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<p>ALLEN PARK, Mich.—In this suburb just west of Detroit, Ford Motor Co. is working on one of the biggest gambles in its 108-year history: a pickup truck with a largely aluminum body.</p> <p>The radical redesign will help meet tougher federal fuel-economy targets now starting to have wide-ranging effects on Detroit's auto makers. But Ford will have to overcome a host of manufacturing obstacles, plus convince die-hard pickup buyers that aluminum is as tough as steel.</p>

[Snip]...I have long felt that one of the biggest threats to the U.S. ethanol industry is a major drought/crop failure in the heart of corn country. This year we may be experiencing such an event. Recent reports indicate that what had been expected to be a record crop of corn has been downgraded such that only 40% of the corn crop is being classified as in good or excellent condition. This is down 48% versus last week and 69% versus a year ago.

Corn prices are nearing the record highs of last summer as the U.S. Midwest suffers its worst drought since 1956. Shoppers should expect higher grocery bills, because corn is used in three-quarters of supermarket products. But don’t panic. Overall cost hikes are likely to be modest. “A 50% increase in the price of corn tends to raise total shopping bills by about 1%,” says Ricky Volpe, a research economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corn’s price has jumped 45% this summer. Of course, even a modest increase to shopping bills is unwelcome news for households on tight budgets. Strange...

The American economy is flagging, and desperately in need of greater productivity and innovation. One presumes that President Obama understands as much; he has in fact suggested that he knows where this needed boost might come from. In this year's State of the Union Address, the president said that "nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy." His speech seemed to acknowledge that the American economy needs plentiful, affordable energy to thrive, and that the energy sector has a great deal of room to grow. Indeed, in his remarks, Obama touted the possibility of 600,000 new jobs...

Journal of Petroleum Technology — July 2012 Guest Editorial • On the Precipice Of a New Energy Source? Steve Jacobs, COO, and Patrick Leach, CEO, Decision Strategies, and David J. Nagel, CEO, NUCAT Energy Steve Jacobs is chief operating officer of Decision Strategies and has more than 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. His specialty is evaluating market opportunities for new and existing technologies and companies. He earned BS degrees in psychology and education from Oklahoma State University. Jacobs is an energy information ambassador for SPE. He moderates and lectures at numerous events around the world....

On the day it closed, Solyndra said it was laying off 1,100 full-time and temporary employees. But 1,861 workers lost their jobs as the solar panel manufacturer shut its doors, according to U.S. Labor Department documents provided to The Bay Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents also show the Fremont-based company increased production in 2011, even though it failed to sell all the panels it made the previous year. By the time it closed last August, Solyndra had an unsold inventory of more than 23 megawatts – enough solar panels to power about 23,000 homes. Analysts said...

John Holdren, President Barack Obama's Science Czar, has hit upon a new way to accomplish an old goal of his. Holdren, in the 1970s, was an advocate of what he called the "de-development" of the United States, among other things. CNS News reports that in a recent video interview, Holdren suggested that the de-development of the United States could be accomplished...

Actually, I know the answer to my own question. The answer is manyfold: Hussein has lifted the drilling moratorium; Hussein approved Keystone; Hussein has opened domestic exploration, drilling, and production; Hussein has opened the "strategic reserve"; Hussein didn't actually "invest" all those billions in Brazil's, etc. petroleum industries, he invested it our petroleum industry; Hussein Obama pees oil thereby increasing domestic supply driving the price down; isn't Obama wonderful? NOT I'm not an industry economist so what did I miss? Don't tell me it's all because of Memorial Day and summer's arrival, that doesn't make sense. This is not an...

On Wednesday, I pointed out that Barack Obama’s so-called “all of the above” energy plan, as explained on his campaign website, had a very large omission. This graphic represented the energy policy on which Obama was campaigning for re-election:In case the graph on the left isn’t clear enough, here it is by itself:Oddly, the “all of the above” approach excluded coal, which sources 45% of all electricity produced in the US, sustains more than a half-million jobs, and allows for lower prices to consumers and businesses. After nearly losing in coal-dependent West Virginia’s Democratic primary to a felon currently in...

Last month President Barack Obama signed an executive order that could lead to more federal rules on gas drilling. Obama said it is important to take advantage of natural gas resources, but he added air and water quality must be safeguarded. Of course. But what Obama did last week was to establish a "working group" to coordinate federal oversight of the natural gas industry. It will be headed by Heather Zichal, who is deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change. Zichal is no friend of fossil fuels. She once worked with the Sierra Club and was an...

Facts are sometimes nasty, persistent things that get in the way of the best political spin. President Obama likes to say that oil production is up and that the rise in gasoline prices is not his fault, but the facts challenge his words. Energy production is up, but only due to policies and practices set in motion ten years ago by the George W. Bush administration, and production is up only on private fields. (Snip) Economists estimate that for every $0.01 increase in a gallon of gasoline sustained for one full year, the economy loses $1 billion for that year.

Oil & Gas/Fact & Fiction SeriesStrategy: Wittingly or not, President Obama has contributed to high oil prices by stymieing U.S. production. But if that's the idea, it makes sense to secure energy abroad. He hasn't. In fact, Obama's stated policy, in his March 30, 2011, energy speech has been a crude central planner's diktat of reducing oil imports by a third over the next 10 years and replacing them with increased production of biofuels and other unproven "green" energies yet to be developed. Net result: high oil prices and reduced U.S. access to overseas suppliers. A shrewder strategy would have...

Newt Gingrich methodically picks apart President Obama's fantasy-filled energy speech at the University of Miami. Learn more about Newt's American energy plan to lower gasoline below $2.50 a gallon at http://www.newt.org.

For those who only hear about these failing companies one by one, the following is a list of all the clean energy companies supported by President Obama’s stimulus that are now failing or have filed for bankruptcy. The liberal media hopes you’ve forgotten about all of them except Solyndra, but we haven’t. Evergreen SolarSpectraWattSolyndra (received $535 million)Beacon Power (received $43 million)AES’ subsidiary Eastern EnergyNevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million)SunPower (received $1.5 billion)First Solar (received $3 billion) Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $178 million)Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million)Amonix (received 5.9 million)The National Renewable Energy LabFisker AutomotiveAbound Solar (received $400...

Last Friday, former energy trader and now Fox News host Eric Bolling and I hosted a Fox special called “Paying at the Pump,” which offered President Obama solutions to reduce prices at the pump and get our country on the path to real energy security. A genuine “all of the above” approach to energy independence is, of course, a multifaceted plan. It includes conservation and sensible private sector investment in sound alternative energy, and it absolutely must involve unleashing our domestic energy production. We cannot ignore the need to drill, baby, drill; frack, baby, frack; and mine, baby, mine. Those...

Last Friday, former energy trader and now Fox News host Eric Bolling and I hosted a Fox special called “Paying at the Pump,” which offered President Obama solutions to reduce prices at the pump and get our country on the path to real energy security. A genuine “all of the above” approach to energy independence is, of course, a multifaceted plan. It includes conservation and sensible private sector investment in sound alternative energy, and it absolutely must involve unleashing our domestic energy production.

Under pressure to take action on rising gasoline prices, President Obama wants Congress to strengthen federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions. The White House plan, which Obama was to unveil Tuesday, is more likely to draw sharp election-year distinctions with Republicans than have an immediate effect on prices at the pump. The measures seek to boost spending for Wall Street enforcement at a time when congressional Republicans are seeking to limit the reach of federal financial regulations.

Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin. The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake. The State Department has undertaken...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to coordinate the efforts of Federal agencies responsible for overseeing the safe and responsible development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources and associated infrastructure and to help reduce our dependence on oil, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. In 2011, natural gas provided 25 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. Its production creates jobs and provides economic benefits to the entire domestic production supply chain, as well as to chemical and...

Energy: To hear President Obama talk about energy, you'd think annual oil price spikes were routine and predictable. But it's another energy myth Obama peddles to avoid responsibility for high gas prices. In February, Obama lamented these "gas price spikes that happen every year." A few days later, he talked about the need to "take control of our energy future" so we could "avoid high gas prices every single year." For Obama, this is a convenient excuse. After all, price spikes can't possibly be his fault, since they happen "year after year." Except it's not true.