Green Options

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You look west to see a barren landscape, tumbleweed breezing lazily through the charred remains of a forest.  The rust laden skeleton of what used to be a city echoes the promise of a future long gone.  You are fighting out your days amidst gunfire and tribal warfare in armor composed of animal fur and long deserted hockey pads.  Ironically water isn’t the most important liquid on the planet that spins where the Earth once spun.  You begin to wash the grease smears off your face in a shallow pool…

…oh wait, am I jumping the gun here?

While our gas crises hasn’t quite reached ‘Mad Max’ proportions yet, things are close enough that the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers will make this September “Green Check-Up Month.” After countless years of making oversized and inefficient autos, Ford and Chevy are now going to tell us how to save gas.

In the world of hybrid and electric cars, the upcoming commercial release of the Chevrolet Volt must surely rank as the most widely (and wildly) anticipated event. Now GM has ramped up the expectation levels another notch by releasing two teaser pictures providing us with a sneak-peak of its much vaunted plug-in hybrid model.

The release of the pictures, showing parts of the front and rear ends, will be seen in the industry as a signal that GM is still very much on track for the forecast 2010 launch of this pioneering car.

According to the Nikkei Business Daily (via Tradingmarkets.com), Japan’s Suzuki Motor Company will begin selling cars that run completely on 100% ethanol in the US and Brazil by 2010. The company will begin the transition by first offering an E25 sedan for sale in Brazil this coming March.

Currently the most ethanol that a flex-fuel car can run on in the US is E85 — which is an 85% ethanol/15% gasoline blend. Suzuki’s move would mark a huge development in ethanol-powered vehicles, and a huge shift for Suzuki, which hasn’t had any alternative fuel-specific offerings in its lineup to this point.

GM is set to unveil fuel efficient models of all of its biggest gas guzzlers in 2009.  The Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, GMC Yukon, and even the Cadillac Escalade will be equipped with gas saving technology.  Can innovations like this help clean up GM’s archaic image?

As a basic principle of fuel economy, smaller cars get better gas mileage.  Engineering trends keep pushing the limits of the term ‘compact’ car while somehow keeping the interiors large enough to carry people. Unfortunately, the Prius won’t suffice for all drivers, and rightfully so.  There are people in the United States who require space shuttle sized SUV’s and Titantic trucks, and nothing is going to change that in the immediate future.  America runs on progress, and progress cannot happen without construction and high a high towing capacity.  The next generation of GM trucks is attempting to bridge the gap between brute force, and environmental friendliness.

Starting later this year, Advanced Mechanical Products (AMP), a company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, will take your pre-existing or newly purchased Saturn Sky and convert it to an electric car.

Initially only available for the Sky, AMP will add other Saturn models as company growth allows.

The company is currently taking orders for a limited run of 300 “signature series” Sky conversions. The Sky EV will be able to go from 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in 5.7 seconds, will have a top speed of 90 mph (145 kph), and can go 150 miles (240 kilometers) before needing a recharge.

Ceres, Inc. supports the prediction that we could grow more than 30% of US transportation fuel with dedicated energy crops. This is no pipe dream: planting starts next spring.

Ceres, Inc., the self-described “energy crop company,” is engineering plants that could play a big role in the future of sustainable biofuels. In stark contrast to food crops, what Ceres is in the business of creating are “dedicated energy crops”—like switchgrass, sorghum, and miscanthus—that are ideally suited for fuel production.

While the global “food vs. fuel” debate rages on, a few companies like Ceres are quietly moving forward with next generation technology that challenges many of the current assumptions about growing fuel. In their view, it’s time to move the conversation on from corn-based controversy to second-generation, non-food based sources of ethanol.

Tomorrow, General Motors is hosting a backgrounder on cellulosic ethanol feedstocks at the Thousand Oak (CA) based laboratories of Ceres, Inc.

Coverage of non-food based ethanol tends to focus on fuel production technologies, but Ceres works one step further up the supply chain: they’re using genetic technology to engineer plants optimally suited for conversion into something you’d want to put in your gas tank.

I’ve already had the chance to speak with Richard Hamilton, President and CFO of Ceres, about the potential to produce super-strains of perennial grasses like sweet sorghum and switchgrass, and I’m looking forward to hearing more details tomorrow.

But the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will not be receiving any “Man of the Year” plaques in Michigan any time soon, because he also told the audience of more than 500 GM workers that he would let individual states set tailpipe emission regulations.

This mean-lookin’ machine may wind up in your rear-view mirror someday, as GM is thinking hard about bringing this 40mpg car to America.  Don’t you just love the way some cars take on an actual head-on personality.  Engineers must love to do this sort of thing.

It’s called the Beat, and it’s a car that would normally be sold in other markets, such as Asia and Latin America.  But with the high price of gas, and GM’s plunging losses ($38.7 billion in 2007), the company that brought you the Hummer may just have to re-invent itself.  And, no, it isn’t a hybrid.

Adding a third child into our family presents a number of physical and emotional challenges — at least that will be the case unless I can grow an extra set of arms over the next few months. But along another round of sleepless nights, having child #3 definitely puts a strain on the wallet. We’re not so much worried about the baby gear, since at this point in our parenting lives, we know exactly what we need and what we don’t. And with plenty of consignment shops, thrift stores, and generous friends, we’ve already got more clothes and toys than we’ll probably need.

But nothing puts a hurting on a budget than a new car and an eco-friendly one at that.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we need to buy a brand new car. I’m just saying that we’re going to need to invest in something big enough to fit two car seats and a booster. Well, legally anyway, because no matter how much my daughter begs me to ride on the roof, I just don’t foresee that in her future.

And we’re trying as hard as we can not to have kiss our freedom from car payments good-bye. It certainly helps when we’re paying $4/gallon for gas.

The European Union has traditionally been more cautious of genetically-modified (GM) foods than the rest of us. They require more scientific study than other food safety organizations before approving individual seeds and ban a significant number of GM seeds as well. This stands in stark contrast to U.S. policies that encourage GM crop growing through subsidies. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, 92% of Minnesota’s 2007 soybean crop and 86% of its corn crop came from GM seeds.

Now, mounting pressure from both Europe’s farmers and global food aid organizations have caused the high courts of various EU countries to reconsider.