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.

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.

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.

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has approved, in a controversial decision, plans for the Cape Wind project, an offshore wind farm near Cape Cod. The project has been stalled for something like nine years, so this decision is being hailed as truly groundbreaking, possibly because no one in the media feels comfortable calling it windbreaking.

In any case, opposition to Cape Wind was varied - people were concerned about the turbines’ effect on tourism, fishing, aviation, harm to local marine life, and disturbance of Wampanoag Indian ancestral artifacts and burial grounds on the seabed. The Cape Wind project has since been altered to preserve the integrity of Nantucket Sound, and Salazar says his approval is tied into Cape Wind conducting “additional marine archaeological surveys and…other steps to reduce the project’s visual impact.”

Still, the project’s 130 turbines could produce “enough wind power to handle three-quarters of the electric needs of the Cape and Islands,” which they estimate as “equivalent to that of a medium-sized coal-fired power plant.” The project will also create 1,000 new construction jobs and significantly reduce carbon emissions in the area. None of this is stopping people like Scott Brown, who claimed to support wind energy, from bitching and threatening to litigate Cape Wind back into nonexistence, but their NIMBYism has stood in the way of progress long enough. Here’s hoping the Cape Wind project goes right on ahead!

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.

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.

As we all know, the government is parceling out money left and right for some long overdue infrastructural maintenance - roads (which we’ll get to in a minute), education, and energy efficiency are three higher-profile projects being tackled by the Obama administration.

Trouble is, all the energy efficiency targets are urban, and rural homeowners are afraid of getting lost in the dust. And whether they’re living off the land or just yuppies pretending to homestead, we can’t afford to ignore them. Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina realized this too, which is why they’re drumming up support for a bill to “finance energy efficiency upgrades on 1.6 million homes nationwide, including 225,000 in South Carolina.”

ECSC sees this as the next logical extension of the Rural Electrification program, and is trying to build on efforts made in other states, namely Virginia and Arkansas. Under those programs, “homes are audited to determine what improvements would be most cost-effective. Then a low-interest, no down-payment loan is structured with monthly payments on the customer’s power bill that come to no more than the savings achieved from the upgrades.” It’s a pretty sweet deal, especially when you weigh it against the usurious loaning practices of nearly every modern bank or credit company, but it hasn’t had many takers thus far. ECSC hopes to change that with better marketing, and it would be nice if some of the ideas we saw at the Solar Decathlon this summer caught on thanks to this program. SEEDpod Solar Housing in particular would be helpful, since it’s adaptable to whatever climate it’s built in.

Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood continues to impress us. He recently said on his blog that “people across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” sentiments he’d already made clear during a speech to bicycling advocates. Naturally, car manufacturers and their Republican puppets are pissed; The Big Money’s Matt DeBord said that “we can talk all we want about light rail and urban mass-transit and even flying cars and jetpacks—when push comes to shove, we’re Americans and we drive.” We found his quote particularly funny; as if other civilized places didn’t have well-maintained public transit/national rail services. But hey, the American taxpayer is ENTITLED to shitty unsustainable infrastructure, even if he or she actually wants to change it.

LaHood, a suburban Republican, is definitely an interesting character: while it’s not surprising that a Republican would dig his heels in like this, since Democrats can’t be relied upon to stand up for themselves, but it’s seriously hurting our heads that an outspoken Republican is on the correct side of an argument for once, especially given LaHood’s record of kicking back money to campaign donors. Still, green advocacy needs his kind of stubbornness, and we’re glad he’s here to provide it. Maybe some actual progressives will take note of his attitude and try it themselves.

We are busy people over here at Corn Car, so forgive us for leaving the blog unattended - hopefully our readers had a green St. Patrick’s Day in the environmental sense of it. Since we’re still digging our way up through mountains of work, here’s some reading material to keep everyone occupied for a while.

China Drawing High-Tech Research From U.S. - Yes, the Chinese are literally taking our jerbs. Specifically, engineers seeking jobs in a high-tech economy; according to the article, “companies are concluding that their researchers need to be close to factories and consumers alike.” Of course, China’s green energy/tech growth is due as much to unfair protectionism on their part as it is to the huge investment they’ve made in those industries, but they’re still a competitor and now the traditional flow of workers from east to west is reversing course. And after a certain point, the West can’t bitch about China locking out foreign companies when a) we’ve been stacking the deck against the developing world for decades, and b) many of American’s policy-makers are too stupid to see the potential in green energy.

Meanwhile, High-Speed Rail Gains Traction in Spain - A lot of EU members are trying to reduce their carbon footprints, and high-speed rail is a good start; “emissions per passenger on a high-speed train are about one-fourth of those generated by flying or driving.” But more importantly, Spain’s new rail system is upscale, convenient, and comfortable. Passengers get comfy seats, good food, polite service, and the new rail system chops the travel time between Barcelona and Madrid from 6 hours to two and a half. It’s basically what airlines used to be like in the 50s before they got greedy.

Speaking of, the American airline industry is miffed that Obama is investing federal funding into trains. But, according to Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood, that’s just tough shit for them. “We’re going to get into the high-speed rail business,” he told the the Federal Aviation Administration’s annual forecasting conference, following that up with “people want alternatives…people are still going to fly, but we need alternatives. So get with the program.” His candor is more than welcome. Airlines have been providing steadily worse, often frustrating service to passengers over the years, then bitching at the government when they lose money. They don’t seem to be able to connect those dots, or else they don’t want to. Either way, the entitlement from that industry has been rewarded for too long, and it’s nice to see someone tell them to suck it up and quit whining. Of course, the question of why it will take us 30 years to install high-speed rail when parts of the EU already have it is a question no one’s answered yet, but feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas.

Any more links? No? All right, back to work.