 MPH, as they were between 1974 and 1995 under the National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL), American motorists would save billions of dollars each year. Why, then, does it make [...]
August 13th, 2012 Eric Wilson In June the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its 2012 Annual Energy Outlook (PDF). According to the press release, the report includes various “assumptions regarding market, policy, and technology drivers affect projections of energy production, consumption, technology, and market trends and the direction they may take in the future.” Among the most pertinent projections for [...]
July 22nd, 2012 Nick Grue Last week I wrote about nuclear fusion, the elusive and extremely difficult-to-harness energy source with the potential to solve the entire world’s problem of energy shortage. Fusion has the potential to generate vast amounts of energy, so why should we continue developing other, less efficient forms of energy? Developing fusion energy, even if it does [...]
July 6th, 2012 Eric Wilson This week’s facts come from a March 2012 infographic (seen below) produced by NPR with data from the Energy Information Administration: Americans consume 300 million gallons of gasoline every day Average price for a gallon of gas in the US since 1980: $2.30* Record high price for a gallon of gas (in the US): $4.21, [...]
April 18th, 2012 Eric Wilson Can a rental car company really move society toward sustainable transport? Hertz on Demand, a car sharing service from the eponymous rental agency, believes they have devised a way to more appropriately share cars. Currently there are a wealth of these types of services. Occasional Car, eGo Car Share, and ZipCar are some of the [...]
April 13th, 2012 Eric Wilson When looking at which energy source provides the most energy to the American economy, natural gas topped the charts for 2010 (the most recent year for which data was fully available). Today’s set of facts looks at the breakdown of the various sources and follows up last week’s Five Friday Facts which looked at the [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Five Friday Facts, Renewable Energy Tags: Biomass, Coal, Energy, Geothermal, Hydroelectricity, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Oil Consumption, Solar Energy, Wind Power No Comments » April 9th, 2012 Eric Wilson When energy efficiency and fuel economy come to mind, big oil is not always the first image that pops up. However, Shell Oil has been supporting the Eco-Marathon, a competition for “high school and college student teams from around the world to design, build and test energy efficient vehicles.” The current record is held by [...]
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Eric Wilson Tags: Battery, Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Economy, Oil Consumption, Peak Oil, Photovoltaic, Plug-in Hybrid, Solar Energy No Comments »
