The Nissan Leaf is a 100% electric four-door sedan with a range of 115 miles per charge. At $35,200 for the base model, the car isn’t cheap, but a $7,500 federal tax rebate helps alleviate sticker shock. The inside of the car is roomy enough for five adults and some luggage. Settle into the drivers seat, close the door and you feel like you’re in a tank – a test drive in this machine should quiet most safety concerns. Luckily, the car has quick acceleration. The interior bristles with accessories that help the driver find charging stations and monitor the car’s power consumption.

The Mitsubishi I is a testament to good things coming in small packages. The car retails for $29,125 with a top speed of 81mph and a 62-mile per charge range. The $7,500 federal tax rebate also applies, making it priced to compete with entry-level gas-guzzlers. Granted, the car isn’t a speed demon, its range is curt, and its accessories are Spartan, but it drives surprisingly like a full sized sedan and comfortably seats four adults with luggage. The car comes with a 120 volt charger which takes 22 hours to fully charge, or for an additional cost, you can purchase the 240 volt charger which tops the car off in 7 hours.

CODA is the only EV company based in Los Angeles with a car largely assembled in the US. Its first model is aimed at urban jungle dwellers who need practicality and price. The four-door sedan retails for $37,250, has a 125-mile range, a top speed of 85mph and can be fully charged in 6 hours. (Again, the $7,500 federal tax rebate applies). The CODA is a direct competitor to the Leaf in almost every respect, beating the Nissan on range and perhaps inconspicuousness. The CODA is the only EV that looks like a “normal” car.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from inconspicuous sits the Tesla S (the long awaited big brother to the two door Tesla sports car). The S is aimed at the luxury market with a 17-inch 3-G connected touchscreen, 5 seats, 110mph top speed, 160-300 mile range and a starting price of – are you ready? – $57,400 (it costs an additional $20k to get the 300mile range). The car is indeed luxurious and, while Tesla is taking orders now, cars won’t ship until late this year.

On the horizon are more exciting consumer-friendly grocery getters. Of particular interest will be the upcoming RAV4 Electric, a completely re-engineered mini-SUV with good old Toyota reliability combined with a Tesla drivetrain. I’ll update this blog as well as my Facebook page and Twitter after my first test drive!

My two guests this week are experts on green car technologies. Mariana Gerzanynch, the CEO of 350 Green, spoke with me about the new electric charging stations that are popping up all around the country. As most of us know, charging your electric car can consume a good part of your day making it very unappealing to the average driver. 350 Green has developed one way to make charging available to the public without compromising precious time or increasing driving distances. Teaming up with Walgreens and other major companies, 350 Green has started to install stations in locations that allow you to charge your car and take care of errands (read: consumerism) all at the same time- ultimately bringing the charger to the customer.

But, with every great green idea there are great challenges. Getting retailers on board with this idea is a long process filled with permits, utility coordinating, approval, etc. People tend to fear technologies that are new or relatively unknown making emotion the thing that stands between us and the revolution we need. There is some good news however. More and more cities are hopping on board with this idea, Chicago being the front-runner. With 280 stations in the city, a driver is never more than 2 miles away from a charging station. Come on California, now it is your turn! For more information about 350 Green or to learn where the nearest charging station is visit www.350green.com or email info@350green.com.

My next expert was Jon LeSage who is the green editor of Automotive Digest. Writing for the auto industry for over 20 years, Jon gives us insight on what green auto trends are out there and what it will take for the EV numbers to rise. In 2011, out of the 12 million cars that were sold in the United States, only about 2.2% of them were hybrid. Considering that percentage, it begs the question, why aren’t people buying more eco-friendly cars? According to Jon, more people are seeking out green options however they have developed what is known as “range anxiety”. What is this you ask? Well it is defined as “the fear that a vehicle has insufficient range to reach its destination and would thus strand the vehicle’s occupants.” What people don’t realize is that technology has provided us with more than one option for an eco car. Today there are countless variations and hybrids of energy efficient vehicles, it is just a matter of picking one that is in the right price range and fits your lifestyle.

I asked Jon what he thought it would take to increase the number of EV investments and purchases. According to him, developing more attractive vehicles on the market mixed with more readily available resources for these cars and with the horrendous price of gas, we can hope for a more eco-car filled future. In a perfect world, we would have the Steve Jobs of vehicles appear and create the “iCar”, but that has yet to happen. Until then, visit www.jonlesage.com or look out for the next issue of Automotive Digest to learn about the latest efforts in green auto technology.

With the question “What can I do with my money that doesn’t cause harm to the planet and still makes money?” in mind, I spoke with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney financial advisor Elana Pianko. Her main focus in the investing world has been Socially Responsible Investing. What is this you ask? Well, according to Elana, these are investors that:

“understand that the way people spend and invest can dramatically influence both the fabric and consciousness of society. They realize that today’s social issues often become tomorrow’s economic problems. They believe that we can make money and make a meaningful difference by consciously directing investment capital toward enterprises that contribute to a clean, healthy environment, treat people fairly, embrace equal opportunity, produce safe and useful products, and support efforts to promote world peace.”

SRI is putting money into companies that are promoting positive ethics and values, and companies that compete on an alpha level. Because more and more investors are adopting and using SRI strategies, they perform as well as or, in some cases better than traditional alpha investments. Socially Responsible Investing is not only catered to the “eco-yuppie” community, but appeals and has participation from everyone across the board. The bottom line is people want to invest in something that will not only make them more money, but also in something that makes them feel good about what they are investing in.

For more information about Socially Responsible Investing, or if you would like to get in contact with Elana, please visit:

www.morganstanely.com/fa/thepiankothilkinggroup

My next guest, Dr. Dickson Despommier shed some light on the future of agriculture and the role of genetically modified crops. Using modern technology, Dr. Dickson advocates a new way for us to sustain our rapidly growing population through a system called Vertical Farming. Vertical Farming is exactly as it sounds. It is a method of indoor farming that stacks layers of mini farms on top of each other to create a multiple story building. With this we can not only avoid the ever-changing climate conditions wreaking havoc on our crops, but also produce food at a higher volume and reduce the need for herbicides.

Dr. Dickson’s opinions of GMOs sparked an interesting conversation. As many of you know GMOs generally have a negative connotation. However, nowadays it is rare to consume anything that has not been modified in someway, unless you are fishing in the middle of the ocean. In his opinion, based on this alone, there is no reason to object to GMOs. However, if you are looking at a laboratory based GMO, that aims to only satisfy a small group of people and exploit others then there is an obvious issue of economy disparity enforced through crops or food. For example, plants that are bred to be resistance to herbicides, increase profits for the makers of herbicide by increasing the need for them. This essentially brings more money to specific group of people at the expense of others. The bottom line – there may be two sides to the GMO argument – both worth considering in light of the future of agriculture.

Today the gloves come off.

That’s right, we are en route to Washington DC on the FREEDOM bus. And today, we’re drawing a line in the sand.

You see Rebecca and I just got back from another trip down to the Gulf of Mexico to attend the New Orleans Film Festival and check up on the folks we’ve been filming for the past 18 months. And unfortunately, I have bad news.

The oil is still gushing ashore from the Deepwater Horizon rig site, the toxic, agent-orange-like dispersants are still being sprayed and tens – possibly hundreds – of thousands of people are suffering from severe blood disorders due to air and water-borne oil and dispersant. It’s a real-life horror story. And it’s happening right here – in America.

But it doesn’t end with Louisiana. We have serious pressure to increase fracking along the East Coast, 68 million acres in the Arctic are about to be opened for drilling and – it looks like the US Federal Government and the Obama Administration will be moving ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline to connect the Alberta Tar Sands with the oil refineries in Louisiana and Texas. In short, the oil and fossil fuel companies are pushing harder than ever to cannibalize our great nation in order to squeeze more profits.

It’s sad and completely unnecessary. And today in Washington we’re going to take a stand – we’re holding a press conference and a screening of FREEDOM to prove the alternative path – advanced, scalable and renewable energy – is available today.

Alternative energy like American ethanol has already created more than 600,000 jobs in the United States. Alternative energies including wind, solar, and advanced biofuels are being made in American cities, reinvigorating our local economies and the nation’s, too. They are being made by American workers, offering them good-paying, stable jobs in a growing industry. It is also helping free us from costly foreign oil – and you from paying for it.

Despite the rhetoric you’ve heard, ethanol is energy positive by a factor of 2x, it uses 37 less gallons of water than gasoline per gallon produced and it can run in every regular automobile on the road today. It’s also cheaper.

But should it really come as a surprise that there is a cheaper alternative to petroleum that’s already being produced in vast quantities that could run in your car today?

Today we are going to reveal how the two groups that would seem most divided on the oil issue – big oil and environmentalists – often work together to thwart green fuels (the latter having been unknowingly co-opted by oil interests). A case in point is the recent barrage of assaults on the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which mandates the US use an ever-increasing percentage of renewable fuels. Big oil and environmentalists are fighting the RFS – but the RFS is the only hope we have to get us beyond corn and toward using waste as fuel. This standard is critical to move beyond 10% ethanol in our gasoline – toward 15% and eventually 20%. Once we cross the “blend wall” of 10%, we will see biorefineries popping up across America – to produce clean alcohol fuel from garbage, waste and grass crops like sweet sorghum and hemp. But sadly, without the mandate, the fossil fuel interests will lull congress back to sleep and we will soon enter a new era of drilling and fracking.

Today we’re also going to point a finger at politicians who accept oil money only to turn against renewable fuels (as was recently seen by Senator Coburn’s (R-OK) actions against the USDA’s efforts to put blender pumps into gas stations. According to the Federal Election Commission, Coburn received over $415K from fossil fuel interests in the last decade). Honestly, wouldn’t you like a choice at the gas pump? Wouldn’t you like the ability to choose ethanol made from American fuel crops? Well, senators like Coburn don’t want you to have that freedom.

Here’s the bottom line – if our politicians will stop lining their pockets with oil money, we have the ability to create 8 million new jobs in America by the end of this decade in renewable fuels alone. That’s why Vice Admiral Dennis V. McGinn to and Four Star General Wesley Clark will be part of our press conference and screening. These guys are tied of seeing our young men and women come back from the Middle East in body bags – they’d rather see them working in the safe, clean renewable fuels industry – right here at home.

It’s really our choice: do we want to raise another generation of people who are saddled with the fact that we have to go to war for oil – every day? Or do we want to begin to use peaceful and begin technologies like ethanol, biodiesel, solar and wind to produce our energy? Do we want to leave our nation scarred and toxified for the next generation – or do we want to make a few compromises in our environmental “purism” and begin to put some serious wind energy online and some serious fuel production into places where we’ve gutted our farming industry?

This is the choice we pose in the Freedom movie. And it’s the choice we’re headed to Washington to put forth.

In the fight for true freedom, for environmental justice, and for a better world…

Which side are you on?

Josh Tickell
Rebecca Harrell Tickell
and the FREEDOM Team

The oil spill that BP is accountable for that occurred on Earth Day of this year is getting bigger. Much bigger. According to an independent analysis done at the request of National Public Radio, the spill is more than ten times larger than the estimates that the company now known as “Beyond Petroleum” has publicly released. The estimate places the current spill output at around 70,000 barrels a day, which puts the potential total of this spill somewhere in the range of TEN times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill and may in fact qualify this as the largest oil spill ever in American waters.

For now, the shores of the gulf are relatively unaffected, but there is a strong chance the oil will be whipped up into the gulf stream in which case even the white sandy beaches of Florida will be in jeopardy.

As you know, the FUEL DVD releases on June 22 across America. I advise you to get it on Netflix today so you can be among the first to see the amazing work that’s gone into this “whole earth catalog” of the green digital age.

In the spirit of the FUEL movement, I hereby publicly invite BP and its affiliates to the first ever, public screening of the FUEL film in New Orleans, Louisiana on the night of Saturday June 26th. This screening will be attended by national media and by a cadre of well known celebrities. The intention of this screening is to open a dialogue of collaboration. We have done such screenings all over the world with well-known environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, NRDC and Greenpeace as well as with representatives of local industries with whom there is traditionally animosity, but little true dialogue. The collaboration that results from FUEL screenings is often powerful, community building and transformational.

‘Algae.’ When you hear that word you may think of pond scum, slime, grime, or a pool that needs more chlorine. But these little green critters may soon offer more than meet the eye. Among the many possible new technologies being developed from algae are Omega-3 oils, clean burning algae diesel and clean burning algae gasoline, phytonutrients, nutraceuticals, carbohydrates, proteins and fats – for food and as building blocks for other things.

The “engine” that algae runs on, or rather, its “software” is the basic software for all life – DNA. More specifically, algae contain what may be the first software for life and perhaps one of the simplest genetic sequences. Considering the millions of strains of available algae, this software is available, right now, in nature, to perform many tasks that today we assign to more complex life forms (like creating protein from cows, or carbohydrates from plants).

Algae’s unique advantage is the speed at which it replicates itself. A colony of algae can replicate itself approximately once every two hours. It will continue to do this until it exhausts its resource base. Theoretical yields for open pond algae can be in the tens of thousands of pounds per acre per year; this can either be fuel, food, or fiber.

Algae also are uniquely useful at cleaning water. America produces approximately 1 trillion gallons of sewage annually, which currently has a negative energy cost and a high capital infrastructure cost to purify. Algae can convert sewage into an immediately usable energy form such as biodiesel.

Medical applications of algae are vast. Because algae contain the ability to convert sunlight into energy but also the ability to produce animal like oils, like Omega-3, they can be the basis for consumable products of very high value and low pollution. In contrast, the Omega-3 oil created from fish can contain extremely high levels of mercury and other dangerous heavy metals.

Algae fuel is already alive and well. With the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of fuel from algae, it is on the fast track. So much so, in fact, that my wife and I drove the first ever car on algae gasoline across the country last fall. The “Algaeus” went over 5,000 miles on fuel made from Sapphire Energy, a company specializing in the development of large scale algae to fuel technology.

While perhaps not a panacea for all of our woes, algae may offer us a way to provide fuel, food and clean water at a fraction of the capital cost and a fraction of the environmental cost of our current systems.

For more information on algae, the “Algaeus” vehicle and on upcoming algae technologies and projects, visit www.JoshTickell.com

Josh Tickell is the best selling author of two books on alternative fuel and the award-winning director of the movie FUEL, which releases on DVD this June. He lives and works in Santa Monica, California with his wife Rebecca Harrell Tickell who is the author of the book, Hot, Rich and Green – The Secret Formula Women are Using to Get Rich and Save the Planet.