Want to green your ride, but can’t afford a Tesla? That’s okay… there are plenty of cool (if not quite so flashy) new transportation options coming down the pike that will cost you less than $100,000. Some of ‘em you can even build yourself.

Seriously Strange Fossil Fuelings:

Who needs hydrogen? Some energy alternatives have been around for years, and are making a comeback.

1. Wood

It’s not talked about as much as the Manhattan Project, but there was a big energy crisis during WWII, when the military sucked up a huge portion of the world’s petroleum output. Individual car-owners across Europe converted their cars and trucks to run on… wood.

Wood?

Wood. Engines don’t run on liquid gasoline - they literally run on fumes. Same goes for the fire in your fireplace – when you see flames rising, that’s the fumes of volatiles coming off the logs and igniting. You can do the same thing in your car.

Some folks are working on making this high-tech, with scrubbers and sealed, carefully controlled burners. Renewable Energy Systems are currently running a demonstration coast-to-coast tour with a couple of modded 1991 Dodge Dakota V8 pickups.

But for now you can go very low-tech – plonk a stove on the back of your pickup and run a vacuum hose to the carburetor; after that your spark plugs ignite the fumes as per usual. You can get information on the web to rig your vehicle with a hundred or so dollars in parts: Jim Mason offers workshops and info, or order a how-to guide from Mother Earth News.

But either way, your fuel can be wood if you want – or any scrap biomass.

2. Steam

The British Steam Car looks like the Batmobile and runs like an iron horse. It is not quite road-ready just yet, though, as it guzzles 1,000 litres (one ton!) of water per 25 minutes of travel time. So for now it is recommended only for shorter commutes (or perhaps not at all).

3. People Power

HumanCar is driven by people - even the steering is human powered, like on a bicycle or motorcycle.

How does it work? They’re being very, very cagey – there’s lot of talk on their website about patents and proprietary trade secrets, not too much on how it will run.

But for sure, this won’t be a Flintstones-style feet-through-the-floor operation.

Already on the Market:

4. ZAP Xebra

Perfect for in-city commuting or shopping, this little car only has a 25-mile range. Still, it brags that even after counting emissions from generating the electricity it uses, it produces 98% less pollution than a gas vehicle. And it’s available now. Next up: A ZAP trucklet with a solar panel to fuel itself.

5. Smart Fortwo

This may look like a toy, but it pumps out 110 horsepower (between a 4-cylinder gas engine and a 50-kilowatt electric motor) And it is kind of cute. This vehicle seats two comfortably (depending on the individual, of course); at a stretch you can cram in thirteen contortionists.

Future Green Transport:

6. Zoop

This little electric flitter can travel at up to 120 mph (although that prospect raises the specter of “Unsafe at Any Speed”). The Zoop is more about being seen – hence the clear canopy and the flashy design by EV-proponents André and Coqueline Courrèges of Paris-based fashion house Maison de Courrèges.

7. Ecooter

It is hard to say whether this Chinese offering is even a car, and even the name implies it is some sort of scooter…

Still, it has four wheels (in a diamond layout, rather than the standard “four corners” formation) and there is a roof over your head to keep out the wind and rain, so perhaps it qualifies.

The way it parks is particularly interesting - thanks to the diamond wheelbase, you can do some remarkably tight turning with this little thing:

7. Loremo

The name stands for “Low Resistance Mobile” This just goes to show that you don’t need to wait for next decade’s technology to accomplish amazing things with milage: The Loremo combines a highly-efficient German-engineered diesel engine with extremely low-drag design to achieve 150 miles per gallon. Coming next year to Europe, with US launch to follow.

8. Helios

Want to really get off the grid? Helios has the answer: a solar-powered buggy with a saurian solar sail that spreads out to soak up the sun and recharge, photovoltaicly. This concept car won the Best Use of Technology at the Interior Motives Design Awards 2008. Note to racers: do NOT attempt to deploy the sail as a drag chute…

9. The Air Car

Coming as early as spring 2009 from MDI and Zero Pollution Motors, it runs on compressed air. Developed by Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, the Air Car is expected to make big inroads in India, where it will be sold as the Tata Nano for $2500.

10. VW 1-Liter

A few of the mainline automakers are trying to break out of the gas-guzzler mode (although not GM, who have announced they won’t be bringing their min-cars to the US market, further demonstrating their brilliant business acumen and why the government should give them a big bailout.) VW wanted a car that would go 100 miles on one liter of gas, but it’s taken them more than six years to perfect the high-tech low-weight materials like carbon fiber and titanium. Along with a super-sleek aerodynamic shell, this diesel-powered commuter car is scheduled to get a spectacular 235 mpg when it hits the roads (in a limited edition test release) in 2010.

Can’t wait - or really want to do something now? Don’t despair - you can upgrade your current rustbucket to at least make it a little more fuel-efficient.

It’s not down on the farm these days, alas. The healthy, natural beef of years gone by is almost extinct. It has been driven out by cheap beef, raised on gigantic feedlots, fattened on corn. The problem is: corn isn’t healthy for cows, and raising beef this way ultimately isn’t healthy for us either. Here are some things to watch out for and ways to be more healthy when it comes to your beef-related choices.
(more…)

We’ve all heard by now that corn-based ethanol has turned out to be a bad idea.

• Corn is energy intensive to grow, gobbling up fossil-fuels at every stage of production, from transporting seeds to fertilizing the fields (with petrochemical fertilizers) to final harvest.
• Corn is also a spectacularly water-intensive crop.
• The ethanol production stage consumes more fossil fuels and water.
• Once it finally reaches your gas tank, ethanol burns around 30% less efficiently than gasoline (meaning your per-mile cost is actually 30% more than you think it is).
• Estimates of how much actual energy we get out of the process range from barely breaking even to around 20 percent more than the input energy.
• And of course, every step of the process spews CO2 into the atmosphere.

It’s been almost a year since The New York Times editorialized on the subject:

The economics of corn ethanol have never made much sense. Rather than importing cheap Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, the United States slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on ethanol from Brazil. Then the government provides a tax break of 51 cents a gallon to American ethanol producers — on top of the generous subsidies that corn growers already receive under the farm program.

And unlike our inefficient corn-based ethanol, that Brazilian product actually yields 370% of the energy put into it.

So, why are we doing this? What possible calculus could convince us to even consider corn ethanol?

Corn is big business - and big agribusiness hires the best lobbyists.

Here, the return on investment is spectacular: plant a few tens of millions of dollars in seed money in the form of campaign contributions to senators and members of Congress, and reap billions of dollars in federal farm subsidies.

And for agribusiness, corn is king. (more…)

You may well be wondering - why the heck is Nancy Pelosi pushing through a bill that allows for offshore drilling? Isn’t that against everything we’re supposed to stand for? Is this another example of business-as-usual betraying core Democratic principles?

Alas, sometimes green areas fall in grey areas. Here’s the scoop:

Where’s the fire? Why rush it through now?

The offshore drilling ban, in place now for decades, has a “sunset provision”. It has to be renewed every few years.

Unless a bill is passed, the ban expires on September 30. At which point… Bush could immediately hand out leases anywhere he wants to.

So, we need a bill, and a bill that can pass, by September 30.

What’s in the bill?

As it now stands, the bill (technically, it’s House Resolution 1433,Louise Slaughter’s Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act), keeps some limits: no drilling within 100 miles of shore (50 miles in some areas). And it works in a bunch of good things:

• Restores tax credits for renewable energy, which had expired (and Republicans were blocking).
• Closes tax loopholes for the oil companies (when you hear Republicans talking about “Tax Increases” tonight on the TV, that’s what they’re talking about - the bill closes loopholes, but doesn’t impose any new taxes)
• Curbs to energy speculation (we still don’t know how much of this summers sky-high prices were the result of speculators)
• Release 10 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (which should also help to drive prices back down ahead of the election…)
• Includes a “Use It or Lose It” provision that says oil companies can’t just sit on leases, but have to actually drill for oil (companies currently have millions of acres of leases that they’re not doing anything with… leading some to wonder why we have to open up new areas for drilling if there are plenty of virgin fields just sitting there, undrilled…)
• Includes incentives for public transit, clean coal, and other good green goals.

Is this a good compromise?

Maybe. It might get a few things done that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And we have to get something passed, or we’re stuck with drilling, regardless.

Will it work?

Good question.

The Senate has a completely different bill under consideration, a bi-partisan compromise measure proposed by a “Gang of 20″ which just happens to include the Republicans up for re-election this year who are considered most endangered - New Hampshire’s John Sunnunu, North Carolina’s Elizabeth Dole, Maine’s Susan Collins, Minnesota’s Norm Coleman and Oregon’s Gord Smith.

The two houses will have to hash our their differences, bring together a compromise bill, and then… Bush has threatened to veto it.

So wait - this isn’t actually going to become law?

Not likely. Again, the drilling ban expires in two weeks… which is what the Republicans want.

So what’s actually going on here?

Cover.

The Repubs can go back to their moderate-to-liberal constitutents in Oregon, Maine and New Hampshire and say, “Look, I care about the environment!”

Pelosi and Reid can say “Look, we tried the bipartisan compromise that everyone in the damn media has been claiming we should be doing - and Bush vetoed it. So much for bipartisanship!”

And drilling?

Hopefully President Obama can do damage control after he takes office in January. Along with damage control on Iraq, Wall Street, infrastructure, health care, employment… well, you get the picture.

(Photo: “Offshore Oil Platform Under Construction” — Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis)

The 100 month countdown

Without positive, permanent action taken RIGHT NOW, the latest estimates say we have 8 years and 4 months before climate change has reached an unstoppable point of build-up. And while the first thought of many is undoubtedly that the naysayers are on their soapboxes again, let’s point out that the report released today in The Guardian, a UK newspaper, says these numbers are based on the conservative outlook.

You see, the problem is that what we do today doesn’t have an affect for many years. Exactly how many years it takes for today’s carbon emissions to reach their full impact is under question, but the optimistic voices say 5 years, while the pessimistic ones say it could be as much as 20. The reason 5 years is the positive outlook is that until the emissions that are being released as I type have had their full impact, any reductions that are made tomorrow won’t begin to make a difference. If it requires two decades for today’s emissions to reach their full impact, then there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop the buildup from 1988 through 2008, and we are, quite literally, in a world of hurt. On the other hand, if the maximum is only a 5 year waiting period, then by 2013 the efforts that are now underway may begin to reduce the catastrophic effects of buildup.

Aside from the United States’ Bush administration, there is no longer any doubt that climate change is happening, and that it is being sped along by the human population. The polar ice caps are definitely melting, the coasts of countries all over the world are certainly being eroded at geologically breakneck speeds, and water shortages are without question affecting regions which have never in recorded history felt such shortages. These are not opinions, they are well documented facts that can be seen in great detail by following the links included in this article.

Oddly, the 100 months countdown isn’t even a new number. In the early 1990’s U.S. Newspapers ran a series of syndicated articles on climate change, and estimated that irreparable damage would be attained in no more than 20 years. Those estimates were based on the best climate research available at the time, and here it is backed up, just over 10 years later, by climate research that has made tremendous amounts of progress in recent years. The only thing that has changed, it seems, is that humanity has allowed half the time they had to fix the problem slip away without any sort of positive action. It seems that the general public just doesn’t care about what will happen in the future.

As an example, take my roommate. He has 3 computers, all of which run most of every day, and only one is actually used for any real computing. Another one is used exclusively to monitor incoming telephone calls with a program that could run in the background on even an old 386 machine. He is infuriated that I explain it’s important to use water efficiently. “This is Florida,” he says, “there’s water everywhere.” That he can say this while ignoring his three computers and sitting in front of a television news program discussing the prolonged drought in south Florida is nothing short of amazing, but he is the rule, not the exception.

The question is, what will you do with the 8 years that are left for your way of life? Will you bother to fix the leaky faucets, or reduce your power consumption? Or will you decide that someone else will solve the problem, and that anything you can do as an individual makes no difference? Every single one of us has just been informed that we have 8 years to make drastic changes in our way of life, or climate change will take that way of life from us. What we do with that time will be the definition of our species. As I complete this article, the countdown clock says 70,481 hours remain.