The president of Toyota Motor Sales USA introduced a new hybrid concept car at the Detroit Auto Show Thursday, then launched into an often-taboo topic: “peak oil.”
It’s the sometimes-ridiculed idea that the planet’s oil fields will reach a peak of production, then begin an downward slide from there. The Register’s auto writer Matt Degen has the full story on his Auto Motion blog.
Auto reporter Matt Degen reports that, according to Honda, only 200 people have registered for its free car, Earth Day event.
Now folks have just under two hours to get applications for the contest to the Honda center.
Related Earth Day posts
Propositions 10 and 7, both dealing with alternative energy, went down to defeat in Tuesday’s voting. Prop. 10 would have authorized a $5 billion bond issue in part to help consumers by alternative-fuel cars, but ran into stiff opposition from, among others, environmental groups.
Prop. 7 would have required utilities in the state to use 20 percent renewable power by 2010, 40 by 2020 and 50 by 2025, and was also opposed by some activist groups.
Sierra Club lobbyist Jim Metropulos, who fought against both propositions, was pitted against T. Boone Pickens, a big supporter of Prop. 10.
Metropulos and other opponents said Prop. 10, which would have cost $10 billion over 30 years, was far too expensive in times of tight budgets. They also contended it was meant to benefit a natural gas company in Seal Beach that Pickens partly owns — a contention rejected by Prop. 10 supporters.
“I’m very happy people have looked past T. Boone Pickens and the commercials,” Metropulos said.
As for Prop. 7, he thought California voters might be sending a message by voting against it: that making rules for alternative power generation is too complex a problem to be settled by a ballot initiative.
The next step, he said, will likely be the introduction of new legislation in close consultation with the various stakeholders in renewable power.
Legislators, he said, are “not going to see this as voters rejecting renewable power. They need to do the right thing through an open, public process and legislation.”
Later: reaction from supporters.
Related coverage:
Californians will vote tomorrow on two environment-related propositions.
Prop. 10 on the California ballot is a $5 billion bond issue meant to encourage the use of alternative fuels by helping consumers buy alternative fuel cars and paying for research and development of solar power and other alternative fuel sources. But some opponents say it benefits the natural gas industry more than it does all Californians.
Prop. 7 would require all utilities, even those that are government run, to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010, 40 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025. Critics say the plan was poorly written, and would exclude small-scale renewable power generators.
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