BP Axes Solar Power Business
by Terry Macalister, guardian.co.uk
BP has taken the axe to its solar power business, saying it "can't make any money" from selling panels at a time when it continues to spend $20bn annually on oil and gas developments.
The energy group, which once promised to move "beyond petroleum", was an important player in solar but has over the last three years gradually closed its panel factories and made around 1,750 workers redundant.
At the same time, the company has gradually retreated from other areas such as carbon capture and storage and shut down its separate London headquarters for BP Alternative Energy.
Ford C-MAX Hybrid
by Larry E. Hall, hybridcars.com
In a move to chip away at Toyota's market dominance of hybrid cars, Ford will roll out two new hybrid models in 2012. The no-plug C-Max Hybrid and plug-in C-Max Energi are based on the five-passenger C-Max sold in Europe. In an announcement in June to expand production of the two C-Max hybrids, Ford said it had changed its mind about the seven-passenger gasoline-only version of the Grand C-Max in the U.S and the C-Max will be a dedicated hybrid vehicle. The C-Max Hybrid will arrive in the first half of 2012 followed by the C-Max Energi. "This is our Prius fighter," said Ford's head of global marketing, Jim Farley, during a recent press announcement.
US Looks Ahead After Ethanol Subsidy Expires
by Rob Lever (AFP)
After a series of bitter political fights, the US Congress allowed a subsidy for ethanol fuel to expire at the end of 2011, ending a program harshly criticized by environmentalists and others.
By taking no action, US lawmakers ended the credit of 45 cents per gallon refiners get for blending ethanol, which in the US market is made mostly from corn, into gasoline. Also terminated was a tariff on imports of 54 cents per gallon which was criticized by Brazil, a producer of sugar cane-based ethanol.
The programs were in place since the 1980s as a means of curbing US use of imported petroleum.
But over time, criticism grew that growing ethanol use diverted too much corn from food to fuel, and led to environmental and land use problems, by adding to incentives to plant more corn. The program also cost taxpayers some $6 billion annually.
That is very disappointing news on BP. For a company that was heavily promoting their investment in green, clearly they have abandoned many of those efforts. Of course, the business side, as we've talked about, always drives these decisions, but it is very disappointing to see BP falling back from a transformation to "beyond petroleum" company.
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