oil

SOMS Technologies says that its engine filter will extend the life of engine oil by 30,000 miles, enabling drivers to use 75 percent less oil and save hundreds of dollars in maintenance per car.

"You could say this would be terrible news for Jiffy Lube, but we don't look at it that way," said company CEO Miles Flamenbaum, who presented at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday. "It would allow them to charge a little bit more, take more of a margin from oil change costs, and do it less often."

The … Read more

Here's a novel twist on curbing greenhouse gases. Some scientists and companies are examining ways of using captured carbon dioxide to extract fossil fuels.

It works like this. Carbon dioxide from smokestacks would be captured and compressed, and then shuttled into pipelines to oil fields. The gas would then be forced into oil wells to extract more fossil fuels.

The scenario solves two major problems in the energy field. First, what do you do with all of the carbon dioxide? The leading idea is to store it underground in depleted mines or saline aquifers. By being forced into oil … Read more

Are people really so desperate for aromatherapy that they want it plugged into their USB port at all times? Even outside California?

That could certainly be surmised from seeing all the products to come out in this booming mini-market. The latest model, from ThinkGeek, is at least mercifully simple: About the size of a portable thumb drive, the USB Aromatherapy Oil Burner is strictly plug and play--or plug and sniff--and comes with a bottle of rose, jasmine, or peppermint oil.

And at 6 bucks, no one really has any right to complain about it either. As for this whole scented … Read more

Rice University and the University of Texas, in conjunction with some of the world's largest energy companies, have banded together to form the Advanced Energy Consortium, which will try to exploit material science and natural gas to expand oil and gas production.

One of the decades-long problems in the oil industry has been getting the stuff out of the ground. The underground pressure is relieved relatively quickly; although oil drillers can artificially increase pressure by injecting gases underground and other techniques, it only improves yields incrementally. Typically, more than 60 percent of the oil in a given deposit stays … Read more

In the last week of 2007, I predicted that oil prices would finally top $100/barrel. Well, it didn't take long, two days in fact. Ironically, it appears that the first time a barrel of oil changed hands for more than $100 was solely because a trader wanted to own that distinction forever.

Nevertheless, those who espouse the so-called "peak-oil" theory will no doubt use the recent climb through $100 as additional evidence that oil production is nearing a crest and will soon move into irreversible decline. Indeed, recent analyses by Energy Watch Group and Earth Policy … Read more

Winter temperatures can be tough on cars. Here are a few things to keep in mind to ensure your car performs its best in the cold:

Keep battery backup. It takes more electrical power to start a car in cold weather, yet those chilly temperatures also drastically reduce the battery's cranking power. To compensate for the increased need and reduced output, keep a good set of jumper cables or a portable power pack in the trunk.

Check climate controls. Make sure the heater and front and rear defrosters are working properly. If it takes more than a few minutes … Read more

Oil officials see limit looming on production. It's not an oil peak; it's an oil plateau. The Wall Street Journal reports on impending restrictions on oil extraction. Now both oil industry skeptics and execs are seeing limits. Recently, Don Paul, CTO of Chevron (not the presidential candidate), told us that the world has consumed 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and will go to 1.5 trillion by 2012. The world only had 3 trillion barrels to begin with.

A deeply green city confronts its energy needs and nuclear worries. The New York Times reports on the struggle … Read more

Just under two weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk here at CNET when I saw a bulletin online that a ship had hit the Bay Bridge. The bulletin was very short and to the point, and really just said that there was no structural damage to the bridge. We laughed about it for a few minutes and moved on.

I didn't think more about it until the next morning when I logged onto SFGate. There, I read that, in fact, the damage that had been done by the so-called Cosco Busan accident had been to the extremely … Read more

I couldn't take my dogs for a run at their usual park this weekend. Why? Because it is an estuary for the San Francisco Bay, and the Bay's water and surrounding coast is coated with a layer of thick fuel oil that leaked out of a container ship that crashed into the Bay Bridge.

Some 58,000 gallons leaked out of the gash in the side of the ship after it inexplicably hit the bridge, the worst oil spill in the region in twenty years. This is the sea-going equivalent of tapping a parking meter with your bumper … Read more