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.

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.

Here’s a brief but important update: Purdue University scientists have been tinkering with their original analysis of ethanol, and “have cut about 10 percent of the total emissions expected from an increase in corn ethanol production.” Taking shifts in land use over time into consideration, ethanol is better for reducing greenhouse gas emissions than they’d previously thought. Purdue agricultural economist Wally Tyner told reporters that “the difference between this report and previous reports is advances in science. With any issue, your first cut may not be the best, but when you get new data and new methods, you improve.”

One of the consistent problems we find with media coverage of ethanol, and other green energy efforts, is ignorance of the very thing Tyner was talking about. Distillation technology has improved over the past few years, with cellulosic ethanol making particularly impressive leaps and bounds, and researchers are more than happy to get right back in the lab and figure out how to make them even better. That spirit of frontier innovation is evident throughout green energy projects these days, especially ethanol, solar power, and wind, which makes it endlessly frustrating when the media reads one study by one research team and then parrots those results for years afterwards. This revision might not get much coverage, and certainly not enough to break through the Phil Spector-esque wall of noise about how supposedly wasteful and inefficient ethanol is.

But this is all stuff we’ve said before, and this is supposed to be a happy update. So we’ll leave off here, with a big thumbs up to Purdue and a picture of kittens to sustain good cheer.

Obama’s “White House to Main Street” tour is taking him to ethanol plants in Iowa and Missouri this week, hoping to drum up support for his $862 billion economic stimulus program and the now-gridlocked energy and climate legislation in the Senate. He told an Iowa Siemens AG wind-turbine plant that a greener economy “generates good jobs right here in America.” He’s really pushing the jobs aspect of his energy platform, in part because the job market still sucks pond water and in part because he wants to avoid being called a hippie by assholes like Lindsey Graham.

He’ll be saying much the same thing at POET Biorefining in Macon, Missouri, although he’ll be encountering opposition there: The Missouri Republican Party is joining forces with the Macon County Patriots for a protest down the road from the plant. We’re guessing they’re angrier at his economic policies than his environmental ones, but Tea Party events (the MCP are teabaggers and the Missouri GOP might as well be) are pretty much an incoherent mush of angry platitudes, so who really knows what they’re specifically mad at this week.

Obama pissed us off by okaying offshore drilling - which might very well turn hilarious when Republican oil states bitch about their coastlines and try to overturn it - and his newfound “hardline” stance against Republicans on one or two issues is meaningless when he caves on five or six. And with cellulosic ethanol’s future uncertain, now would be the time for him to drum up support for it, and other green energy sources. He’s right about there being no “silver bullet,” even though we think he meant magic bullet, but he needs to back those words up with something, and soon.

Cars.com just put out a list of 2010’s greenest American cities and, whaddaya know, seven out of the top ten are on the West Coast (mostly California and Oregon). The top twenty branches out a little bit to include Charlottesville (VA), Fairbanks (Alaska), and several cities in the Midwest. Baltimore, sadly, is #103, in spite of all the recent green efforts - rooftop gardening, hybrid buses, etc. - we’ve undertaken. It’s even more depressing when you consider that Washington DC, a mere 30 minutes south of us, is #20. We’re at a loss to explain why that is; DC has a lot of the same problems Baltimore does in terms of corruption and money being scarce for things that actually matter and wealthy suburbanites leaving the city’s urban center to rot. Perhaps DC’s status as the federal government’s company town keeps enough money flowing to start up green city projects.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Detroit, which is turning green in the most literal sense of the word, at #140. Detroit certainly doesn’t have the money to buy hybrid buses or solar paneling - they can barely sustain a population - and city services have been cut to the point where parts of the city are becoming “rejungled,” AKA overtaken by weeds and plant life and, in some extreme cases, impromptu marshland sprouting from large puddles. It sounds and is horrible, but people are looking at Detroit as a site for urban farming efforts because of this, and entire abandoned neighborhoods are being bought to turn into greenhouses and communal farms. The response of Detroit’s remaining population will certainly be interesting, and varied, but the green movement’s eye for opportunity is one of its better qualities, and since everyone else has abandoned Detroit, kudos to them for thinking something can still be done there.

We’ve gone a little far afield from our original topic, but it’s also worth noting that this listing defined “green cities” by how many of their residents are “researching hybrid cars, crossovers and SUVs” thus far in 2010. Hybrids are great and all, but that’s not a complete sample of green efforts by any stretch of the imagination. Taking more green projects into account, we wonder how those numbers might change.

Ethanol has, quite literally, gone commercial; Growth Energy is putting $2.5 million into a pro-ethanol marketing campaign, which will unfold over the next six months. The TV spots are en route, and former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley K. Clark. is acting as a spokesperson of sorts, seeing as how he’s co-chairman of Growth Energy and all. The ads, and doubtless everything else in the campaign, will pitch ethanol as an American-made renewable fuel that lessens dependence on foreign energy sources. Why does that sound so familiar?

Of course, some foreign energy sources want us to be dependent on them. Brazil, for instance, has also launched an ad campaign, complete with a website - Sweeter Alternative - geared to an American audience. It’s also, according to Gas 2.0, trying to drum up support against the tariffs that have kept Brazilian ethanol out of American gas tanks thus far. Gas 2.0 pushes the Brazilian ethanol industry a little too hard, we think - yes, they’re doing much better than us regarding flex-fuels, and yes they are a democracy with whom we could trade, but pushing their ethanol too hard would discourage us from making any of our own. The whole point, after all, is self-sufficiency, which is not achieved by galloping after foreign countries with things we want at the expense of our own manufacturing sector. That said, if Brazil wants to lobby for lower tariffs, let ‘em. We just need to make sure we aren’t heading into a frying pan/fire situation.

And credit where it’s due, “cane in the tank means money in the bank” is a cool slogan. “For drivers, competition means even regular gasoline would cost less” still needs some work.

We’re taking a break from solar/wind/electric/green power for this post to update everyone on our first true love: ethanol. And not a moment too soon. For an ethanol blog, it feels like forever and a day since we discussed ethanol in any detail.

Our news is promising, too. Both DomesticFuel.com and Hoosier Ag. Today are reporting that 2010 started off with record ethanol production; January alone saw more than 800 thousand barrels a day. That’s nearly 200k more than January 2009, and according to the Renewable Fuels Association, the demand is rising to meet it. But there’s still work to be done. RFA president Bob Dinneen, who looks like what would happen if the Brawny towel guy let himself go, says the future would look even rosier for the ethanol industry were it not for “antiquated regulations” keeping the American consumer at arm’s length from ethanol and ethanol blends. Granted, he is the president of the RFA and that slants his take on things, but in the face of renewed calls for an American industrial economy and Brazil taunting us by lifting their ethanol tariff until 2011, his is not an unreasonable opinion.

Just to lend additional perspective, Click the Car for a map detailing the economic and personal impacts of oil dependence by state, then try to sleep at night.

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.