Conventional gas-powered cars starting to match hybrids in fuel efficiency

The new Chevrolet Cruze Eco can reach eye-popping fuel economy levels of more than 50 miles per gallon on the highway, which even in this era of hybrid-electric cars stands among the best.

But here's the real trick: The Cruze Eco is neither a hybrid nor electric. It runs on that "old" technology, the conventional gasoline engine.

Although hydrogen, electric and other alternative cars have garnered more hype and significant federal subsidies, the best immediate hope for restraining the nation's fuel consumption might be some new vehicles that, although powered by conventional engines, run efficiently because they have been stripped of unnecessary weight, streamlined to move smoothly and equipped with gas-sipping engines.

This year, General Motors, Ford and Hyundai began selling cars with conventional engines that achieve 40 mpg or more on the highway, exceeding the fuel efficiency of some hybrids, because their mechanics and shapes have been optimized.

To achieve the efficiency of the Cruze Eco, for example, engineers dropped its weight by 200 pounds, installed shutters to close off part of the grill at higher speeds to reduce wind drag, added a rear spoiler, cut the car's height by one centimeter and adopted an efficient turbocharged engine.

The result is a car that, with a manual transmission, is rated at 42 mpg on the highway by the government but can achieve more than 50 mpg under the right conditions, reviewers say. Likewise, the new Ford Focus, with its "super fuel economy" package, is rated at 40 mpg and the Hyundai Elantra gets the same fuel economy, standard in all models.

With the recent spike in gas prices reawakening consumer interest in fuel economy, the new cars are expected to be particularly appealing, in part because they are typically less expensive than their hybrid counterparts.

"The buzz has been all about electric vehicles and hybrids, but to me, the real buzz should be about the old internal-combustion engine," said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com, an automotive Web site. "It ain't dead yet."

At least since the oil shocks of the 1970s, American politicians have been infatuated with developing alternative sources to power the nation's auto fleet. The George W. Bush administration pushed a hydrogen car; now Congress and the Obama administration are laying out billions of dollars for the development of electric cars.

But the new fuel-efficient gasoline cars, critics say, raise doubts about government efforts that favor any one technology over another. If subsidies are to be made, they argue, they should go to efficient cars, no matter what their power source. Moreover, when the fuel economy of a best-selling gas car is improved even incrementally, it can have much larger effects on the nation's oil consumption than an alternative-technology model that doesn't sell well.

Experts expect alternative fuel technologies to take hold eventually, but hybrid cars still represent only about 3 percent of U.S. car and truck sales. And the latest generation of electric plug-in vehicles hit the market only recently.

"When you take some of the most popular vehicles in the U.S. - say, the Ford F-150 pickup - and improve them by just a few mpg, the effects can add up very quickly," said John DeCicco, a faculty fellow at the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute at the University of Michigan. "Much more so than with a niche car."

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BP, 8 other firms sued by Justice Dept. over gulf oil spill

The Justice Department sued BP and eight other companies Wednesday over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, the federal government's first legal filing in its broad investigation of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The lawsuit accuses BP and other firms of violating federal regulations and failing to prevent the April 20 explosion and fire, which destroyed the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig. It seeks civil penalties under the Clean Water Act and a second federal statute for cleanup costs and widespread damage to the environment.

Although the Justice Department did not spell out an amount, legal experts said the case could expose the companies to tens of billions of dollars in fines, under civil environmental laws. Justice officials emphasized that the filing - on the day of a deadline for civil filings - is a first step and that aggressive civil and criminal probes into the disaster are continuing.

"Even though the spill has been contained, even though it is no longer the focus of round-the-clock news coverage and the subject of front-page headlines," said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. at a news conference Wednesday, "the department's focus on investigating this disaster, and preventing future devastation, has not wavered."

Scott Dean, a spokesman for London-based BP, said the government's filing in federal court in New Orleans was expected and "does not in any manner constitute any finding of liability or any judicial finding that the allegations have merit." He said the company - whose stock price dropped sharply during Holder's announcement, then partially recovered by day's end - is cooperating with all government inquiries.

Other companies involved in the spill and named in the lawsuit affixed much of the blame on BP. Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, said: "Responsibility for oil and natural gas discharged from a well lies solely with the well's owner and operator. . . . Transocean is indemnified in this matter."

John Christiansen, a spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority owner of the well, said the company was "not involved in the operations or decisions that occurred on the drilling rig." MOEX Offshore, another minority owner, said in a statement that it had "no authority or responsibility to direct activities on the Deepwater Horizon."

The Justice Department civil probe is on a parallel track with a criminal investigation that Holder said is "very serious." Law enforcement officials and other sources have said the criminal investigation is focusing on BP, Transocean and engineering giant Halliburton, which was in charge of cementing the well.

Sources said the FBI and other investigators are examining whether, in addition to violating environmental laws, company officials made false statements to regulators, obstructed justice or falsified test results for devices such as the rig's failed blowout preventer. Another line of inquiry, sources said, is whether the companies' cozy relationship with federal regulators contributed to the disaster.

Halliburton, which has declined to comment on the investigation, was not named in the civil lawsuit. The suit is expected to become part of broad civil litigation pending in U.S. District Court in New Orleans. Nearly 400 lawsuits against BP and other companies - filed on behalf of fishermen, environmental groups and others in the Gulf of Mexico region - have been consolidated before the same judge.

Justice Department officials said their participation will give them access to documents and other materials handed over in pretrial discovery, which will aid the government's broader civil and criminal probes. Officials said the timing of their filing was related to Wednesday's deadline set by the judge.

The 27-page document says the companies failed to use the safest drilling technology and to maintain equipment "necessary to ensure the safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources, and the environment." It offers little evidence for those assertions, but officials said additional grounds - and defendants - could be named later.

Roger Marzulla, an environmental lawyer who headed the Justice Department's environment division in the Reagan administration, said it appeared that "the government got rushed by the court's deadline. They filed as generic a complaint as possible and figured 'we'll sort it all out later.' "

Experts said the legal standard to prove liability under the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act - the other law under which the government sued - is low. "You just have to show that an event occurred and that a particular entity or person is responsible," said William Carter, a former federal environmental prosecutor. "Anything short of an act of God - a lightning bolt hitting something - and that person is going to be responsible for the cleanup."

Under the Clean Water Act, if the government can prove that BP or other companies engaged in "gross negligence," each firm could be fined up to $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled. Nearly 5 million barrels were spilled into the gulf, according to federal estimates.

"Tens of billions of dollars is certainly a legitimate prospect here," Marzulla said.

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Lawyers taking center stage in oil-spill investigation

HOUSTON - The Macondo well gushes no more, but the lawyers are just getting started.

They go wall to wall in a Hilton hotel conference room, sitting at long tables that face the outnumbered investigators assigned to find the cause of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The thermometer may be hitting 100 outside, but the room is kept perfect for the men and women in power suits, many from Washington, Chicago, New Orleans and Dallas.

The investigation, a joint operation by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, is supposed to help the government determine what went wrong and recommend reforms. But the hearings have largely been taken over by lawyers for the major players in the disaster - including BP, rig owner Transocean and the contractor for the cement job, Halliburton - who are trying to prepare for what are sure to be many civil trials to come.

They are generally civil to one another, but their clients have conflicting interests, with billions of dollars at stake and a Justice Department probe shadowing everything.

"The 900-pound gorilla in the room is the criminal investigation," said Pat Fanning, the attorney for one of the top Transocean managers on the rig.

Testimony this week has focused on usual suspects: the construction of the well and maintenance of the blowout preventer. But who's to blame, what piece of equipment or procedure proved fatally deficient, or to what degree the calamity could have been foreseen are issues the lawyers will likely tangle over for years to come.

In a new twist, BP has declared that a Halliburton employee, Jesse Gagliano, who warned that the cement job on the Macondo well might not function properly, should have stopped the operation outright if he had real doubts about safety.

Gagliano testified Tuesday that he told BP engineers on April 15 that if BP proceeded with the cement job as designed, it would have a gas-flow problem. Three days later, he wrote that, with only seven centralizers to center the casing, "this well is considered to have a SEVERE gas flow problem."

Gagliano said he and the BP engineers worked together, late into the night of April 15, trying to resolve the problem. He recommended that BP use 21 centralizers to keep the casing properly positioned. But even though an additional 15 were flown to the rig, BP chose not to use them. The cementing job proceeded with six.

Under cross-examination by BP lawyer Rick Godfrey, Gagliano acknowledged that in some documents, as well as during several conference calls with BP and Transocean managers, he did not cite the gas-flow potential or raise other alarms.

"BP had made their decision," Gagliano said. "They had decided not to follow my recommendation."

After he testified, BP released a pointed statement: "If Halliburton had significant concerns about its ability to provide a safe and high-quality cement job in the Macondo well, then it had the responsibility and obligation to refuse to perform the job. To do otherwise would have been morally repugnant."

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Development in once-rural areas put populations closer to natural gas pipelines

On Sept. 9, a 30-inch natural gas pipeline exploded in the suburban community of San Bruno, Calif., creating a 2,000-degree fireball that killed eight people, destroyed 37 homes and left more than 60 people injured. A gaping crater replaced homes at the center of the blast.

Could it happen here?

A pipeline rupture of approximately the same magnitude did occur not far from the Washington area a couple of years ago, but with less-dire consequences.

On Sept. 14, 2008, a 30-inch span of the Transco pipeline ruptured in Appomattox County, Va., creating a fireball that destroyed two homes and caused five injuries. Twenty-three families were evacuated.

The Appomattox explosion was larger than the explosion in San Bruno, but it occurred in a less-populated area, said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a watchdog organization based in Bellingham, Wash.

The Appomattox rupture was caused by corrosion of the 53-year-old pipeline, which had been inspected three months earlier by a "smart pig," a computerized scanning device that travels through a pipeline searching for dings, dents or corrosion, but had not yet been repaired. Transco's owner, the Williams Cos., paid the U.S. Transportation Department a $952,000 fine, replaced 2,500 feet of the pipeline, "smart pigged" all of its pipelines in Virginia, and performed pressurized water tests to validate the repairs.

Aging pipelines - and growing populations in the once-rural areas where pipelines were routed decades ago - have increased the risks associated with ruptures throughout the United States.

"The average transmission pipe is 50 years old," Weimer said. "If you put a steel pipe in the ground 50 years ago, you can have problems. It's not the same strength as steel today, and it doesn't have the anti-corrosive coating. But the more important factor is how the company has operated and maintained the pipes."

Some of the largest interstate pipelines in the United States run through the Washington area. The massive Transco pipeline, which consists of three and four parallel pipelines of 30 to 42 inches each, runs through Culpeper, Fauquier, Prince William, Fairfax, Montgomery and Howard counties on its way north from the Gulf of Mexico and shale resources in Alabama to supply natural gas up the East Coast to New York City.

One of the largest import facilities for liquefied natural gas in the United States is at Cove Point in Calvert County. Tankers travel up the Chesapeake Bay to deliver gas from abroad; from Cove Point it is distributed via transmission pipelines throughout the region.

Columbia Gas Transmission also runs major gas pipelines across the western edge of the metro area. Washington Gas taps into these resources with 200 miles of high-pressure transmission pipelines, which run through every county in the metro area and even beneath the Mall. The pipelines connect to a 26,000-mile web of smaller distribution pipelines, typically three-quarters of a foot to one foot in diameter, where the pressure is reduced so the fuel can enter homes and businesses.

Digging up trouble

The majority of pipeline incidents in the D.C. metro area, however, are not from the large transmission pipelines. In fact, there haven't been any incidents on the 20 miles of 24-inch transmission pipelines in the District (most of which date to the 1960s) "as far back as anyone can remember," said Betty Ann Kane, chairman of the D.C. Public Service Commission.

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Waste from BP oil spill cleanup has gulf residents near landfills concerned

GRAND ISLE, LA. -- The pile of soiled boom sitting more than four feet high and cooking under the summer sun at an abandoned shipyard here will be a part of the oil spill that endures.

As beach cleanup is scaled down, the fate of all the oily trash created and collected along the Gulf Coast is causing a raging debate that BP and federal officials are trying hard to curb.

"We're getting all kinds of complaints from people," said Burnell Tolbert, president of the NAACP branch in nearby Lafourche Parish, a staging area where more than 2,500 tons of waste has been deposited.

People want to know what is in those trash bags, where they will end up and if the workers handling the oily trash are safe, he said.

The answers are leaving important groups unsatisfied. One coastal county threatened to sue BP if it continues to put trash from the spill in a local landfill. Not wanting to get into a tussle with the residents, the company relented, diverting the trash to other landfills. Others are arguing that too much of the trash is going to low-income and minority communities.

The oil from BP's rig explosion in April has already created more than 45,000 tons of garbage -- the solid oil and all the materials used to gather it -- and much more oily liquid waste. The trash is being shipped every day to nine landfills that store household garbage and non-hazardous industrial waste in communities across Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

The Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency and BP are "working hand in hand" to manage all that trash -- and are reaching out to community groups to try to allay fears that chemicals from the oil-soaked material could seep into the groundwater drinking supply, said BP spokesman Scott Dean.

The federal government issued a 34-page plan directing BP to recycle and reuse as much trash as it can and to post information about the trash it is collecting online. (So far about 50 tons of trash has been recycled, according to BP.) The government also has asked the company to start holding meetings with the communities around the landfills.

Still, contractors working for BP bag tons of trash daily. From Grand Isle alone, anywhere between eight and 16 dump trucks a day carry trash to landfills throughout Louisiana. The oily water is processed for refining.

From the isle, waste is trucked to places such as Venice, La. -- a small strip of land surrounded by bayous in the southernmost reaches of the state. The big landfill there -- with its rolling hills of decaying metal and household trash -- has already received 2,800 tons of oily waste, according to BP.

'A slap in the face'

Kindra Arnesen, who lives about four miles from the landfill, sent her children to live 200 miles inland because she's worried about all that the oil spill has left in its wake.

"I grew up being told not to even throw a Coke bottle in the bayou," she said. "Now look. What are we leaving for our children?"

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Power AMR MP3 WAV WMA M4A AC3 Audio Converter 4.1.322

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Chameleon Delayer Lite 3.1.0.198.106

The program that accelerates Windows startup. Chameleon Delayer is a Windows startup manager that accelerates Windows startup. Chameleon Delayer offers program launch options with delayed startup, allowing the computer to be started as quickly and smoothly as possible.

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Webroot SecureAnywhere reports malware: Pua.Wajam.Bho. May be a false positive, but who wants to take any chances?
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