Just before the Phoenix light rail started service I posted a video of light rail collisions from some other unnamed city. Three months in to our own light rail line here and videos and stories of trains hitting vehicles are already popping up. Here’s a video of the light rail hitting a truck and a car, you might notice that the 2nd car runs for it. I wonder if they were able to get his license plate number form the vid?

Here’s a story from a local blogger that was on a train that hit a car. My Phoenix light rail crash

KPHO also did a story about how drivers aren’t paying attention to the light rail signs. Drivers Not Following Light Rail Signs

The good news though is that light rail ridership is higher than projected. Seems it has become a popular form of mass transit here in Phoenix!

Phoenix light rail is almost completed and will be a great way to get around if it happens to be going where you need to be. With all the trains running we’re all going to have one more thing to watch out for in the streets. I’m not sure what city this light rail video is from, but it’s a good reminder to be aware of your surroundings and where the tracks are located. Don’t become part of Phoenix’s installment of Metro’s Greatest Hits.

Here’s a really cheesy video produced to educate Arizonan’s on safety and the new Phoenix light rail system. I did learn what some of the new signs mean, so you can actually get some good info out of it.

Unless you live on mars you’ve probably noticed the soaring cost of fuel. A recent report from the Energy Information Administration projects that gasoline demand will drop in the U.S., but even so prices are still climbing. Why is it happening and why are diesel prices going up faster then gas? I’ve been looking into some articles to find some answers.

This blog post from Eric Johnson over at Desert Biofuels Initiative sums up what is going on with links to even more information.

According to the Energy Information Administration:

Based on projections of weak economic growth and record high crude oil and product prices, consumption is projected to decline by 190,000 bbl/d in 2008 [...] After accounting for projected increases in ethanol use, U.S. petroleum consumption is projected to fall by 330,000 bbl/d.

So if demand is falling, why are prices rising dramatically?

World oil consumption is projected to grow by 1.2 million bbl/d in 2008. Almost all of the growth in 2008 is expected to come from the non-Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, led by China, Middle East oil producing countries, and Russia, as well as Brazil and India [...]

more than offsetting any decline in demand in the US.

Bummer for us. Of course, it’s also great for us. Fuel prices are starting to more directly affect individual driving decisions, consumer vehicle preferences, and therefore auto manufacturer’s vehicle production. Business Week reports:

Ford Motor (F) is cutting its production of its one-time cash cows, pickups and SUVs, to instead increase production of smaller and more fuel-efficient cars.

And the New York Times reports:

With technical and environmental hurdles overcome — and facing tougher mileage standards that call for a 35 m.p.g. average by 2020 — automakers are rushing in with clean-diesel cars.

Nice.

[Desert Biofuels Initiative]

While it is great we’re going to be seeing new clean diesels on the market soon with higher MPGs than most gasoline cars are they going to be a success? As of this writing Diesel is around a dollar more per gallon than regular unleaded and its price is rising faster than gasoline. Gasoline and diesel are made from the same raw ingredient. So why is this happening? Here’s a good article explaining why from the New York Times.

“U.S. overall petroleum demand, including demand for gasoline, has flattened,” he said. “However, in the U.S., demand for diesel has remained strong.”

He added: “This follows a long-term trend here and around the world. Over the past five years, U.S. demand for highway diesel has been rising at triple the rate of gasoline.”

Part of the American demand for transportation fuel is met by refineries in Europe, a link that usually helps keep prices down. But demand for diesel is rising in Europe as passenger car ownership and use there grow; many of those newly purchased vehicles are diesel-powered, a choice that had been encouraged by tax policy there.

As a result, production at European refineries is geared toward processing crude oil to meet the demand for diesel. That produces surplus gasoline, which the refineries export to the East Coast of the United States, experts said. That does nothing for diesel supply here.

A related problem is that while American demand for gasoline and demand for diesel are fluctuating separately, the supply is linked.

Each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 19 gallons of gasoline, according to the Energy Department, and about 10 gallons of diesel fuel and heating oil combined. (The two are chemically similar.) Refineries can crack the big hydrocarbon molecules found in the heavier part of the crude oil feedstock into diesel, gasoline or other products, and thus have some flexibility, but there are limits to how much the ratios can be adjusted.

Read the full article at [nytimes.com]

Maybe it is time to start home-brewing biodiesel like I suggested in a earlier article on this site, but be sure you have a secure source of free or cheap used oil. It seems that demand for this waste product is on the rise and some home-brewers are stooping low and are stealing it. Check out this article over at msnbc.com about biodiesel pirates stealing used cooking oil.

SAN FRANCISCO – A few years ago, drums of used french fry grease were only of interest to a small network of underground biofuel brewers, who would use the slimy oil to power their souped-up antique Mercedes.

Now, restaurants from Berkeley, Calif., to Sedgwick, Kan., are reporting thefts of old cooking oil worth thousands of dollars by rustlers who are refining it into barrels of biofuel in backyard stills.

“It’s like a war zone going on right now over grease,” said David Levenson, who owns a grease hauling business in San Francisco’s Mission District. “We’re seeing more and more people stealing grease because it lets them stay away from the pump, but it’s hurting our bottom line.”

Full article at [msnbc.com]

Do you think this might end up being good for us? Is it going to drive Americans to conserve and innovate to find a solution? I think it might, and can’t wait to see where we go from here. What do you think? Leave a comment and let us know.

Gasoline is nearly $4 a gallon and isn’t likely to go down anytime soon. Here’s some tips from Ecomodder.com’s Benjamin Jones on getting more miles per gallon out of the car you already have. Benjamin’s article is currently featured on Popular Mechanic’s site.

10 Quick Fuel Efficiency Tips to Beat the Gas Crunch

The summer season of highway hell has officially arrived—and $4/gallon prices at the pump certainly aren’t making life on the road any easier. As the next generation of hypermilers develops new ways to hack your car’s fuel economy, our guest MPG geek breaks down the vehicle mods, driving habits and common-sense fixes you need to know to max out your tank.

[PopularMechanics.com]

His #1 tip is monitoring your gas milage in real time and suggests doing this with a Scangauge if your car doesn’t already have a MPG gauge. Scangauge is a Mesa Arizona company and makes a great tool to monitor your car’s performance. I’ve had one myself for a couple years and it has done wonders to get me to drive in a way to get more miles per gallon out of my car. When I’m driving and can see my MPGs go down the faster I drive it turns into a real motivator to go the speed limit or even slightly slower. Once I’m driving above 55 the MPGs really start taking a dive and with the price of fuel I really want to get the most out of a tank. Without this tool I might know that my car isn’t getting the most out of a tank when I drive fast, but if I’m not seeing it in real time it is easy not to care as much. Check out article linked above for some other great tips at saving fuel.

Maybe we won’t have to wait until 2010 to get a car that doesn’t run on gasoline. The Th!nk City electric car is going into production in the US and should be popping out cars soon. The perfect combo might be solar panels for your house and this electric car for your commute.

This could be it: the Th!nk City electric car, a four-seater with 110 mile range and top speed of 65 mph, priced under $25,000, made from 95% recyclable materials, and available in the U.S. in 2009.

The Th!nk City electric car is the product of Norwegian firm Th!nk Global, an auto manufacturer backed by Silicon Valley funding who has plans to assemble the cars in Southern California. In contrast to Tesla’s limited release of 300 cars per year, the Th!nk City is designed for mass production to the tune of 30-50,000 units within a few years. Th!nk already produces about 10,000 of these cars in Europe annually. [Gas 2.0]

Th!nk’s Website.