So, the U.S. Department of Energy is committing $30 million to General Motors, Ford and General Electric to help them make plug-in hybrid vehicles commercially viable by 2016. Ooh. Ahh. Humbug.

Are they serious? Just $30 million toward a technology that’s supposed to be a key pillar in America’s fight against climate change, and its quest to wean itself from foreign oil? Google, an Internet search company, is spending more than this. And 2016? It’s an odd target, given that GM and some of its competitors plan to have plug-in electrics on the road by 2010. Perhaps the key word is “viable.” I don’t know. Or maybe the White House is confusing plug-ins with hydrogen fuel cells. Hmmm.

I’ve love to go on a further rant about this, but Chuck Squatriglia at Wired.com does such a good job I’d encourage you to read what he has to say about the DOE’s investment. Here’s a sample: “What’d it do — scrounge change from couch cushions in the Pentagon?” Or maybe the couch cushions in the reception area at Exxon.

On a somewhat related note: It looks like GM is going to decide over the next few weeks which battery technology will go into its Volt car. Will it be LG Chem or Continental/A123? Tough to say, but I think whatever the outcome both companies have a sunny future. More interesting is that GM is reportedly already in talks with various utilities about what to do with battery packs from its cars after they’ve reached the end of their useful life. In a vehicle, that useful life doesn’t mean the battery pack is completely useless — it’s just not ideal for use in a vehicle. “GM wants the Volt battery to run at least 150,000 miles and last 10 years. But even after its projected life in the car, engineers estimate that the batteries would still have between 70 percent and 80 percent of their power remaining,” according to Reuters. “That opens the possibility that a utility could stitch together hundreds or thousands of recycled units to store power and send it back to the electric grid at times of peak demand.” And then there’s the added benefit of having all those batteries in the same place when they do eventually become useless. That will make it much easier for cost-effective recycling. It’s encouraging to see companies taking more of a holistic view of things these days.

On another somewhat related note: Did anyone notice that Electrovaya’s shares shot up 37 per cent on Friday? Curious. Maybe it’s beginning to get traction with its lithium-ion battery technology, and by that I mean following through on recent announcements re: manufacturing in India, the release of a low-speed vehicles, and a partnership with Malcolm’s Bricklin’s Visionary Vehicles. That said, without an announcement to explain the jump it stinks of insider trading.

Lafarge North America Inc., the continent’s largest maker of cement, hasn’t made many friends within environmental groups. In Ontario, for example, the company has aggressively pursued a plan to burn old tires to provide energy for its cement-making operations. While there’s much debate over the value of doing this — some, including the U.S. Department of Energy, argue that burning rubber tires is better environmentally than burning coal or oil — clearly the idea of burning tires rather than recycling them into other useful products is frowned upon by many.

Perhaps in an attempt to green up its image, Lafarge announced this week it has partnered with Kingston, Ont.-based Performance Plants Inc., a biotech firm that has patented processes for growing certain non-food crops and grasses on unproductive farmland and with the ability to withstand extended droughts and heat waves. Under its four-year partnership with Performance Plants, Lafarge will grow and develop clean-energy biomass grasses and woods for use as fuel at its cement plant in Bath, Ontario. “Our challenges with biomass and biofuel energy are maximization of crop yields, crop consistency and cost efficiency,” explains Peter Matthewman, president of Performance Plants. “This is where our technology will be instrumental to develop next generation seeds that are customized for specific industrial users looking for alternative clean energy sources.”

Lafarge says non-food grass crops were planted in late May and early June on 25 acres of land near its Bath cement plant. Perennial species, such as Miscanthus and switchgrass, were planted alongside sorghum and maize. A local farmer in the area who leases the land from Lafarge is overseeing the crops and will harvest it for the plant. Later in the season they plan to plant willow and industrial hemp. Once harvested, the biomass will be processed into fuel pellets and used at the Lafarge plant to fire its cement kiln. The company said it expects to conduct the first trial burn in fall 2009.

What I like about this approach, assuming the company is serious, is that it creates a local fuel supply chain. The crops are grown near the plant, reducing the need to transport old tires or fossil fuels. And it’s using land that’s otherwise useless for growing food crops. It would be nice to see this approach replicated across other industrial sites throughout the continent where possible. It would be ever better if companies such as CO2 Solution could come up with an economical way for industrial users to capture their CO2 output and convert it into products such as baking soda or calcium carbonate. This would make what Lafarge is doing a carbon-negative proposition.

Let’s just hope it’s not greenwashing.

UPDATE: Lafarge’s attempts to stop an environmental hearing that is looking into the company’s plan to burn tires has been rejected by an Ontario Divisional Court. Looks like Lafarge, faced with mounting scrutiny of its tire-burning plan in Ontario, may be wise to aggressively pursue its biomass strategy.

Given that oil is over $130 a barrel and gas prices are above $4 a gallon, I figured it was time to test out a plug-in Prius. A123/Hymotion was kind enough to lend me one of their retrofitted cars last week, and I have to say it was an enjoyable and insightful experience. I detail my experience in my latest Clean Break column. Apologies for U.S. readers — the column discusses fuel economy as “Litres per 100 km” rather than MPG.

What I can tell you is that five of the six days I drove the car I got 100 MPG or higher fuel economy, and on some trips got over 200 MPG and even 300 MPG a couple of times. I found that driving behaviour improves with each day and you learn to use more of the electric battery than the engine, and develop techniques for doing so. The only sub-100 MPG day was when I had a 155-mile drive north of Toronto and back. I logged 55 MPG that day. Otherwise, my driving was mainly 5 or 10 mile hops around the city (I’m an urban dweller), which is perfect for a plug-in vehicle. I used a bit more than a quarter of a tank of gas and only $3.83 worth of electricity (and associated charges) during my six day trial. Most of the gas was used during my one-day trek to the country.

A couple of points. To use electric mode as much as possible you’re forced to drive less aggressively. It’s difficult at first, but after a while it becomes natural and is actually more relaxing. In fact, I realized that if everybody just drove the speed limit, learned to coast to stop signs and traffic lights, and didn’t accelerate toward every traffic light, the streets would be safer and we’d all save oodles of fuel. Using this car also made me realize the importance have having real-time feedback on fuel economy. This isn’t unique to the plug-in model, as the Prius and other hybrids have this as well. But it made me wonder: Why aren’t all cars mandated to have this feature? I mean, if we’re promoting energy displays for the home as a way to spark conservation, why not put them in the car to encourage better driving habits and fuel savings?

Wouldn’t this be a simple and inexpensive thing to do? Perhaps there are after-market products for this already. If not, I see an interesting business opportunity.

BTW: Readers of this blog obviously have high regard for all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Of the 124 people who have so far voted in my blog poll (see lower right-hand side of main page), 48 per cent said they would purchase an all-electric given the opportunity, while 32 per cent preferred to buy a plug-in hybrid. Only 8 per cent wanted a fuel cell car, while a surprising 2 per cent said they’d purchase a conventional hybrid. Flex-fuel cars also got lower votes, with just 4 per cent supporting the biofuel path. The bottom line: 80 per cent are in favour of plug power!

It didn’t get nearly as much coverage as it should have in North America, so it’s worth highlighting again that the U.K. government approved a plan last week to build up to 25,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity by erecting up to 7,000 massive wind turbines within 11 ocean “zones” surrounding the British coastline. This ambitious 12-year plan has been criticized by some, but is generally supported by many environmental, wind and anti-wind groups in the United Kingdom. The government hopes that the early commitment will provide wind developers with confidence to make investments in the projects.

If the wind capacity is built, it would bring to 33,000 megawatts the total amount of offshore wind capacity planned off the British coastline. Taking into account offshore’s capacity factor, which because of a much strong and consistent wind regime is much better than onshore wind, this would be enough renewable energy to meet half the electricity demands of a province the size of Ontario.

Offshore wind is the next frontier for wind energy, and this U.K. announcement focuses attention on what North American governments are doing (or aren’t doing) to study and support offshore development. Already, there are ambitious proposals to build offshore wind farms on the U.S. east coast, Canada’s northwest coast and in Lake Ontario and Lake Michigan. Given the enormous demand for turbines that will be created in the U.K., on top of demand in continental Europe, it wouldn’t be surprising if North American projects are stalled in their tracks because of difficulty getting turbines. It will be interesting to see which of the offshore turbine manufacturers takes the early initiative by setting up shop in Canada or the United States, where they could establish an early foothold on offshore turbine orders.

One thing that’s true is that North American projects will benefit from the experience gained from the U.K. projects. On the other hand, this means dependence on imported skills and technology.

RenewableEnergyWorld.com has an interesting story about the geothermal boom going on in Germany. And we’re not talking the low-temperature heat pump geothermal that can cool and heat homes, we’re talking geothermal power plants. The rising interest in geothermal power in a country like Germany is particularly interesting, because like many parts of Canada and the United States, Germany doesn’t have what you’d consider ideal geothermal resources. There are no geysers, no shallow heat spots, and problems with porosity in rock. Yet this hasn’t stop the country from raising the bar on geothermal development, going to deeper depths and engineering the proper conditions to allow for so-called enhanced geothermal systems. According to the article:

More plants — some as big as 8-10 MW — are due to go into operation in 2009-2010 in Sauerlach, Dürrnhaar, Riedstadt, Speyer, Gross Schoenebeck and Mauerstetten. And looking 3 to 5 years ahead, there could be more than a hundred plants. About 150 geothermal power plant projects are in the pipeline representing an investment of 4 billion euros, according to the German government.

The biggest problem is finding the equipment for drilling, but the German industry is gearing up to meet the demand. So what’s sparking this geothermal boom? The German government, like it did for wind and solar, has established a feed-in tariff for development of geothermal power plants that guarantees payment of about 23 cents per kilowatt hour — much less than what’s paid for solar, and this is for an emission-free baseload resource.

I recently wrote about attempts at enhanced geothermal in North America, led by Susan Petty of Altarock Energy. Altarock is backed by Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures, and has some of the top engineers and project developers in the field pushing the concept forward. In an interview for an article I did for the Toronto Star, Petty said geothermal could be economically developed in Ontario today at 18 cents per kilowatt-hour. She added that as we get more experience with such plants the cost could become competitive with nuclear and fossil fuels within the decade. But, of course, it seems Ontario and the rest of North America are content getting their butts kicked by Germany and others who have the vision to start early. When we do finally get our act together, who are we going to call for help and technology? Germany, perhaps?