Wow, have we really been AWOL since the 22nd? Our apologies - things get hectic around Corn Car HQ from time to time. They’re still hectic now, to be honest, but we’ve been keeping our eyes on the news and the oil spill spreading through the Gulf and outward hasn’t escaped the ethanol industry. In fact, they’re using it to illustrate the importance of renewable fuels. Statements like “the choice between the dangers of our addiction to oil and the promise of American renewable fuels is as clear today as the contrast between the blackened estuaries of the Gulf Coast and the sparkling green fields of rural America,” which is a quote from EFA president Robert Dineen’s keynote speech at St. Louis’ International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo, pretty much say it all.

Meanwhile, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has come through with an ad using images from the Gulf to highlight the importance of ethanol investment, and the USDA continues to promote ethanol as a net positive as the debate over the federal ethanol blenders credit and the ethanol fuel mandate continue on. Looks like we aren’t the only ones with a lot going on these days, huh? As crass as opportunism in the wake of environmental tragedies can be, it’s also the only thing a lot of Americans will listen to, and the Gulf spill really does symbolize our dependence on oil and the risk of not developing other steady sources of energy. Click the picture below to watch the NCGA’s ad.

Yay reader correspondence! One of our faithfuls emailed us this awesome story about solar panels being installed on houses at North Carolina’s Lejeune Marine Corps base. The panels are provided by FLS Energy and are used to heat water - according to NPR’s article, Camp Lejeune “is quickly becoming the largest [community] in the continental U.S. to heat water with solar energy.”

FLS’ solar panel heating system works like a greenhouse, heating fluid inside the house and transferring that heat into a 40-gallon, 180-degree water tank. They seem to specialize in installing solar panels in places that use a lot of hot water which, as is the case with Camp Lejeune, isn’t directly paid for by residents. The idea here, or at least one of them, is to show how inexpensive renewable energy can be. And the locals are agreeable to it; Sgt. Kirk Paulsen’s quote about the panel installation being “a milestone in our history books for the Marine Corps, for the state of North Carolina and for the continental U.S.” is well taken, as is his sentiment that “we’re conserving it for our children’s children’s children.”

This isn’t the first time that the military has tried out renewable energy, and their R&D wizards can improve it further if given the opportunity/funding. Their endorsement of things like solar power would provide a solid example for the rest of us, too, especially those of us whose political leanings are traditionally hostile to green energy. Most importantly, as the reader who sent this in pointed out, it’s more proof that “the anti-renewable energy crowd isn’t living in complete reality…their ideas just haven’t kept up with the way tech has advanced, especially in areas like solar.” Semper Fi!

For those of you following the California governor’s race (or, god forbid, actually living in California), the two most prominent candidates are former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and longtime political gadfly/current CA attorney general/former CA governor Jerry Brown. Brown recently spoke at Microsoft’s Mountain View campus, where he laid out his clean energy plan. To wit, he wants to place solar panels along the banks of freeways, school roofs, and pretty much anywhere that’s flat and catches direct sunlight. He also wants a requirement that new homes and commercial buildings use “zero net energy,” and he supports state global warming law AB 32, which Whitman opposes. So far, Silicon Valley is siding with Brown.

There’s more to Brown’s plan, but the more important question is whether or not he’ll really go through with it. Brown is one of the most baffling politicians around, and he swerves from hippy-dippy liberal to fascist loon with equal dexterity. Granted, he’s not quite as bad as “California Uber Alles” made him out to be, but he’s built his career as a public servant on a foundation of unpredictability, so it’s hard to get too excited when he announces big plans like this. In any case, it’s good to see higher-profile candidates campaigning on an aggressive green platform - the less voters see green/clean energy as an irrelevant fringe issue, the better.

We talked about the Charm City Circulator, Baltimore’s new system of hybrid buses, back when it had just started up; now that it’s been running a while, we thought we’d check in and see whether or not the locals took to it.

As it turns out, they have. The C3 is free, first of all (not that bus fare in Baltimore is all that expensive), and it shadows popular MTA bus routes. It’s also a cleaner ride around town than MTA buses, and not always late to designated stops, either. And riders are generally pleased with the experience. “This is the best thing ever!” says someone on the C3 Facebook page, noting that “your wonderful bus delivers me from…my hotel to the hospital and allows me to spend my cab money on other Baltimore attractions.” Yelp.com also yielded happy riders, with one reviewer asking “what’s not to like?…10 minute headways means there’s always a bus coming.” People are responding well to the idea of a hybrid bus, too - Baltimore is a much greener city than is often assumed.

In fact, Baltimore Brew has suggested just limiting MTA service to express buses and transit hubs and letting C3 cover everything else because, so far, it’s a better system with more money and community support. And, as the article points out, Baltimore’s public transportation network is beyond redundant and it’s time to finally trim down their 3 or four badly-run options into one or two that actually work. That the C3 is at the top of this list already says a lot about the potential for greener transportation in general, despite how often naysayers try to shrug it off as a gimmick or a fad.

We must say, we’re proud of Baltimore for offering such a nice service - we’ve ridden the C3 a couple of times and really enjoyed the experience. Let’s hope the city government and the MTA are paying attention.

Well, looky here! Looks like hybrid car sales spiked up last month to the tune of a 20% increase, compared to a 12% increase for the auto industry as a whole. And while Toyota’s hybrid sales still dominate the market, Ford has taken second place; their Fusion Hybrid sales are up 64%, and the Escape is up 25%.

Ford’s approach to greener cars has been cautious and variant - Ford sustainability expert John Viera told Hybrid Cars that “there is no silver bullet” when it comes to eco-friendly cars whose problems range from upfront expense to support/maintenance infrastructure. We’re pretty sure he meant magic bullet, but that’s beside the point. Instead of using a single technology to brand themselves, Ford has kept a broad scope, putting work into “advanced internal combustion technology, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric cars.” Not a bad idea. Actually, we salute Ford’s efforts to supply more than one kind of green vehicle to the marketplace, even if it complicates their marketing. Options and adapability are an important part of green living, and it’s good to hear people besides us beating that drum. The risk for Ford is that one particular type of green car could heat up, leaving them in the dust behind a company that threw more resources into it, but that doesn’t seem to be where things are headed, and questions like “could Ford fall behind if electric cars take the world by storm?” are a little premature.

One of our esteemed readers made some very interesting points in a recent email - the latest in an ongoing dialogue we have about alt. energy and the various roadblocks our country keeps building in front of it. We’re reposting some of the more interesting tidbits here, with links for context.

“The administration is finally using the oil crisis to press for his clean energy program. The link there is obvious, and I only wish he had started to do so sooner. However, questions have been raised about how much the spill will hurt the President’s ability to achieve his agenda, even on energy, which is ironic because you’d think that, in a sane world, a crisis like this would actually HELP push an energy bill through Congress. People have started making comparisons to Carter and the Iran Hostage Crisis, which is a bit unnerving.”

He continues:

“Even without the lost political capital, NPR has an article that I think raises issues about whether or not the U.S. will be ready to accept investment in alternative energy under any circumstances. They note that even as the oil spill ruins Louisiana’s coastline and fishing industry, residents may not be willing to back limits on offshore drilling because oil is such an important part of the state’s economy. Which is why Louisiana’s Senators push to keep the cap on damages, even as oil seeps onto their state’s beaches. It reminds me of the argument that Kevin Phillips made in American Theocracy: Superpowers rise, in part, because of their ability to create and adapt to new and innovative sources of energy. However, over time, the people and institutions devoted to that source of energy become overly powerful and entrenched. As such, the super power’s ability to change to a new, “better” source of energy is inhibited, and they are overtaken by another, more flexible nation that is able to utilize that new technology.”

It’s a weird country we live in, folks. Seriously though, a lot of brilliant stuff was said here. If anyone else out there has anything to add, leave a comment or shoot an email to kiefda03 -at- gmail -dot- com.

In the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, which is going to be impossible to clean up if it keeps going the way it’s going, the few genuinely progressive voices in Congress are speaking up about oil and our dependence on it and better places to allocate federal money. Smart Growth America, for example, is championing the Kerry/Lieberman climate bill because of its proposed investments in clean energy production, and specifically clean transportation. Kerry pimped the bill himself on Huffington Post and basically promised the sun and stars if it passed, but there’s still a lot of opposition to the bill from the usual suspects, namely oil puppets and the “nuclear or nothing” crowd that shits up every alt-energy discussion. Click on the Smart Growth America link above to tell your Senators not to neuter this bill, if you feel so inclined.

Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who - unlike Obama - is an actual socialist, chimed in recently too, positing that the oil spill in the Gulf has exposed offshore drilling for the stupid, wasteful idea it really is. He also brings up how much gas money America could save “just by raising our fuel efficiency standards to 35.5 miles per gallon for cars and trucks,” and ends by proposing that all of our fortunes would be bettered “if we take bold action in energy efficiency, public transportation, advanced vehicle technologies, solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal [energy].” In other words, it would behoove us to actually move forward on initiatives like the Kerry/Lieberman bill (which could actually be a lot tougher on corporations than it is) and quit trying to appease doomsayer conservatives with no ideas of their own beyond more of the same.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) is sponsoring a 54 cent gasoline discount in DC this week, a gesture meant to symbolize the 54 cents/gallon imported ethanol tariff they want lifted. Brazil’s domestic flex-fuel market is so big that they want to expand it elsewhere, and America’s ongoing energy debate (and relative inactivity) makes us ripe for the picking. Of course, American ethanol organizations like Growth Energy are sternly opposed. According to their CEO, Tom Buis, “the only thing we should be importing from Brazil is their resolve to become energy independent.” Whether you agree or disagree, that’s a damn good quote.

Besides, American ethanol progress isn’t totally dead. Poet LLC has talked about their goal of producing 3.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022, a lofty number they plan to reach by using their 26 plants to make corn and cellulosic ethanol in a process they called co-location. They also want to license the technology to other ethanol plants and increase the variety of feedstocks they use. And Verenium Corp. just got $4.9 million from the Dept. of Energy to support current cellulosic ethanol projects at its demonstration-scale facility in Jennings, LA. Cellulosic ethanol, which the media has been writing obituaries for since we started this blog, is moving forward.

Man, that makes us feel good. We needed some good news to start this week off right. Hopefully there’s more coming.

The Wall Street Journal has declined rapidly since Rupert Murdoch bought it and turned it into his right-wing Livejournal, but this tidbit about electric trucks caught our eye. The WSJ posits that electric trucks outpace electric cars in the marketplace because trucks are less of an upfront expense for companies than cars are for individual consumers. Rather astute of them, yes? They further explain that “electric cars will be expensive…and it could take the average family many years to ‘break even’ based on money they saved by not buying gasoline.”

This all came about because Fed Ex will soon be using eStar buses for their urban delivery routes (they plan to deploy 400 trucks by the end of the year). The WSJ continued their reasoning that delivery companies see more upfront savings from electric vehicles because they “travel more miles [and] are also at their best in stop-and-go traffic and urban settings.”

Meanwhile, electric vehicle manufacturer ZAP is working on overall efficiency by shipping out lithium battery systems for their full range of vehicles.  Lithium battery systems improve electric car performance and lifespan (at least four times the life of standard batteries and twice the driving range), and ZAP customers have been told to expect “improved acceleration and handling of their vehicles.” We’ve been writing about lithium batteries off and on for a while now, so we’re obviously pleased to see them in use. Hopefully the paths of increased corporate usage of electric vehicles and consumer engine/battery improvements converge while the public is still interested in the technology.

Lots of manly car chat in this update, but first here’s an amusing hater from Townhall.com - it’s clear from his directionless rant about cap and trade (and Obama, and unions, and all the usual GOP scapegoats) that David Harsanyi doesn’t really understand what he’s angry about. Not that it’s impossible to rationally oppose wind and solar power, but he clearly has no grasp of them beyond their convenience as buzzwords. Guys like this would get in the way if they weren’t so retarded.

Among actual adults, however, there’s a lot to talk about. Arizona’s electric car enthusiasts are soon to benefit from a $99.8 million stimulus-act grant that will help local company Ecotality Inc. roll out 12,000 charging stations and show people how to use them once the Nissan Leaf hits the streets later on this year. Whether or not Mexican residents will be allowed to drive them remains to be seen.

The Leaf won’t be the only option with a sissy name, though. Norwegian electric car maker THINK is $40 million closer to expanding operations to North America, and has plans to start production at its U.S. plant in Elkhart, Indiana next year. THINK cars are currently assembled in Finland. We didn’t get retail prices from THINK, but they’re probably (and hopefully) less than the current $50,000 tag on Toyota’s first hydrogen car. Not exactly the best way to deflate criticism that hydrogen car research is too expensive, but Toyota reps are insistent that “production cost should be covered within the price of the vehicle.” At least they understand that they have to cut that price in half before making any serious pushes to sell these things in America - we have enough reasons to hate rich people already without their cars getting fancier.

And with that, we must dash, but it’s good to see electric cars and similar tech. gaining momentum despite laughable resistance from guys like Harsanyi. Seriously, “three-cornered-hat-wearing Visigoths?” What a tool.