Volt Launch: Back to the Future - By Henry Payne - Planet Gore - National Review Online

The mighty GM publicity machine and its media chorus put on a show in Hamtramck, Michigan, on Tuesday, introducing Gubmint Motors’s new Chevy Volt electric car with the kind of fanfare not seen since . . . well, since GM rolled out its last ill-fated electric car, the EV-1, just over a decade ago.

Even by Detroit’s carnival-barker standards, the first plug-in Chevy Volt to come off the assembly line generated an impressive display of hyperbole and myth-making. But then, not every vehicle launch is accompanied by politicians and the full-backing of the federal government. Washington’s ruling class has proclaimed the Volt a revolution in automobility (and GM is more than happy to milk the free publicity) which gave the event the air, if not the reality, of a game-changing moon-shot.
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Hamtramck was a glorious place to be Tuesday morning as American ingenuity polished another beautifully engineered product. But while pols were high-fiving each other over the government-industry collaboration that brought us a planet-saving small car . . . just a few miles south on I-75 in Detroit, Jeep Assembly was cranking at full-speed, three-shifts-a-day, 24-hours-a-day to meet America’s unslakable thirst for $30,000, V-6 –powered Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs.

And they make a nice profit of $5,000 apiece.

Chu Rings Death Knell on Ethanol.  Or Did He?

Energy Secretary Stephen Chu got to let the cat out of the bag on the future of transportation fuel, and the future for ethanol is none too rosy. In fact, if one had to guess, I’d say the government has sent hundreds of billions of dollars in research and development — along with equipment investments and product — right down the old drain.

Cancún climate change conference: EU says aid must be loans, not grants | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Cancún climate change summit campaigners say negotiations are a 'complete mess'

Big freeze gridlock 'costs £1.2 billion a day ' - Home News, UK - The Independent

Transport industry criticism of the efforts to keep Britain "open" during the cold spell grew today as it emerged the gridlock could cost the economy as much as £1.2 billion a day.