Odograph.com

Bloomberg has a story about a new consumer attitude study (via MixedPower).

Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. have done the best job building energy-efficient vehicles, while General Motors has done the worst, according to a study of American consumer attitudes released by GM today.

The study found that 77 percent of consumers believed that either Toyota or Honda lead in developing vehicles such as hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles. GM is viewed as having the poorest record in developing alternative-fuel vehicles, said the study, done for GM by Washington-based Hart Research.

It is sad that they score “poorest” but sadder the apparent self-deception in their spin:

“It is somewhat humbling to see the magnitude of our challenge,” GM Vice President Elizabeth Lowery said at a new conference today. “General Motors and its domestic competitors need to do a better job of communicating.”

and

GM needs to emphasize the fact that 28 of 53 cars and 41 of 66 trucks have the best fuel-efficiency in their vehicle classes, Lowery said. GM will emphasize its near-term commitment to hybrid sport-utility vehicles in the 2007 model year, and fuel cell vehicles by the end of this decade, she said.

Come on Elizabeth, consumers have figured it out – and that old flummery “in their vehicle class” wore thin decades ago. Yes, we know that if you only look at the “big, stupid, and ponderous class” GM does pretty well. Unfortunately, fewer people shop in that class these says.

OK, here’s a funny picture …

The media today is always trying to find new reasons why the Bush administration can’t seem to gain any public support for its rhetoric about Iraq. Much of it, to be sure, is because of mounting casualties and because the situation is getting more and more out of control. But that still does not explain it – there were big casualties in other wars, but the public remained supportive of the President.

So what’s going on? It’s simple: this President, unlike any other, brazenly lied to America about why we went to war, and polls show Americans know he lied. All of his rhetoric now about helping spread freedom, stabilizing Iraq, and fighting terrorists there is not only at odds with reality on the ground, but it is insulting to Americans’ intelligence, because it reminds us that he’s trying to trick us into forgetting what we were told we were going to war for in the first place.

- more here

A while back, a survey showed buying higher mileage cars to be “patriotic” in the public mind. A new survey seems to take that further:

A new study available today from Kelley Blue Book Marketing Research reveals that a strong majority of American consumers do not see the purchase of an SUV as “patriotic.” In the third installment of the company’s annual New-Vehicle Buyer Attitude Study on SUVs, nearly 90 percent of shoppers in the market to buy or lease a new vehicle do not believe that SUV drivers should be described as patriotic. Compared with attitudes of the new-vehicle-shopping group last year, the percentage of those who described SUV drivers as patriots dropped 12 points to a paltry 11 percent, the lowest level in the study’s history.

- more here

Over at Clean Break, a correspondent addresses Wind Power with some commonly stated concerns:

On average, windmills only put out about 25% of their capacity, rarely producing their nameplate rating and, when the wind doesn’t blow, the production is zero. Unless you expect society to adapt to having electrical power only when the wind blows at just the right speed, you have to have a rapid response backup system.

Can’t we just answer that with … So?

It doesn’t strike me as terribly important what fraction of “capacity” or “nameplate rating” a windmill (or wind farm) produces. It doesn’t even bother me that backup systems of generation may be required. It strikes me (a non-expert) that the only important thing is return on investment. If windmills pay back the money and energy used in their construction, they are a win. They would be producing clean power, and we would “profit” in more ways than one.

Perhaps what we really need, is research to make the great number of fossil fuel plants we already use efficient at variable rate production, so that we can more easily profit from the wind when it blows and the sun when it shines.

To be honest, making a good variable generation coal plant seems like a much easier problem to me than building a “hydrogen economy” or an effective fusion reactor.

I hope it is not true. Sometimes you see a story in Blog Land that is disproved a day later. I hope this is one of those:

Rory Mayberry, a former manager of Halliburton’s mess halls in Iraq, who testified that KBR fed U.S. troops expired food on a daily basis, and fed Turkish and Filipino workers “leftover food in boxes and garbage bags after the troops ate,” while using beef, chicken, salads and sodas intended for the troops to cater parties and barbeques for KBR management and employees. He also said he was informed that “if we talked, we would be rotated out to other camps that were under fire.”

- more here

HERE’S A PREDICTION: At some point — maybe 10 years from now, maybe 20 — the energy bill currently wending its way through the Senate will be seen as an enormously significant lost opportunity. This is not because the bill itself is so terrible; it’s not, though it may become far worse in the process of being reconciled with the more pro-pollution, pro-oil-industry version approved by the House. No, this is a lost opportunity precisely because many senators have come to the right conclusions about the direction energy policy should take, but the body as a whole is not yet willing to act on them.

- more here

I didn’t take any pictures … didn’t take a camera, but had an amazing weekend in Yosemite. I did the Half Dome hike up to the cables, and found a huge crowd. While we were watching the line not move, raindrops and thunder started so we headed back. The hike (about 17 miles and a 4000 foot climb by our route) had me totally trashed by the bottom anyway.

Anyway, the Prius did great. We went from sea level in Orange County up over the Grapevine to Yosemite (approx. 650 miles round trip), much of it at 70 mph, and got 50 miles per gallon overall. Three people and moderate luggage. Amazing.

I was away for a couple days … I considered closing comments while I was gone, but left it as a test. I didn’t count exactly but I think I had to delete a hundred comment spams, at least. Some were caught in the spam filter, and some snuck by. Next time, I guess I’ll turn them off. Anyway if any genuine messages were lost, drop me a line.

I have been reading the Peak Oil Blogs too much. It is getting very depressing. Time to look away for a little bit, and then look back later to see if they are still on-track with their gloom!