Both diesel and gas prices have been slowly creeping upward for the last month and a half, with the last price decrease taking place in mid-December, according to figures from the DOE’s Energy Information Administration. The current diesel price is up 34 cents from a year ago, and gas prices are up 35 cents this week from 2011.

On Monday, U.S. oil futures fell below $97 a barrel, the same day new sanctions were announced against the world’s third-largest exporter, Iran. The sanctions are supposed to make it harder for Iran to sell its oil through traditional banking routes. The idea is to force Iran to sell its oil at a discount, and reduce the oil revenue Iran uses to run its economy and fund its nuclear operations.

Abundant U.S. oil supplies kept prices in check despite the new sanctions against Iran. Crude supplies are expected to keep growing into spring as the petroleum industry ramps up drilling projects.

Brent crude prices rose to $1.35 to finish at $115.93 a barrel in London. The increase is due to winter storms that brought icy temperatures to much of Europe.

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T. Boone Pickens, the oilman-turned-gas promoter whose BP Capital owns Clean Fuels, joined Navistar executives to announce a deal yesterday morning at the truck builder’s new headquarters in Lisle, Ill.

The agreement will see Navistar building more International trucks with natural gas engines, while Clean Energy will build more filling stations for truckers who commit to using the comparatively inexpensive and increasingly abundant fuel.

Customers who sign up will pay no extra money for trucks equipped to store and burn natural gas and filling stations for them.

“Progress is being made in alternative fuels,” said Dan Ustian, Navistar’s chairman, president and chief operating officer, who opened the press conference before slipping away to prepare for a stock analysts meeting later that morning.

“It’s always seemed to be government supported. While we hope we can get more money for research and development, this can stand on its own.”

Pickens, who’s been promoting the use of natural gas since 2010, said it’s both a financial and national security matter.

“Prices vary, but this is the cheapest fuel in the United States” at about $2.50 per diesel-equivalent gallon, or about $1 to $1.50 less than diesel, he said. “We cannot pass up this opportunity.

“Heavy trucks are the biggest users of fuel and stand to see the biggest savings” because of gas’s lower cost. “It’s a big deal for our country because we’ve got to get off OPEC oil.”

Clean Energy spent $200 million last year to build fueling stations for both compressed and liquefied natural gas, said Andrew Littlefair, the firm’s president and CEO. That effort will expand under the partnership with Navistar, with $250 million budgeted for this year.

Jerry Moyes, president of Swift Transportation, who participated in the announcement, said he’d like his company to have the first trucks in the program. “We’re very excited about the potential for natural gas,” he said. “We buy millions of gallons (of fuel) every day, so this is a big deal.”

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For diesel, the only two regions that didn’t see a price decrease were New England, where the average diesel price rose by one tenth of a cent to $4.077, and California, where prices rose by half a cent to $4.121. As usual, California claims the highest average diesel prices in the country.

Crude oil futures settled higher this week after the European Union agreed to an embargo on oil imports from Iran starting July 1.

Light, sweet crude oil for March delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled 1.3%, or $1.25 higher, at $99.58 a barrel. ICE North Sea Brent crude settled up 72 cents at $110.58 a barrel.

The EU embargo, which was widely expected, advances U.S.-led global efforts to restrict Iran’s economic lifeline because of what it says is Tehran’s refusal to halt efforts to gain nuclear weapons.

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The company, which was founded in 2007, converts sunlight and waste CO2 to infrastructure-ready diesel, ethanol or commodity chemicals with no dependence on biomass feedstocks, downstream processing or precious natural resources. Though many biofuels companies have tried making cellulosic ethanol from non-food sources, none have succeeded at a commercial scale.

With this recent funding, which brings funding to $110 million to date, Joule plans to expand and operate a demonstration plant in Hobbs, N.M., to test its process at a much larger scale. The facility has the potential to grow to 1,000 acres for commercial production.

“Our goal since inception has been to enable large-scale, renewable fuel production at unprecedented costs and volumes in the near term, without the obstacles and slow pace of biofuel progress,” says president and CEO William J. Sims. “On the heels of our latest funding round and technology advancement, we’re in a very strong position to make it happen as planned.”

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Pike believes the global market for hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), plug-in hybrid electrics vehicles (PHEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV) will grow at 92% in 2012, with total sales surpassing 19,000.

In the U.S. this year, it predicts that 3,250 medium- and heavy-duty HEV trucks be sold, 790 BEV trucks will be sold and about 500 PHEV trucks will be sold.

In a slowly improving economy, driving factors of increased hybrid sales will likely be fleet owners’ desire to advertise a more environmentally-friendly fleet than their competitors’. Also pushing sales is the bottom-line cost impact from government emission regulations, says Pike.

“The performance of specific economic sectors will play a big role in the growth of electric drivetrains for trucks,” says Dave Hurst, senior analyst for Pike Research. “For example, as the retail industry rebounds, pick-up and delivery vehicle sales will rebound with it. This in turn will have a positive impact on the hybrid, plug-in, and battery electric truck markets, as well.”

In its research report, “Hybrid Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks,” Pike Research forecasted numbers through 2017. The firm expects the market to experience a compound annual growth rate of 42% between 2011 and 2017. In 2017, 100,746 hybrid and electric trucks are expected to sell globally.

In the U.S. in 2017, it’s expected that 21,675 hybrid and electric MD and HD trucks will be sold. That’s a growth rate of around 40% for hybrid and electric truck sales in the U.S. between now and 2017.

There are some obstacles that might stand in the way of growth in sales, however. One of those hurdles is the growing popularity of alternative fueled vehicles, particularly natural gas. Another is the high price tags on hybrid and electric vehicles. HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs all have higher upfront costs that are substantial enough to result in a higher total cost of ownership. Even with lower operating costs ($0.72/mile for diesel versus $0.60/mile for hybrid and $0.22/mile for BEV trucks, according to Pike), the higher purchase price for hybrids and electrics means the trucks aren’t able to recover their costs in a lifetime without government incentives.

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The Wedway Refrigeration Power System does this through kinetic energy. For all of us who remember learning about kinetic energy in school but never thought there would be a need to use it again, kinetic energy is the energy that is stored in an object while it is motion. That energy remains constant until the velocity of the object is changed.

Working with researchers at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Advanced Turbines and Energy Research, Emerald says it has developed a system that captures the kinetic energy produced by a trailer’s wheels as it rolls down the highway. That energy is converted into power that is used to operate the refrigeration unit, leaving the batteries to charge so that they are fully charged when the vehicle stops.

According to Emerald, those charged batteries can run a refrigeration system for up to 12 hours while the vehicle is stopped. The system, for which Emerald has applied for a patent, can also be plugged in to shore power for times when the trailer will be stationary for long periods of time.

By using a vehicle’s kinetic energy, the need to carry extra diesel fuel to power the refrigeration system is eliminated, thereby lowering the weight of the overall system and offering increased payload capacity for truckers.

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The rules, adopted in 2008 and amended last year, apply to all privately owned and federal government diesel trucks operating in California.

Separately, large fleets in California also face a Jan. 1 deadline to have SmartWay-approved fuel efficient aerodynamic technology equipment installed on 15% of trailers manufactured before 2011.

Fleets that signed up late for a phase-in option must have 20% of their 53-foot or longer dry van or reefer trailers equipped with the technology on that date.

For the engine rule, “fleet owners who need to get the facts should call CARB’s diesel hotline or go to CARB’s website for assistance,” CARB assistant chief of mobile sources Erik White said in a statement.

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All regions tracked by DOE saw falling prices, led by an 8.3-cent decline in the Midwest, where prices fell to $3.765. The smallest decrease was 3.7 cents in New England, where the average price is $3.995.

The nation’s most expensive diesel was in California, where the average price was down 7.5 cents to $4.047. The nation’s least expensive diesel was in the Gulf Coast region, where the average price was down 6.7 cents to $3.727.

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All regions tracked by DOE saw falling prices, led by a 5.9-cent decline in the Rocky Mountains, where prices fell to $4.035. The smallest decrease was 0.9 cent in New England, where the average price is $4.036.

The nation’s most expensive diesel was in California, where the average price was down 5.2 cents to $4.172. The nation’s least expensive diesel was in the Gulf Coast region, where the average price was down 3.1 cents to $3.828

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The United States began exporting gas in late 2008. For decades prior, starting in 1960, the country used all the gas it produced here plus had to import gas from places in Europe.

But demand for gas has dropped nearly 10% in recent years. It went from a peak of 9.6 million barrels a day in 2007 to 8.8 million barrels today, according to the EIA.

The drop was caused partially by the recession but also by the advent of more fuel efficient vehicles, higher prices and the greater use of ethanol as an ingredient in gasoline. Demand for other products made from crude oil like diesel and jet fuel has also declined, although not as much.

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