Man, sorry for the delay in posting - we’ve been lapsing in and out of food comas since Thursday afternoon, as is customary over Thanksgiving. But now that we’re back, we’re proud to announce that we now know who rounds out the top ten ethanol producing countries. The first two are the US and Brazil, so now we’re going to list off the remaining seven, including what crop they process into ethanol and a few tips for how they could become #1 someday.

3. China (corn). China’s population is both large in number and highly industrious, so it’s surprising that they came up short behind Americans, who are eternally distracted by television, and Brazilians, who are eternally distracted by each other; none of them seem to wear any clothes larger than a bikini for anything except maybe state funerals. But on the other hand, the Chinese only now getting cars on the road en masse, so the lag is understandable. And given recent quality control issues they’ve had, we’ll be happy if they manage to produce ethanol without toxic amounts of lead in it.

4. India (sugarcane). India is another populous, industrious country who should be higher on the list, but they have some of the same issues China does, plus much of their time is spent being yelled at by frustrated Americans calling customer service. Perhaps they should take a page from the West’s playbook and outsource their nightmarish phone bank jobs to an even poorer, less developed country (Myanmar, perhaps?), which would free them up enough to crank out more ethanol.

5. France (sugar beets). France found the perfect, and perhaps only, use for beets, since they’re too disgusting to eat. But they’re still lower than they should be. History suggests surrendering their processing facilities to Germany.

6. Germany (rye). Hey, speak of the devil. The Germans need to find a stock that doesn’t compete with their world-renowned breweries if they want to compete with everyone above them. We’d recommend using waste beer, but we’re pretty sure that doesn’t exist in Germany. Those people will drink anything.

7. Russia (wheat). The assertion that ethanol processing wastes otherwise edible crops might be bunk everywhere else on Earth, but Russia is usually in dire enough straits to run counter to that line of reasoning. Luckily, they have an inexhaustible natural resource - sorrow - that they’ve been exporting across the globe for decades now. If they can somehow distill tears into workable fuel, they’ll be at the top of this list by Valentine’s Day.

8. Canada (corn/wheat). Canada has some pretty sweet oil fields that are still lucrative enough for them to downplay alternative fuel sources. But that won’t last forever, and they’ll probably go through the same stupid alarmism over food prices and crop waste that we had. But with a good portion of their country being a frozen hinterland, they don’t have the same capacity for cellulosic ethanol that we do. Unless they use snow, in which case they’ll kick our Yankee asses.

9. Spain (wheat). Spain’s priorities are tuned more to the electric car - they plan to have a million of them on the road by 2014. That’s probably for the best; their cars can charge in the afternoon while they’re asleep, the lucky bastards.

10. South Africa (??). No one knows what South Africa turns into ethanol. We’re guessing it’s corpses. If so, then stay the course - that’s not a bad allocation of resources for them.

We’ve been critical of Brazil’s ethanol industry before, what with the myriad human rights/environmental issues and all, but we still find ourselves glad that they’re helping us with cellulosic ethanol research - according to Reuters, the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and Brazil’s Center for Research and Development (CENPES) “will join forces to speed up research into cellulose-derived biofuels.” In addition to speeding up progress in our countries, this alliance plans to help developing nations in Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean with their emerging biofuel industries.

Brazil, we’re certain, is pushing to team up with us because their own ethanol industry was hit by the global credit crunch pretty hard and they need to lean on our (generally speaking) more stable economy. But the more heads we put together on this research, the better, and hopefully the president-elect won’t allow us to depend on foreign ethanol the way we’ve depended on foreign oil in decades past. Plus, America and Brazil are the biggest ethanol producers on the planet, so it was only a matter of time before we combined forces in some capacity. And who knows, maybe their enthusiasm for flex-fuel cars will rub off on us.

Once again the forces of industry are outdone by bored teenagers - Luke LaBorde, an 18-year-old boy in San Antonio, TX, converted a gas-powered Bradley kit car to run on electric power, for a mere $18,000 (which, in car money, is a drop in the bucket). The car can go about 40 miles per charge (each charge uses less than a dollar’s worth of electricity), at a top speed of 55 mph, and runs on “an electric motor driven by eight lead-acid batteries.” LaBorde figures that, all said, it took about 150 hours to complete, spread out over three months.

Bradley cars, for the uninitiated, included the GT, Scorpion and GT II,  and could be bought as parts to be assembled by the purchaser. LaBorde bought his on eBay, of course, and got help from his hydraulics-repairman dad, but had never built or converted a car before undertaking this project. In fact, he doesn’t see it as much more than a hobby. But hopefully the major automotive companies were paying attention to this, because it will be brought up the next time they complain about the cost or timeliness of electric vehicles.

A more substantive, on-topic post is on the way, but we felt like popping in and congratulating Barack Obama on his truly historic presidential win. This is a big moment for America, and we feel lucky to be here for it.

If we can indulge our self-interest for just a minute, this is also a pivotal moment for ethanol, and biofuels in general. The economy has hit the ethanol industry hard (which we’ll post about later in the week), and while Obama has pledged his support for continuing to develop the technology, only time will tell what resources, if any, he can put towards this goal. But unless the Green Party or a similar organization can put together a coherent, workable plan for sustaining ethanol production (which isn’t likely), Obama’s all we’ve got.

Here’s to a good 4 years.

As we’ve mentioned before, Sarah Palin is trying to assert herself on the political mainstage via her energy policy. We have no idea why, because her energy policy as it stands now is total gibberish, but she’s certainly determined; she recently gave a speech on the matter, blaming decades of presidential apathy for America’s current dependence on foreign oil. President Bush’s energy policy (such as it was) was not spared from Palin’s denouncement of executive inaction, which some people credit to an legit disagreement with the president. We think it’s more of a calculated, strategic move away from a man whose approval ratings are dropping low enough to cause frostbite, but we’re just bloggers, what do we know? Plus, we’re straying from the original topic, which is how terrible Palin’s energy ideas are.
Unfortunately, America’s favorite hockey mom is still trumpeting McCain’s clean coal and domestic oil drilling mantras, including a promise “that a McCain-Palin administration would commit $2 billion a year to develop clean-coal technology.” She also boasted of the progress she’s made towards securing a $40 billion natural gas pipeline in her home state, even though it’s “years away from federal approval and will not be built for at least a decade.” Not so impressive. Gary Coleman has laid more pipe than that.
And if Palin or McCain have touched on any other alternative energy sources, it’s been in passing (with the exception of nuclear power, something that McCain enthusiastically supports to the point where we think it arouses him sexually). Theirs is certainly not a pro-ethanol campaign, either. Sorry, Sarah; try again in 2012 when you’ve had time to actually study the issue.

Even though NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered a city-wide switchover to hybrid cabs by 2012, there’s still a fair bit of local resistance to the idea. Some of it has to do with availability – hybrid vehicles are in demand and fleet owners are feeling a bit left behind – but the overriding concern is durability, specifically battery life.

They’ll be happy to know, then, that hybrid cabs in San Francisco “had passed 300,000 miles of use with no problems.” Not only that, but the cabs’ regenerative braking system extends brake life by three orders of magnitude. In California, “hybrid batteries are warranted for 10 years or 150,000 miles, which is presumed to be the life of the vehicle,” and San Francisco Taxicab Commission president Paul Gillespie says that of his 182 hybrid battery packs, only two have been replaced since hybrid cabs were introduced to San Francisco, and one was due to driver error. He also brought up the fuel savings that had won over skeptical drivers – the city estimated a $9,000/year drop in transportation costs since introducing hybrid cabs.

Not that traffic or road conditions are the same in San Fran as they are in New York, but cab drivers keep a pretty grueling schedule in most major cities, and so far the hybrids are performing exceptionally. Besides, we’ve never actually seen traffic move in New York, so it’s safe to say that they’re overreacting just a little bit.

So now that Corn Car readers know how John McCain feels about non-Brazilian ethanol, what does he propose we do instead to decrease our reliance on foreign oil/oil in general? Aside from taking up a collection for the electric car, we weren’t really sure. So we did a little research and composed this overview, in our usual highly objective format, of McCain’s energy plan, aka McCain’s Ethanolternatives:

1. Offshore drilling - According to McCain, there are “21 billion barrels of proven oil reserves” that are sitting untapped, thanks to the 1981 ban on offshore exploration. According to him, “it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs,” adding that “it is time to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.”

Of course, we wouldn’t see any oil from those reserves for at least 10 years, so we don’t really know how much, if anything, we would save from their inclusion a decade from now. Plus, oil companies are already sitting on unexplored, leased land, and we think it’s safe to say that the cure for America’s crippling oil dependence isn’t oil. Christ, even other offshore drilling supporters think we should ramp up our ethanol production. But luckily, McCain has other ideas, such as…

2. Nuclear power - If there’s one thing that McCain loves more than talking about Vietnam, it’s nuclear power. He’s said that “the experience of nations across Europe and Asia has shown that nuclear energy is efficient. It is safe, it is proven, and it is essential to America’s energy future.” And we agree that tightly regulated, well-overseen nuclear power facilities contribute much to the countries they serve, but given the tone of McCain’s pro-business rhetoric, the invisible hand of the free market will probably end up with several extra fingers; until the government proves that it’s learned from what happened when Enron and other private energy companies were allowed to police themselves, we’re not comfortable pushing them ahead of other alternative energy sources.

There’s also the question of where to store the waste; according to McCain, Arizona is not an option.

3. Coal - McCain has obviously never seen coal beyond a barbecue pit, because he has a serious jones for the stuff, claiming that clean coal will dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We can understand this to a certain extent, because states like West Virginia depend on coal mining, and McCain wants those people to vote against their own interests for him. But clean coal is an expensive technology still mired in development, which are two of his complaints about ethanol, and regular coal is simply disgusting. He’ll have to do better than this as a serious solution to our energy woes. Clearly, he’s considering…

4. Magic - It’s an inexhaustible resource that only a small number of gifted people can channel and distribute, which limits the impact that growing nations like India and China would have on its availability. And it’s also pretty much the only feasible way to fund any plank in McCain’s energy platform, unless one of our readers can suggest how to build dozens of fully operational nuclear plants in enough time to supplement current energy usage, or drill off the coast of California without damaging the shoreline and local ecosystem. Seriously, comment if you have any ideas.

So there you have it! Oh, and since McCain is so fond of bringing up his record, here it is. Have fun taking him seriously after reading through it.

With the economy bobbing in and out of the shitter on what appears to be an hourly basis, it’s hard to tell whether or not financial promises made now will be kept. But as far as we know, the US Dept. of Energy is set to invest $26 million in a large-scale cellulosic ethanol plant near Sault Ste. Marie in Chippewa County, Michigan. According to the linked article, “the new facility will manufacture 40 million gallons a year of ethanol fuel from non-food sources – mostly wood waste from Upper Peninsula forests along with some agricultural biomass,” and is eligible for no end of government grants and tax credits due to its low carbon footprint. Mascoma Corp. is heading the project, and their CEO calls the proposed plant “one of the first and largest commercial-scale facilities of its kind.”

In addition, POET is anticipating $76.3 million from the DOE “to help it push forward with its work to commercialize cellulosic ethanol production technology.” This is the second installment of an initial $80 million grant to help the company gather resources, design, build, and continuously operate Project Liberty, a joint venture of POET and the DOE that’s been described as “an integrated corn-to-ethanol and cellulose-to-ethanol biorefinery.” The idea is to upgrade the existing infrastructure of corn ethanol to produce its cellulosic counterpart, a move that POET CEO Jeff Broin says “will continue to improve corn ethanol and accelerate the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol.” That sentiment is awfully familiar, but we’ll be damned if we can place it.

Of course, all this depends on whether or not the global economy collapses and the survivors revert back to an agrarian hunter-gatherer society. But assuming that doesn’t happen, things are looking up!

“I don’t believe in subsidizing ethanol. It has resulted in higher process. Green technology will be the future of the American economy. General Motors is depending a lot on it. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be a boom for our economy.”  -  John McCain’s baffling take on ethanol.

Of course, his opinion on the subject has shifted before (just watch him squirm after the late Tim Russert digs up that truffle), so who knows where his true opinion really lies.

Meanwhile, Obama has been pretty consistent on the subject, both in the recent presidential debate and in stump speeches leading up to it. The Washington Post would have you believe otherwise, but Obama’s pushed for cellulosic ethanol before, specifically as the next step beyond corn ethanol. We’re guessing that he sees things like ethanol subsidies as part of an overall trend of investing in biofuels now rather than later, a philosophy we’ve supported time and again on this blog.

And since tonight featured a debate between the vice-presidential nominees, here’s a comparison of their thoughts on alternative energy. We’re surprised Sarah Palin knows what ethanol is, quite frankly.

We’ve said it before, but it’s still true that when people think of electric cars, they picture - with no offense intended to electric car hobbyists - hopeless tragedies like the dorkmobile to the right of this sentence. But the basic idea of a plug-in electric vehicle still has some promise; San Diego Gas & Electric conducted a yearlong study that, in the end, “confirmed the viability of electricity as a clean and low-cost transportation fuel.”

More specifically, the study showed impressive reductions in tailpipe emissions and in tailpipe emissions and overall fuel costs with a plug-in hybrid compared to a standard hybrid model. The study converted two 2007-model standard hybrid vehicles to run on lithium-ion batteries; the modified cars “achieved a 60% increase in gas mileage, a 37% decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) tailpipe emissions, and an 18% reduction in fuel costs.” By the time these things hit showrooms in 2010, the efficiencies are projected to be even higher than they are now.

And that’s compared to a hybrid. You can imagine how it must look next to a regular car. Actually, you don’t have to, because the study shows that fuel cost savings can jump as high as 57% when compared to a standard gasoline-fueled vehicle.

This is exciting news for consumers; not only has hybrid vehicle technology resurrected the left-for-dead idea of the electric car, but the aesthetic advances made since the electric car’s heyday could change its stock image from that Easter egg up top to something like the Tesla Roadster, or even something from our list of suggestions (pts. I and II).