Tagged: fuel

The average fuel economy for U.S. built vehicles reached a new high in May, at 24.8 miles per gallon. This is good news for drivers when gas station signs are showing prices near and above $4 a gallon.

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) says consumers are not only being more fuel-efficient savvy, but car companies are listening.

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LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan utility regulators say gasoline consumption is expected to decline slightly this summer compared with previous years.

The Michigan Public Service Commission's recently released summer energy appraisal forecasts adequate energy supplies and prices this summer.

The group says gasoline sales in Michigan are expected to drop about 1 percent in 2013 after a decline of almost 2 percent last year due to increased fuel efficiency and consistently high gasoline prices.

General Motors says it will close its hydrogen fuel-cell research operation near Rochester, N.Y., and move it to Michigan, along with most of the 220 salaried jobs currently in New York.

The company says most of the 220 salaried workers in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., will be offered the chance to move to GM's engine and transmission research unit in Pontiac.

Spokeswoman Kimberly Carpenter says the move will pull together all of its experts on ways to move vehicles. The company will save some money by not renewing a building lease in New York.

She says GM will continue to focus on electric vehicles and fuel cell development. GM has been testing fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen with no harmful emissions.

LAKEPORT, Mich. (AP) - The U.S. Coast Guard has begun salvaging a sunken barge and an overturned tugboat in southern Lake Huron.

Petty Officer Levi Read tells the Times Herald of Port Huron (http://bwne.ws/MOX3cS) work began at first light on Saturday.

The 110-foot dredging barge and the 38-foot tug were overcome in rough seas early Thursday about a mile from the Michigan coast and nearly six miles from the opening to the St. Clair River.

No one was hurt. Diesel fuel spilled into the lake, but officials say it's uncertain how much escaped.

The ethanol refinery for Carbon Green Bioenergy rises up out of the cornfields outside Lake Odessa Michigan.

The refinery was built in 2006. Mitch Miller, the CEO of the company, says a lot of refineries were popping up then.

“Five years ago, ethanol was a craze,” he says. “It was the next best thing.”

Now, not so much. Refineries aren’t being built. Politicians aren’t stopping by with platoons of reporters.

Seriously, when is the last time you heard anyone talk about ethanol?

New, more stringent fuel economy standards are the topic of conversation in Detroit today at the first public hearing for the proposed 2017 to 2025 model year CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards).

Today's meeting in Detroit is the first of three meetings. The others will take place in Philadelphia and San Francisco.

So far, the remarkable news for a proposed standard that calls for fleet-wide average fuel economy of 54.5 mpg by 2025 is the lack of any formidable opposition.

 Environmentalists say significantly raising federal fuel economy standards will benefit Michigan’s auto industry.   

The Obama administration is considering more than doubling the current average fuel economy standard by 2025 to more than 50 miles per gallon.