Many reasons have been provided for the dramatic plunge in the price of oil to about $60 per barrel (nearly half of what it was a year ago): slowing demand due to global economic stagnation; overproduction at shale fields in the United States; the decision of the Saudis and other Middle Eastern OPEC producers to
The government has pledged to continue its support of plug-in vehicles and their integration into the mainstream. This means that grant schemes in place such as the plug-in car grant and the EV Homecharge scheme will continue to run. Importantly, the guidelines for these grants are being revised by the government, so there are some
New research from a major national lab projects that the rate of climate change, which has risen sharply in recent decades, will soar by the 2020s. This worrisome projection — which has implications for extreme weather, sea level rise, and permafrost melt — is consistent with several recent studies. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Today, government announced details of 12 UK cities shortlisted to share £35 million of funding to promote ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs). Bidding to be the UK’s first ‘Go Ultra Low Cities’, the shortlisted authorities have until 31 August 2015 to finalise their submissions, with the winning cities announced in the autumn. Set up by The
The BMW i8 is sleek and stunning, but it’s no V-8-powered supercar. Is it the car that will give plug-in hybrids sex appeal? First, you need to know what makes the i8 go. This is no straightforward supercar: The i8 gets power in a complex way–it can be front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive,
Outside of Norway and the Netherlands, electric vehicle market share remains under 1 percent, even in environmentally progressive countries such as Iceland and Sweden. While the benefits of wider electric-car adoption — including reduced urban air pollution and a lower long-run cost of vehicle ownership — are well known, researchers in Britain have put some
Generally, there have been two approaches to creating electric automobiles: Stuff batteries and an electric motor into existing gas-power cars, or start from scratch and create a new design. Not satisfied with either of those methods, BMW in a sense used a time machine. Its new i3 is a deep dive into what the car
Forget the so-called ‘pause’ in global warming—new research says we might be in for an era of deeply accelerated heating. While the rate of atmospheric warming in recent years has, indeed, slowed due to various natural weather cycles—hence the skeptics’ droning on about “pauses”—global warming, as a whole, has not stopped. Far from it. It’s
