According to biofuels researchers, even the lowly pond scum should be revered. Several startup companies are in various test phases of producing biodiesel from algae that rests upon shallow waters and can produce a magnitude more fuel per acre than soy or rapeseed.

Solix Biofuels is working with Colorado State University on an algae to biodiesel process that feeds off of carbon dioxide, which is addition by subtraction.

In New Zealand, algae that forms in a waste treatment pool has been used in a 5 percent (B5) blend by Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation. The fuel was successfully tested in a vehicle, and now the company is ramping up production.

Algae can produced 200 times more biodiesel per acre than growing soybeans, and I'm guessing it requires considerably less labor to monitor. But the tradeoffs are you don't have any food as a byproduct, and what about all the water that is needed? I'd like to see a comparison for how much water is used in the planting versus skimming method.

Making biodiesel from algae is getting considerable support from investors and could be a breakthrough technology within a year or two. If this domestic fuel can be produced at a lower total cost (including the environmental impact), than we may see a huge swell in demand for diesel vehicles.

Heck, I'd be happy with just producing enough biodiesel to fill all of the trucks with B20.

The early signs are that the new Congress wants our energy portfolio to emphasize sustainability more than previous legislators, and that is a step in the right direction.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says cutting the billions of dollars in subsidies paid to the oil and gas companies is at the top of her priority list, according to the Associated Press

At least some of the money -- revenue gained by rolling back some tax breaks -- will go to a program to support research into making ethanol from sources other than corn.

During the Clinton Administration the leases given to the oil companies for drilling off shore included subsidies that were supposed to stop if oil and gas prices reached a certain threshold, but the government somehow forgot to put this standard "escape clause" language into the contract. So although energy prices remain high, companies continue to cash checks valued at more than a billion dollars per year.

Taxpayers haven't been getting cheaper or more abundant fuel for their dollars. According to the New York Times (as quoted by Environmental Economics, the billions in oil giveaways have been a boon for the oil industry but a bust for consumers. The expanded drilling was supposed to keep increase the supply and keep prices low, but according to the analysis has only produced a trickle more (less than 1 percent) of oil.

The government should end this ridiculous giveaway and focus spending taxpayer dollars on research to create biodiesel and ethanol from agricultural waste or even from algae. While there is a valid debate about the effectiveness of spending money on corn-based ethanol, the argument for cellulosic ethanol (from plants and other residue) is more clear cut.

Many of us gave toys or electronics devices as gifts this holiday season that run on battery power. Our New Year's Resolutions should include buying rechargeable batteries, including new products that last longer and are more convenient to recharge.

Rayovac will soon sell new rechargeable batteries that don't cost much more than disposables and can hold their power for longer, according to the Associated Press. Sanyo and North American Battery Company also have rechargeable batteries that will pay for themselves within a year. In the U.K., Moxia Energy has developed a battery that can be recharged through a laptop's USB port, making it a snap to keep the power flowing to your digital camera.

Yes, it is a pain to wait to recharge batteries, but a little advanced planning and buying an extra set can eliminate that inconvenience. Disposable batteries not only cost more in the long run, but they also take extra energy to produce and almost always wind up in landfills, where they can eventually leech led, cadmium and mercury. New York and the U.K. have passed laws requiring recycling, and hopefully more governments will follow suit.

On Christmas Eve, the Los Angeles Times reported that the US Environmental Protection Agency "has cleared the way for automakers to produce hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars to meet zero-emission vehicle requirements in California and 10 other states."

"This is a real Christmas gift for all of us," Air Resources Board Chairman Dr. Robert Sawyer gushed.

The EPA would've done just as well to huck some coal in Sawyer's stocking. Because despite hydrogen's long-term promise as a storage mechanism for intermittent power sources like wind, it's a long, long, loooong way from making sense as something you'd stick in your car. In the mean time, it mainly serves as a distraction automakers (like, oh, say, BMW), petroleum execs and politicians can employ when they need to avoid speaking about real, near-term transportation fuel alternatives.

The Website Always On has a great post today called The Hydrogen Hoax in which the author points out many of the problems with hydrogen. Most notably, because it's a storage medium rather than a primary fuel, hydrogen must be produced from clean sources of energy before it's clean power. Hydrogen produced from electricity generated by stinky, old-school power plants actually uses quite a bit more energy than if you'd just used the petroleum or electricity directly. And then there's the small problem of how to store it – which boils down to putting it under tremendous pressure, extremely low temperatures, or in fuel cells, which require converting the energy BACK into electricity before it can be used.

Which brings me to the issue at hand. Why are we still talking about hydrogen as a transportation fuel? I'll tell you: Because it's a stall tactic, a smoke screen, a feel-good story that the aforementioned automakers, petroleum execs and politicians can employ to buy time. Time in which they can claim "we're working on it" while they continue to neglect the huge opportunities to embrace existing technologies that could make a big difference far, far sooner, and do so without huge modifications to the existing infrastructure. Technologies like biodiesel, plug-in hybrids and flex-fuel vehicles.