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Alex McRae Columnist

Published Sunday, October 09, 2011

Easy riders

The government's attempt to create "green" jobs has been in the news a lot lately. And all the news is bad.

The latest disaster involves a company called Solyndra, which received more than $500 million in government loan guarantees in exchange for a fairy tale about building snazzy new solar collectors that would make coal-fired electric power plants obsolete faster than you can say eco-scam.

Instead of leading the world to a carbon-free future, Solyndra went bankrupt, leaving taxpayers on the hook for half a billion bucks. Company officials explained the flaw in the business model by saying, "Gee whiz, it cost a lot more to build them thangs than we thought it would."

The only ones caught by surprise were President Obama's green team.

Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, said consumers are ready to embrace alternative energy, but only if it makes economic sense.

"Just funding alternative energy companies without a market for them is a problematic strategy," Borenstein said of the administration's "green energy" efforts.

Government greenies also believed they could end America's fossil fuel addiction by creating swell new "green" cars.

So the federal government essentially bought General Motors, then stiffed GM bondholders in favor of union pension obligations and set out to build a brand new car that would change the world.

The result was the electric-gas hybrid Chevy Volt. They should have called it the Joke. New Coke was more warmly received. Nine months after the Volt's introduction, sales are still creeping along at a few hundred vehicles per month.

It is a total disaster. And not a cheap one. The Volt costs about 40 grand. The only appeal of this automotive Alpo-eater is the $7,500 tax credit attached to each vehicle.

Tax credits for electric cars don't really appeal to people one paycheck away from foreclosure, but the Volt does have admirers. The average income of Volt buyers is $175,000 per year.

Power to the people. At least the ones with loads of green.

But just because America's government-backed attempts to produce affordable, sensible green products have flopped doesn't mean it can't be done. Chinese manufacturers are producing solar panels at a fourth the cost of American models. And a Japanese company just unveiled a car that brings a whole new meaning to "alternative" fuels.

The company is TOTO. They don't make cars. TOTO is Japan's largest toilet maker. Company officials just unveiled a motorized vehicle powered by solid human waste.

A press release touting the new vehicle praises human waste as the ultimate cure for those greenhouse gas blues. (Note: in the name of sensitivity, the words associated with solid human waste in the press release have been replaced by the term "dung."

The release says, in part...

"Never dreamed dung could get you blazing down the asphalt? Well, now it all comes true as Japan's biggest toilet maker, TOTO, takes the toilet on the road with its launch of the Toilet Bike Neo, a bike that's powered entirely by human dung. The bike runs on biogas converted from dung that is harvested directly from the driver -- who sits on the bike's toilet-styled seat. It gives a new twist to 'dung as you go.'"

The release goes on to call human waste "the new coal." Phrases like that must have green boosters at the EPA and Department of Energy soiling themselves.

And why not? It sounds like a product with no downside, although there is clearly a risk of backside exposure during the "fueling" process.

It's amazing the U.S. Congress didn't come up with this idea first. The alternative fuel used to run the Toilet Bike Neo is not only green and renewable, it's always in abundant supply in our nation's capital.

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(Send your e-mail comments to: alex@newnan.com )

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