Brazil has just put its ten millionth flex-fuel car on the road. Ten million of them. Really. It almost boggles the mind to read a figure like that. Likewise, it is staggering to behold the full bloom of their progress on that front; “almost all vehicles sold in Brazil are flex-fuel capable…and some are even compatible with 100% ethanol…Every gas station in the country sells E85 and almost all sell E100. This has all been accomplished without government subsidies.” Brazil is not, by the way, a wealthy country. But they caught the potential for this technology early and made a real investment in it, and now their ethanol industry is self-sustaining. Whatever else you may want to say (or hear from us) about that industry’s blemishes, they’ve done a lot more to lessen their dependence on fossil fuels than we have.

We, by the way, are still trying to shore up votes on how much we should even care, at the federal level, about the environment at all. Cap-and-trade is dead, and Democrats are scrambling to come up with something else. What they’ve come up with - “different types of limits for different sectors of the economy, beginning with electric utilities and then turning later to manufacturers such as chemical plants and pulp and paper mills” - isn’t terrible, but it does include built-in stall time while industry negotiates with the government. In the meantime, industry will be gobbling up resources and polluting with their usual gusto. Which is bad enough without so-called “green-savvy” politicians having no sense of urgency about broadening our energy sources or shrinking our carbon footprint. To quote one of our more loyal readers, this latest effort, while noble, will most likely “remain viable until the next round of ignorant talking points are developed.”

Happy March, everyone! Say goodbye to universally crappy February and hello to the month when Coca-Cola, pancakes, the rubber band, and the parachute were invented. None of those things directly relate to ethanol or green energy, granted, but the world would be in pretty sad shape without pancakes. Or rubber bands, quite frankly.

As it is, we’re living in weird times. The relationship between Democrats and Republicans has gotten more caustic and spiteful than ever, to the point where ANY legislation sent to Congress will run aground, energy legislation being no exception. But state governments, hoping to reverse a wheezing economy and ballooning unemployment, “are increasingly courting renewable energy companies with stringent new rules mandating that a share of their state’s electricity come from renewable sources.” Generally, these “renewable portfolio standards” require that utilities either produce or buy renewable energy. Specific percentages and timelines are left to the individual states: New York wants 24% green energy by 2013, while Michigan only wants 10% by 2015. Maine, ever the overachiever, has its sights set on 40% by 2017.

This move towards green energy is rooted in studies finding that “almost 300,000 clean energy jobs could be created nationwide by 2025.” It’s not quite the 800,000 jobs we lost a year ago, but it’s still an impressive figure from a field wide open for innovation and growth. The most common sources of green energy are wind and solar power, but everything from ethanol production (yay!) to dredging up geothermal energy to torching biomass is being considered. Even the clean coal people are still building castles in the air. It’s so wide open that CO Democrat Max Tyler and FL Republican Lee Constantine are pushing for almost the exact same green energy bill for their respective states - their mandates only differ by 10%.

Finally! We’ve been cheerleading the economic benefits of green energy production for what seems like ever, and so have a lot of other, more prominent bloggers and public figures and people with good sense. Hopefully Washington won’t let things get too desperate before acting on the states’ momentum.

This hasn’t been a good winter for a lot of people, but Tesla Motors has had a particularly rough 2010 so far. First they cease operations on their Roadster, then three of their employees die when their plane crashed into high-tension power lines. CEO Elon Musk identified the three victims of the crash as “plane owner and pilot Doug Bourn, 56…Brian Finn, a 42-year-old senior interactive electronics manager…and electrical engineer Andrew Ingram.” Finn reportedly lived a couple of blocks away from the crash site; Doug Bourn “shared responsibility for the design and testing of the power electronics module for the Roadster.”

Since we’ve covered Tesla in the past, and rooted for them as a potential developer of mass-market electric vehicles, we at Corn Car send our condolences to the families and friends of Doug Bourn, Brian Finn, and Andrew Ingram.

Good news and bad news to start off the week. The bad news is that the Tesla Roadster, one of the sweetest electric cars ever built, won’t be built for much longer - according to Eco Auto Ninja, “the Tesla Roadster will cease to be produced in 2011 for the simple reason that Tesla won’t have anywhere to build the high-end electric sports car.” So if you were planning on getting one, uh, now’s the time. It’s a shame, not only because it’s something else for electric car haters to gloat about, but we wanted to see those Roadsters take off just for Elon Musk’s response. He’s more than weird enough to have delivered something hilarious.

But the good news is that GM is setting up electric motor production in, of all places, Baltimore. It’ll create around 200 jobs, which we desperately need, and it puts GM in the enviable position of being the only US electric car manufacturer to build its own engines. Apparently the Baltimore plant will be used to build “a new version of GM’s two-mode hybrid system destined for pickups, SUVs and rear-wheel drive cars,” which means they’re refining their current, heavier model into a better fit for consumers. They picked a good city for this, too - despite its other problems, Baltimore is making a lot of big steps towards sustainable living.

But that leads us to wonder: what other cities could use a shot in the arm from green industry, and which ones are the best prepared? Sounds like a list idea to us…

So Porsche has officially said no to proposed hybrid versions of the 911 or the Boxster - hybrid components, they claim, would add too much weight, and sports cars aren’t meant for city driving anyway. Debatable point, but whatever. The good news is that Porsche does want to make an all-electric sports car, assuming it could meet the performance standards of a regular engine. Or, more likely, when the corporate yuppie fartbags who drive Porsches can be convinced to go electric.

But hybrids are making progress elsewhere. Peugeot is still in production for its 2011 diesel-hybrid vehicle, the 3008 Hybrid4 Concept, and both Mercedes-Benz and GM are following suit. “Both cars are mild hybrids,” says Fox News’ website, “meaning the electric motor adds power to that of the combustion engine, as well as restarting it from stops. But they are not capable of running in all-electric mode, like…the Toyota Prius.” That was…surprisingly vitriol-free for Fox. Huh.

Anyway, hybrids and other green cars have been a hit for American automakers, whose finances are still delicate after Detroit’s 2007-08 freefalling crash - The Daily Green reports that “Ford’s hybrid sales were up 147% for the year,” adding that “the Ford Fusion Hybrid is a hit.” Ford has been recouping its losses, ending 2009 with a full percentage point gain in US market share, and their stock price is now 10 times improved. Their success could partly explain why GM is gunning for hybrid and diesel-hybrid vehicle production in the coming year - both GM and Chrysler are still struggling. Then again, Ford could go nowhere but up - owners of the ‘93 Taurus understand what we mean here.

Still, this is all promising news for 2010. Keep sending us stories, folks, and we’ll keep reporting ‘em. There might be a list in the works, too…

Back to China for the bajillionth time, as they’re building, according to NPR, “the world’s biggest wind power project,” which will produce 12 times the power of Texas’ Roscoe Wind Farm upon completion. NPR notes the curious paradox of China supplementing their wind power with coal-fired power stations, but also notes the intense pride shared between the business interests behind the project and the locals building it; they really do feel like this work is important, and that China has a real chance to lead the renewables industry. Granted, their government would probably have them killed if they felt any differently, but the fact remains that they’re taking “going green” much more seriously as a longterm prospect than we are.

So is France, for that matter. French President Nikolas Sarkozy is staking his political career on taxing businesses and individual households “according to their carbon footprint.” France is the largest European country to implement a carbon tax, and the tax (set for January 2010) is already weathering fierce criticism. Planting it in the middle of a global recession was questionable timing, certainly, but Sarkozy’s speeches defending the tax are ripe with the concession that we don’t have the choice of ignoring global warming and conservation anymore. He also claims that the taxes will be refunded directly or subsidized through other tax reductions, but time will tell whether or not he means that. Ours aren’t the only politicians who lie, after all.

Our recent look at international efforts to conserve energy and lower dependence on oil isn’t an attempt to fear-monger, by the way, nor is it our intention to shit on America from within. But it is an attempt to get readers to understand what serious, proactive stances on alt. energy look like, and they are models that the US is fully capable of adopting and molding to its specific needs and geography. We’re also not guaranteeing that every foreign idea will work, either. But the fact that they’re trying at all instead of dicking around and stalling at the behest of their corporate overlords, which they also have, is very telling of how seriously we’re taking renewable energy innovation.

For a look at what India’s been up to, Click the Car.

Short update today, but a worthwhile one: the New York Times has an interesting and sobering article (free registration required) on America’s sluggish green energy development. While some geothermal and wind stuff is being done, overall progress is lagging behind Europe, China, and India (as we all know), and it’s reaching the point where mud hut-dwelling peasants in the ass end of nowhere are going to beat us to a workable green energy program.

Part of the problem is money - banks aren’t lending to alt-energy projects, and existing companies don’t want to invest in new equipment before relevant legislation kicks in. And part of the problem lies at the feet of contentious fartbags like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who still doesn’t believe that greenhouse gases hurt anything and calls any regulations on them “onerous” and based on “manipulated data.” What will convince him of something that’s already demonstrably true is a mystery. And unfortunately, his fellow Republicans aren’t much more reasonable - their tendency towards anti-everything political hypochondria is just clouding the issue.

The Apollo Alliance’s Cathy Calfo puts it best; “As a country, we need to make a decision that we do or don’t want to be a leader in this area.” Right now, it’s looking like we don’t. And that’s going to cost us dearly in the future. Hell, it already is in the present.

But to cheer us all up, Click the Car for an article about Denmark’s electric car ambitions.

Well, Baltimore officially welcomes December by possibly seeing its mayor lose her office over $630 worth of stolen gift cards. If only there were some way to convert her myriad indictments into ethanol…

Oh well. We’ve got bigger fish to fry today, and the heat might be coming from outer space: Japan is investing in space-based solar technology, which is something we mentioned a while ago with great excitement, because we are basically children when it comes to the idea of things beaming down from space. This isn’t totally surprising, though, as Japan is a tiny country with few domestic energy resources, and they’ve been longtime proponents of solar energy.

But this is especially ambitious; their proposed Space Solar Power System (SSPS), would put huge photovoltaic dishes “in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere.” They would capture solar energy there (to quote researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, “the sun’s rays abound in space”), and beam it down through clusters of lasers or microwaves. Like China and India, Japan is investing heavily in new ideas to reduce their country’s carbon footprint, and this is yet another sign that America needs to spearhead some innovation of its own.

Meanwhile, normally pacifistic Sweden is having something of a rabbit problem - rabbits are not native to their country and have been, as is customary for them, overbreeding and feasting on Stockholm’s local crops. And while it’s more than legal to hunt the little bastards, it’s definitely illegal to toss them into landfills once they’re dead. So Sweden has been turning dead rabbits into fuel. Apparently they, and other dead animals, are “crushed, ground and then pumped into a boiler where it is burned together with wood chips, peat or other waste to produce heat.” Critics of this system think it’s disgusting and claim that it doesn’t solve the basic overpopulation problem; rather, it tries to build an industry from it. And we agree with them - although it’s hard to condone their idea of using rabbit-repellent pesticides, comments like “we can’t give them bunny birth control pills, so we have to put the rabbits away,” come off as cold, rapacious, and sociopathic, even from people who think lye is a garnish.

Anyway, enough about dead bunnies. Click the Corn Car logo for a more pleasant article about how some American scientists want to turn trees into carbon banks. Happy December, everyone!

The Senate global warming bill is up for debate this week, so here are some relevant news items for what could be the start of a new era of energy consumption for America. Firstly, scientists warn that cellulosic biofuel production could encourage deforestation. Princeton University’s Tim Searchinger worries that “even if you were to cut down the world’s forests and turn them into a parking lot, and take the wood and put it in a boiler — which obviously releases enormous amounts of carbon from the trees — that is treated as a pure way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

He’s right to worry, given Brazil’s zeal for replacing rainforests with sugarcane/ethanol stock, but his fears can be put to rest if the Senate simply rewords the bill to discourage deforestation. He’s also ignoring the fact that cellulosic ethanol can be made from weeds like switchgrass and hemp, which can grow practically anywhere and don’t need any room made for them. Searchinger’s own solution - making participating nations dole out carbon credits based on whether or not biofuel sources are destructive - isn’t bad either.

Meanwhile, natural gas, electrical utilities, coal companies, and the renewables industry are scrabbling for leverage over energy legislation. Some people see this fragmentation as a good thing - without oil and gas companies presenting a united front, the marketplace of ideas functions better. Others roll their eyes at the squabbling and the inability of alternative energy suppliers to work together on anything. We’re in the latter camp; while it’s good that all possibilities are getting floor time, the dialogue is being hijacked by shortsighted regionalism, which just puts us that much farther behind nations like India and China, who are putting a lot of time, effort, and money into their alt-energy initiatives.

There’s a lot up in the air right now, so rather than speculate any further, we’re going to wait and see what happens in the Senate. Hopefully they won’t drop the ball on this.

All right! Now that the Solar Decathlon is officially over and the solar houses on display are being shipped back to their places of manufacture, we can write up a more substantive post about it. We’re still waiting for our pictures to come back, but we do have our notes and individual house propaganda handy for reference. Click the Corn Car logo for Treehugger’s awesome photo/video slideshow of the event.

Last Saturday, the 10th, we got to DC in enough time to see three of the houses. First up was Team Alberta’s house, provided by students and researchers from the University of Calgary, SAIT Polytechnic, Mount Royal College, and the Alberta College of Art and Design. They built a Western Canadian timber frame house, with vaulted ceilings and strategic keyholes to let in as much of Alberta’s abundant natural sunlight as possible. They also put in a logic controller that automatically lowers blinds, a solar-assisted GSHP, an energy recovery ventilator, LED lighting in the bathroom, and an audio system that isolates itself from the house’s AC power and runs on DC instead. They also had a Mountie greeting people at the door. Cool, huh?

Next was Team Arizona, from the University of Arizona, who built a “SEEDpod” house (SEED stands for Solar Energy-Efficient Dwelling) that can be easily assembled and modified to the regional climate and tastes of whoever bought it. The angle of the house’s roof is adjustable, and the house itself can be rearranged, thanks to its unique segmented construction. One of the coolest elements of the house is the water conservation - it has a greywater filter for the greenhouse, and rainwater is collected in tanks to use for gardening and landscaping. In addition, the outdoor deck is made from water-permeable material, allowing it to run through into the ground below. We could spend all day explaining the vacuum-tank walls and solar-heated water systems, but their 8.6-kW solar energy system relies on bi-facial solar panels that allow daylight to pass through them and has cavities underneath to catch ambient light and ventilate the panels. It was probably the most cleverly designed house, environmentally speaking.

Finally, we hit up Team Wisconsin’s house, brought to us by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. They were especially proud of their house’s “inverted butterfly” roof that channeled water into a reflecting pool for irrigating plants on the deck. The entire house was built out of locally collected materials, including Paperstone, a wood product made from recycled paper. Heating and cooling are controlled by multiple sensors that take temperature measurements and relay the information to the house’s two heating/ventilation/HVAC zones. The solar panel system is grid-connected, sending excess energy back into the grid, and can be adjusted to follow the changing angles of the sun. Finally, the house’s energy monitoring system is very cool; a live Web interface displays energy consumption and production.

We were surprised by the levels of regionalism shown in the houses, but it was nice to see such practical measures literally built into these houses - every team we spoke to was very community-minded. It’s also worth noting that they had their most photogenic team members on hand to give tours. In fact, we noted that several times during the day, often by nudging each other and grinning stupidly. Also, Dell was a Decathlon sponsor this year, which puts our list of potential sponsors into new perspective.