Dallas News -- WASHINGTON – U.S. companies are getting squeezed out of the big Chinese wind-power market even as Dallas investors are bringing Chinese firms here via a big wind farm in Texas, according to a new industry report.

"They've used every measure you could possibly think of to enhance production of renewable energy equipment in China," said report author Alan Wolff of the trade law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk won a pledge from the Chinese last fall to drop rules giving preference to Chinese makers of wind-power equipment. But Kirk's office hasn't seen any evidence that the pledge has been carried out, said spokeswoman Carol Guthrie.

Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers are entering the U.S. wind market under a joint venture led by Dallas investor Cappy McGarr.

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Chicago Tribune -- With the cost of gasoline expected to surpass $3 a gallon this summer, more motorists will be looking to save a few cents at the pump, but that's getting more difficult with an onslaught of new municipal gas taxes.
Cash-strapped municipalities — from Oak Lawn to Des Plaines to Glenview — have turned to taxing fuel to make up for plummeting revenue. Elmhurst is considering a 1.5-cent-per-gallon tax and Naperville is weighing whether to add 2 or 3 cents to its 2-cent-per-gallon tax.

To make the tax more palatable, some communities are designating the money for road and infrastructure improvements. And while officials defend the need for revenue, gas station owners say the tax puts them and maybe the towns at a competitive disadvantage.  (read more)

bloomberg.com -- Australia needs to invest at least A$100 billion ($92 billion) in electricity infrastructure in the next decade to meet growing demand by consumers, the Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, said.

“We need more investment in electricity supply infrastructure,” Ferguson told business leaders in Brisbane, according to a statement released today. “For too many years, uncertainty about carbon pricing, state government privatization plans, retail price regulation, network regulation, and more recently, the global financial crisis, have hampered investment.”

The nation, the world’s largest shipper of iron ore, alumina, lead, zinc and coal, needs increased power generation to encourage new resource projects and avoid household blackouts during periods of high demand. Short
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Detroit Free Press -- Get ready for a broad array of fast, fun and fuel-efficient Fords.

The automaker's new Global Performance Vehicles department brings together Ford's finest go-fast thinking from Europe and the U.S.

It may lead to a line of sporty vehicles stretching from today's F-150 pickup and Mustang to the upcoming Focus compact and Fiesta subcompact.

The move could help Ford reach a new group of buyers: Young enthusiasts drawn to Asian models like the Honda Civic Si, Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi Eclipse and Hyundai Tiburon.  (read more)

Los Angeles Times -- A combination of hot rocks and water like those that created Yellowstone's geysers have been tapped by the city to keep the sidewalks toasty since the early 1990s. They also heat downtown buildings, kettles at a brewhouse, and greenhouses and keep the lights on at a college campus.

With more than 600 geothermal wells heating houses, schools and a hospital as well as turning the turbine on a small power plant, Klamath Falls shows what everyday life could be if stimulus grants and venture capitalists turn geothermal energy from a Western curiosity to a game-changing energy resource.

A 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report estimates that EGS, with support, could be producing 100 gigawatts of electricity -- equivalent to 1,000 coal-fired or nuclear power plants -- by 2050, and ha  (read more)

Reuters -- The U.S. pay czar will slash the number of top General Motors Co executives who will receive base salaries of more than $500,000 this year.

Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg said he plans to release the 2010 compensation decisions next week on the five large U.S. companies that are under pay restrictions as part of their government bailouts.

The rules restrict the top 25 executives from receiving more than $500,000 in base cash salary unless a company can prove a good reason for the higher pay.

GM is more than 60 percent-owned by the U.S. Treasury after a government-funded bankruptcy and reorganization in 2009. The U.S. government also holds a small stake in Chrysler, which is under management control of Italy's Fiat SpA.  (read more)

Forbes.com -- The energy pits were a gauntlet Friday, as a stronger dollar put a dent in crude prices and oil stocks followed black gold lower.

Crude settled at $80.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 1.9% after a run-up earlier this week when prices approached $84 a barrel. Traders have been hoping that growth in emerging markets like China and India could help the commodity continue its surge off its February 2009 lows, but tighter monetary policy in those nations threatens to cool their economic growth.  (read more)

REUTERS -- States want EPA to reopen endangerment hearings

WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health.

Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and at least nine other states filed the petitions in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, states said.

They joined petitions filed last month by Virginia, Texas and Alabama.

The Obama administration has long said it would attack greenhouse gas emissions with EPA regulation if Congress failed to pass a climate bill.

The EPA is set to issue regulations later this month that would require autos and light trucks to increase energy efficiency.  (read more)

Bloomberg.com -- Gasoline futures slid 2 percent as a surging dollar reduced the investment appeal of commodities and as demand for the motor fuel declined.

Gasoline, which reached a 17-month high March 17, tumbled as the dollar gained 0.6 percent against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners as of 3:25 p.m. in New York. Motor fuel demand slipped 1.6 percent last week, according to the Energy Department.

“A breakout to the upside of the dollar index gives potential for considerable downside for commodities,” said Tom Knight, vice president of trading and supply at Truman Arnold Cos. in Texarkana, Texas.

Gasoline for April delivery lost 4.53 cents, or 2 percent, to settle at $2.2556 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices were little changed for the week.
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The Detroit News -- Internal Toyota Motor Corp. documents released by a congressional committee show the automaker developed a "game plan" in 2007 to handle federal safety regulators' urgent concerns about floor mats on its Lexus ES350.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee posted a series of documents that are part of its probe into Toyota's recall of 8.5 million vehicles and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's eight separate investigations into the issue that resulted in the recall of 55,000 floor mats in 2007.

The five pages of e-mails included a discussion between Toyota's top Washington regulator officials, Chris Santucci and Chris Tinto, and company officials in Japan.

"NHTSA has apparently decided to demand further action from Toyota,"
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USA Today -- One of the more impressive aspects of General Motors' Project Driveway, which put 120 Chevrolet Equinox fuel-cell vehicles on the streets, is that it was pretty clear from the start that some might get in accidents. With that many vehicles it was bound to happen. But how would a hydrogen vehicle hold up?

This fuel cell vehicle took a good smack in front. CAPTIONBy GMSo far, so good. Five GM fuel-cell vehicles have been involved in accidents over the years, and none has resulted in any sort of catastrophic hydrogen explosion, says Charlie Freese, who is charge of GM's fuel-cell program...  (read more)

The Atlanta Business Chronicle -- Corn-based ethanol is making a comeback in Georgia, while efforts to launch the nation’s first cellulosic ethanol plant in the Peach State are moving more slowly than expected.

First United Ethanol LLC, which was facing bankruptcy last summer, recently reported a fourth-quarter profit of nearly $7 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. After early fits and starts, the company’s plant near Camilla, Ga., is running at its full capacity of 100 million gallons of corn-based ethanol per year.  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- March Madness is upon us. Not only are there more basketball games than I can take in for an entire year in the next few weeks, but there have been and will continue to be rising gas prices. March Madness basketball is a tradition to many across America, but are rising gasoline prices each spring as well known? They could be- rising gas prices aren't new, and have increased every year during this time. Some years we see huge "upsets" in gas prices that no one was able to predict, but if we're scoring brackets (or should I say gas price predictions), I'm still feeling comfortable half way through the first twenty minutes.

Spring time gas price increases are predicted by many analysts and prices are likely influenced by a majority of...  (read more)

Wall Street Journal - Business -- WASHINGTON--The Obama administration on Thursday indicated that it is moving on two fronts to gain information about a key oil and natural-gas production technique that is viewed as essential for boosting gas supplies but that critics fear could contaminate drinking water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched a study to determine whether "hydraulic fracturing" is contaminating water supplies. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a House panel that he is considering requiring oil and gas companies that drill on federal lands to disclose the chemicals used in the practice, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals under pressure into deep underground wells. The technique breaks open underground rock, releasing the gas within.

"It is an issue that we are looking at,"  (read more)

Detroit News -- Washington -- General Motors Co. supports legislation to require so-called "black boxes" in vehicles, to collect crash data, and it is willing to support additional "reasonable" auto safety legislation.

In a roundtable interview with reporters today, GM's new vice president for government relations, Robert E. Ferguson, said the company backs legislation in the works from Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, to mandate event data recorders.

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USA Today -- Looking for an excuse to carry your St. Patrick's Day binging into tomorrow? Well, consider celebrating National Biodiesel Day, noting the birthday of engine inventor Rudolf Diesel.

So says Ford, which is using the anniversary as a reason to promote the 2011 Ford Super Duty pickup as a "green" vehicle, a bold move given that it's about the biggest thing on the road. Ford says it's one biodiesel-lovin' truck. What is there to love?

Biodiesel is diesel fuel made from renewable stuff like vegetable oil and animal fat. The monster 6.7-liter Power Stroke V-8 turbocharged diesel engine in the Super Duty is B20 compatible, meaning it can handle of blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel.  (read more)

Detroit Free Press -- "Ford and General Motors achieved impressive marks in the latest vehicle dependability study released today by J.D. Power and Associates.

Lincoln finished second to only Porsche in the study, which measures the number of problems experienced by the owners' 2007 model year cars. Mercury and Ford also scored in the top 10.

“It’s pretty impressive to get all three of them in the top 10,” David Sargent, J.D. Power’s vice president of global vehicle research, told the Free Press.

Meanwhile, GM’s Buick brand finished in third place and the Cadillac DTS was the top-rated vehicle in the entire study, beating the Lexus LS which has finished first for the past several years."  (read more)

Canada.com -- Having honed the modern engine to the point where it is going to take an enormous change (camless valve activation, for example) to further the economy cause, the next logical step is the hybridization of the powertrain.

There are two main types of hybrid systems. The mild hybrid uses the electric side to supplement the gasoline engine.

As such, it cannot drive the vehicle on its own. These systems -- such as that in the Mercedes-Benz S400 -- do have a place in the near term.  (read more)

Business Week -- March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street’s contribution to the debate on how to curb global warming: Buy coal, sell solar.

Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest coal producer, is rated a “buy” by 79 percent of analysts, while 44 percent recommend First Solar Inc., the largest maker of thin-film solar panels. The Stowe Global Coal index of 38 coal producers has gained 6.5 percent in 2010, and the Bloomberg Global Leaders Solar index of 38 solar module and component makers has dropped 17 percent.

While investors including T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett are pushing cash into green technologies, the tilt toward Peabody and away from First Solar is the widest in two years. It reflects a sense that government support for reducing air pollution may be waning, said Kevin Landis,  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- Here are some highlights from yesterday's Department of Energy Report on U.S. supply and demand:

>Crude inventories increased 1.0 million barrels from the previous week.
Comment: This is a pretty small increase compared to past reports, but brings the amount of oil in storage to 344.0 million barrels, which is 4.1% below last year, when we had 358.8 million barrels in storage.

>Gasoline inventories decreased 1.7 million barrels from the previous week.
Comment: While this number may seem to be a decent number, conventional gasoline inventories actually increased while blending components decreased over 2 million barrels. The loss in blending component inventories may be a result of refiners drawing down on...  (read more)

New York Times -- Generating 20 percent of America’s electricity with wind, as recent studies proposed, would require building up to 22,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines. But the huge towers and unsightly tree-cutting that these projects require have provoked intense public opposition.

Recently, though, some companies are finding a remarkably simple answer to that political problem. They are putting power lines under water, in a string of projects that has so far provoked only token opposition from environmentalists and virtually no reaction from the larger public.  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- With gasoline prices on the rise the past few weeks, many of you have heard multiple reasons (some from yours truly) on why gasoline prices are increasing.

First of all, the economy has long since bottomed out, and perception is that with an improved economy comes higher gasoline and oil demand. It's held true in the past, but what we saw in 2008 was a large recession, one that some called the largest in decades. Reality is that gasoline demand will be slow to bounce back, and prices are out of line with that reality.

Secondly, there are supply concerns that are completely overdone. Looking at this week's numbers, refineries used just over 80% of their capacity. In the unlikely case of a large increase in demand, there...  (read more)

examiner.com -- The United Auto Workers expressed their sentiment that Congress should move forward to enact comprehensive climate change legislation that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions; they did so in a letter they sent to the members of Congress recently.Although we recognize the difficulties involved in this effort, we believe that legislation can be crafted that will reduce global warming pollution while at the same time creating jobs and providing a boost to our economy. In particular, we believe such legislation can help to provide significant investment in domestic production of advanced technology vehicles and their key components, as well as other energy saving technologies. (Source)

Members of the UAW, particularly hard-hit by the recent recession, see an electric vehicle

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Washington Post -- Never has the political climate in Virginia so favored offshore drilling.

Most Virginia leaders -- regardless of their political party -- have expressed interest in joining Alaska, Texas, Louisiana and other states in setting up offshore platforms to drill for oil and natural gas.

The political shift comes as pressure builds for the United States to search for alternative energy sources while creating new jobs and revenue during the economic slowdown.

"This is common sense. Why not use our resources so we don't have to depend on fluctuating political realities in the Mideast to determine the cost of gasoline?"

Virginia is in line to be the first Atlantic Coast state to drill off its shore, although it will probably be years before it starts, even if it receives the necessary approval  (read more)

Daily Finance -- For most industries, 2009 will be remembered as one of the worst economic years in history. But it was a year in which the global clean-energy market -- including revenue from solar photovoltaics, wind power and biofuels – grew 11.4% to reach $139.1 billion, according to a report that research firm Clean Edge released Tuesday.

That doesn't mean clean-energy companies have made it out of the recession unscathed. Solar revenues decreased for the first time since Clean Edge began tracking the clean-energy industry a decade ago, falling 20% to $30.7 billion from $38.5 billion in 2008...  (read more)