We receive a lot of questions from readers about the affordability of renewable energy alternatives, such as solar and wind and other ways to conserve energy such as buying energy efficient appliances or adding insulation. 

They usually want to know if there are state or federal incentives and rebates to help them offset the costs.

There is a wonderful Web site run by the North Carolina Solar Center, The Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE), which is an overview of state, federal, local and utility incentives, rebates, exemptions and loan programs in each state. Within each state’s sections are links to other offices and Web sites for further information.

If you are just beginning to gather information on the possibility of investing in a renewable energy system or upgrading your home to be more energy efficient, then you will want to spend time reading your state’s information on the DSIRE Web site.

We hit one teeny snag in final assembly. As you recall, the original MAX got a significant swat from behind, which we feared might have affected the rear axle. Well, when we drained the lubricant from the axle, chunks of differential fell out. 

That’s not too big of a deal, since we had a replacement rear axle assembly waiting in the wings (I'll tell you why in a minute). But we hadn't wanted to use it just yet. In my opinion, the best way to do this "rebuild" would have been to make the new car exactly like the old car. Then we could have driven it, tested it and made sure our baseline hadn't changed — we'd know that any differences between the two cars were the result of a mistake. If there was any difference in performance or economy, we could sit down and figure out what we did wrong. If there were no differences, we could go back to our development plan of making changes one change at a time and testing the results. 

But the clock is ticking: summer is whizzing by and we have quite a long to-do list. The top job on that list is to install a taller rear end. That's hot rod slang for a final drive ratio that takes fewer turns of the engine per turn of the wheels, so at any given engine RPM, the car covers more ground. It turns out that the automatic transmission version of that Toyota Corolla wagon (aka the Corrode Warrior referenced in this article) has just what we need, a 3.30 (3.3 revolutions of the drive shaft = 1 revolution of the wheels) axle, so we went ahead and put it in MAX. 

I expect we'll see a higher top speed than with the original MAX — about 75 mph — and an improvement in fuel economy at cruising speeds. But maybe not. We may need to make streamlining changes before we see any benefits from the gearing changes. 

Meanwhile, we'll just have to trust ourselves that we haven't accidentally introduced any new variables, and the only difference between MAX version 1.0 and MAX 2.0 is the gearing. We should know soon. As you can see, the parts are falling into place.

Photo by Jack McCornack

Wouldn’t it be great if more of our electricity came from wind and solar power? There are a lot of good reasons the United States should start generating more electricity from renewable sources. But what will it take to make that happen?

One thing we are likely to need is an upgraded, expanded electric grid with more transmission lines extending to the sunniest and windiest parts of the country. Today, there’s a great article in the New York Times that does a good job of explaining the connections between transmission upgrades and developing renewable energy.

You can find another good discussion of the need for grid improvements here in this recent article from Renewable Energy World. It was originally published by the American Wind Energy Association, and includes many details about how upgrades to the grid could help speed up the development of wind energy.

 It’s also worth mentioning that some individual states are already leading the way with transmission upgrades — notably Texas.

Do you think the United States needs to upgrade its electrical grid? Tell us your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Photo by Tom Wald/Istockphoto

In early September, the X Prize Foundation will be hosting a forum titled, “Seeking Radical Breakthroughs in Alternative Energy — What I Would Advise the Next President.” It will discuss renewable energy ideas from biologist George Church, futurist Ray Kurzweil, inventor Saul Griffith and many others.

The forum will be held September 10 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass. Stay tuned for the available video of the event. If you’re interested in learning more or attending the forum, click here.

The X Prize Foundation is known for its breakthrough competitions, with prizes of $10 million or more awarded to the most innovative and revolutionary entries. One of the current competitions is the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize. Mother Earth News is sponsoring an entry in this 100-mpg competition. To learn more, read Here Comes the 100-mpg Car or Jack McCornack’s blog.

Check out the video below. It's from Mark Templeton, who can't stop smiling because he got his Tesla Roadster. Watch it and you'll understand why.

I so desperately want one. Especially the jet black color. If Batman had an electric car, this would be it. The only problems for me are it costs about $110,000 and takes about 12 months to get one. Ha ha, like I could actually get past the first problem, right?

If you don't already know, the Tesla Roadster is an all-electric (uses lithium ion batteries) two-seater. It goes zero to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and gets the equivalent of 256 mpg. Its batteries will take you about 220 miles. Performance, efficiency and range — what's not to love?

But here's the best part: with the national average price of electricity being about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, you'd pay less than 2 cents per mile to drive this car. Rock.

You can learn more about Tesla Motors and the Tesla Roadster here.

MAX is coming back together, and we're now in final assembly mode. Time to plug the parts in the chassis. Here's the finished frame, painted a trendy and eye-catching gray. 

And we've used only the finest of materials and techniques — indoor/outdoor enamel from the local hardware store, the stuff with pictures of lawn furniture on the can. And we painted it with a combination of a spray gun for the big areas and a foam paintbrush for the nooks and crannies. It looks decent, in an industrial sort of way, but it doesn't look like something you'd see at a car show. It looks like something you'd drive. 

We gave it a coat of gray primer before we gave it the gray finish coat, but a lot of people couldn't tell the difference. 

"Are you primering it again?" 

Nope, this is the finish coat, it's glossier than the primer if you look close. 

"Gray, huh? This is how it's going to look when it's done? You're not going to paint it black? Man, you must have got a deal on gray." 

Nope, it's gray by choice, and the gray cost as much as any other color on the shelf. 

The reason car chassis are traditionally black is that black doesn't show grease and grime, thus pleasing the end user. But gray shows where oil is leaking, for example, and one man's grime is another man's diagnostic tool. 

Anyway, I wanted you to know it's gray on purpose, we didn't just spray on the primer and get bored.

Photo by Jack McCornack

Every day, 970 trillion kilowatt hours of energy strikes the Earth in the form of sunlight. It's long past time we started using more of it. That's the message of "Hail: The Return of the Sun," the dramatic short movie you can watch below. The movie was produced by Solon, a German-based solar energy company with an edge (the company's slogan is "Don't leave the planet to the stupid").

For more information about the movie, and to see the longer version (with an introduction), click the link below.

Hail: The Return of the Sun

Renewable energy has been in the news lately, as the U.S. presidential candidates have been discussing their energy plans, and many other people have been talking about renewable energy, including T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore.

Yesterday, Bill Clinton weighed in with his own recommendations for what the U.S. government should do to promote renewables and combat climate change when he spoke at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

There’s a great summary of Clinton’s top 10 recommendations for cleaner energy here on Earth2Tech. Just a few of the measures he suggested were making improvements to the electrical grid, establishing a carbon cap and trade system, and renewing tax credits for producing renewable energy for the next six to 10 years.

As I've been putting MAX through its Lincoln's Axe phase, I've been thinking that there's more than one way to skin this fuel economy cat. 

Back in the '70s, we experienced what I've been snidely calling the Energy Crisis Lite. A small group of oil suppliers stopped selling us their stuff, and we went into such a panic that we even started buying fuel-efficient cars. Then those suppliers decided our money was as green as anybody else's, so they resumed selling us all the oil we wanted. 

Did we learn our lesson? 

Heck no — we've spent the last quarter century buying as much car with as much horsepower as we could afford, and we're in worse trouble now than we were back then. 

By "we" I mean our culture in general, though there have been exceptions — exceptional people who have kept the faith for automotive efficiency — and the No. 1 faith-keeper has been Robert Riley. 

Robert designed a build-it-yourself 100+ mpg car in 1980 called the Centurion. It was well-publicized in magazines and film (it appeared in Total Recall, one of the Governator's perils-in-space action movies) and he sold about 30,000 sets of plans for it. So why don't you see one on every street corner? Hey, what can you say, gas got cheap. I think it's fair to say the Centurion was ahead of its time. In my opinion, it's still ahead of its time. Maybe when fuel costs $20 a gallon, people will be willing to drive 17 horsepower half-ton cars, but from a performance standpoint, the Centurion was awfully .. .stately.

But he's right on time with what he's doing now. 

This is the XR3, a three-wheeled, high mileage diesel-electric plug-in hybrid. People ask me to compare the XR3 to MAX, and I say, "The biggest difference is ..." 

And they interrupt with, "Is it that the XR3 looks like it came from the future, and MAX looks like it came from the past? That the XR3 has three wheels? Front wheel drive? Electric drive in back?"

I wait for them to run out of steam, and then I answer, "No, the biggest difference is the XR3 is a finished product and you can buy plans for it right now, whereas MAX is still in development."  

I have a set of XR3 plans, and they're excellent. As you'd expect, since Riley has the experience of delivering half a million plans for his various creations.

Photo courtesy Robert Riley

This week, there’s a nice article from Worldwatch with statistics on exactly how fast renewable energy is growing in the United States. The good news is, it’s growing rapidly — especially electricity from wind and geothermal.

But it made me wonder, exactly how much of our electricity already comes from renewable sources? Well, according to this fact sheet from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), it’s about 8.5 percent, and almost all of that is from hydropower — 6 percent.

Where are we going? One EIA projection says that we could be at 12.6 percent renewable electricity by 2030. Not very inspiring, is it? However, the U.S. Department of Energy also projects that we could produce 20 percent of our electricity from wind by 2030 if we address several challenges, including the need for additional transmission lines.

On the other hand, Al Gore recently challenged the country to set the audacious goal of getting 100 percent of our electricity from renewables within 10 years, so by 2018. It’s easy to see why he compared it to the challenge of putting a man on the moon: That would be a huge leap forward from where we are now. But it might be just the push we need to make the transition to renewable energy.

What about the presidential candidates? On his campaign Web site, Barack Obama specifically calls for 10 percent of our electricity to come from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025. (On his Web site, John McCain doesn’t suggest a specific goal for renewable electricity, but does say he favors support for renewables, including through tax credits.)

What kind of goals for renewable energy do you think the United States should aim for? Share your comments below.

Honda makes famously reliable cars, and there are thousands of people out there who have a crazy number of miles — 100K, 200K, 300K, even more — on numerous models such as the Civic, Accord, Insight and Odyssey. 

Needless to say, these owners are proud of the number of miles on their cars; these aren’t people who trade for something new every couple years. Honda recently launched an online community, The Honda Mile Makers Club, where they can share their stories and show off their reliable rides. 

Here are just some of the interesting stories on the site: 

A Civic with 1,170,910 miles. 

An Insight (Honda’s first gasoline-electric hybrid, unfortunately no longer in production) with 338,000 miles. 

A Civic Hybrid with 595,000 miles. 

An Odyssey (minivan) with 400,385 miles. 

I can personally attest to the reliability of the Honda Civic. My wife and I own two of them, both are the 2001 model year. The green one has 135,000+ miles and the black one is knocking on the door of 100K. Sounds like I need to join Honda’s club. 

If you’ve got a 100,000+ mileage Honda, consider sharing your story. And if you've got a 100K+ vehicle, whether Honda, Toyota, Ford, GM or otherwise, post a comment to tell us about it.

This week the U.S. presidential candidates have had a lot to say about energy. Barack Obama released his official energy plan on Monday. John McCain released many of the details of his position on energy back in June.

Both candidates are voicing strong support for improving energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing more renewable energy and moving toward energy independence. But the energy issues they’re focusing on and the details of their plans are very different. For instance, McCain is putting much more emphasis on developing nuclear energy, while Obama has set much higher goals for developing electricity from renewable sources.

If you’d like to read more about their plans, CNN has a good summary of the two candidates' positions on energy here.

You can also read the details of the plans on the candidates’ Web sites. You can find more about McCain’s energy plan at www.johnmccain.com, and Obama’s at www.barackobama.com.

This one's going in my wallet. It's the last pretty picture of MAX, on its way to a date with destiny. An hour later, MAX was in Eureka, stopped behind a van that had stopped for pedestrians, and the car behind me didn't stop for anything.

According to the accident report, the driver was progressing at a legal 30 mph and failed to notice that us other drivers weren't progressing at all. MAX is much shorter now, and wrinkly from stern to prow, since the impact from the back pushed me into the van in front.

So, what can we learn from this experience? We can learn how quickly we can make a new car, that's for sure. MAX is totaled, and though officially it's being rebuilt, it's going to be a bit like the joke about Abe Lincoln's axe:

“Yep, it's an heirloom, that axe has been in our family for 150 years.”

“Gosh, it looks brand new.”

“We've given it the best of care, generation after generation. My great grandfather replaced the handle, and my grandfather replaced the head.”

Or this could become like the true story of the Vin Fiz, the first aircraft to fly transcontinental across America back in 1911. It crashed and was repaired 22 times along the way; the only original parts left on the plane were the engine oil drain plug and one wing strut.

One lesson from this is it's better to sacrifice a car than a life. The front and rear of the chassis absorbed the impact as they crumpled, but the passenger compartment stayed its original shape, as did I. All in all I'm pleased with how well MAX “took one for the team.”

Another lesson is defensive driving is a full time job. I was stopped, in neutral, and I'd pretty much checked out of the driving experience. I had half an eye and about twelve neurons devoted to noticing when the car in front of me started to move, but otherwise I was giving my brain a little time off. In retrospect, I think the middle of the road is a bad place to take a break, and I should have been scanning for traffic despite being parked. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. But then again, maybe if I'd been pumping my brakes (and thus flashing my brake lights on and off) and screaming like a little girl, maybe my assailant would have noticed me two seconds earlier and saved us both a bunch of paperwork.

Live and learn. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a car to rebuild.

Follow our progress at Kinetic Vehicles and through the MAX Updates on this blog.

Stone is one of the most natural building materials available. It’s also durable. Certainly, it’s a green choice — if it’s not shipped a long distance. So why should you carefully consider your options before purchasing a granite countertop? In some instances, the granite emits radioactive waves. Read What’s Lurking in Your Countertop? to learn more.

What’s your recommendation for the greenest, safest countertop? What about the lowest cost? Share your response in the comments section below.

It looks like a big step forward for clean energy. MIT researchers have announced that they’ve found a new, cheaper way to extract hydrogen from water. The new process should make it far easier to store solar energy. You can read all about it here:

Solar Energy Storage Made Cheap, Efficient, Science Daily

Solar Power Breakthrough, Technology Review 

Hydrogen Power on the Cheap — Or at Least, Cheaper, Scientific American

Cheap way to 'split water' could lead to abundant clean fuel, The Guardian