All righty, back to ethanol! And just in time, too, because it’s becoming more and more apparent that the sun is rising on cellulosic ethanol production.

First of all, there are a lot of processing plants being built and put to use; “Several companies…announced in June at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo…that they have already produced cellulosic ethanol from demonstration plants or will do so within the year,” and as if that wasn’t good enough news, “they are producing between 70 gallons and 85 gallons of biofuels.”

This rush of productivity mirrors the optimism found in a study released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratory (and sponsored by General Motors, of all people), who “found that large volumes of cellulosic biofuels could be produced from already identified biomass sources and resources without displacing crop production.” The study also made a longterm projection that cellulosic biofuels could compete with oil by 2030, a speculation based on future oil prices and accelerated development of feedstocks.

We don’t think we need to explain how awesome this news is for ethanol supporters, especially in the face of the smug naysaying we’ve had to put up with over the years. The big question is, of course, how cellulosic biofuels will be introduced to the marketplace if predictions come true and widespread production happens by 2011, but as it becomes more apparent that there is room for them in said marketplace, the laws of supply and demand will take their course. Hell, this might be fodder for another one of our lists…

Wow, sorry to be gone so long! We were celebrating a couple of birthdays over here and were, uh, distracted from biofuels ever so briefly. And, honestly, that’s still the case somewhat. But! They Might Be Giants have a track from their upcoming album (titled Hooray For Science) called “Electric Car.” Apparently the band is quite taken by electric cars; according to their manager, they feel that “the electric car is more efficient in terms of the total spend and has a long history that dates back to the turn of the century.” However, no one in the TMBG camp has ruled out biofuels, as they don’t know which alt. fuel technology will win out. A healthy attitude if ever we’ve heard one!

To watch the cool video for “Electric Car,” click the Corn Car logo! We’ll be back later on with a more substantive update, and hopefully we won’t still be wearing party hats. Or these.