The Atlantic just published a story I did on neodymium--the rare earth mineral that makes Prius motors run, and some wind turbines generate electricity. The US used to be the world's largest producer of the stuff, but in the 90's the Chinese won the entire market with lower cost minerals--at least partly as a result of lower environmental standards.

The strategic and competitive challenges posed by electric cars are something that policy makers need to deal with soon, before we mandate millions of electric vehicles. Just because a car doesn't use oil doesn't mean its sustainable.

What I want to watch is the growth of green nationalism--as environmentalists and nationalists start rowing the same boat. It's going to make for some strange--and necessary--partnerships, and it might break through some of the logjams around regulation as, say, US mining interests and anti-global warming activists, and auto companies hook up. And then, it's bound to have a lot of unanticipated consequences, including inspiring backlashes of resource nationalism from supplier countries.

California has announced a plan to create standards for plasma TV's, which are part of a suite of household appliances the California Energy Commission refers to as "vampires." Vampires include just about anything with a charger--cellphones, computers, cordless phones, etc--and collectively they may devour as much as 10 percent of a household's electricity consumption without actually doing anything. (Actually, they are doing something. They produce heat. It's nuts, but the best way to figure out if your appliances are sucking you dry is to walk around the house and touch the transformers. If they're hot, they're Nosferatu.)

Two thoughts.

One: The manufacturers association is fighting the standards, perhaps because they're aware that California's efficiency standards usually change norms around the world. In the 1970's, California began regulating the electricity consumption of refrigerators, which lead to the imposition of national standards. It also lead to bigger, better, cheaper fridges that use a third of the energy they did before. More importantly, those fridges proliferated around the world. In China, for example, they're saving half the electricity produced by the Three Gorges Dam.

Two: Why only plasma TV's and not the more popular LCD's, as well as all of the phone chargers and the annoyingly hot transformer on my apple laptop right here?

 Buried in Joseph White's interesting Wall Street Journal piece about the enormous power of incremental improvements in auto fuel economy (versus so-called moonshots) sits an interesting statistic:

"Mr. Fedewa estimates auto makers can deliver 10% or better fuel efficiency improvement for about $500 a vehicle." (That is Eric Fedewa, described as "a vice president with the automotive consulting firm CSM Worldwide.")

$500 for 10 percent improvement!

What if the government just paid the costs upfront as part of the stimulus package?  Could we invest in fuel economy standards as a sort of time-release piggy bank?

In the US, everybody (including President Obama) loves the Smart Grid, but somehow the political and regulatory will to make it happen is still coalescing. Putting so-called Smart Meters on our homes would allow us to control when we buy electricity and how much we use, institute "time of use" pricing, and enable us to cut  demand rather than throwing the switch on coal -fired power plants when electricity demand is at its peak. Down the road, it will encourage the development of battery-like appliances that draw electricity when it's cheap (aka at night); facilitate the sales of late-night power such as wind; and reward people who produce power and feed it back onto the grid.  All good, but even though the technology is mostly available, the US is moving at a snail's pace. And India is dashing forward...

Crude oil hit $110 today and it was an ironic farewell to Milton Copulos, late of the National Defense Council Foundation, who led a campaign to promote the "true" costs of gasoline over the past few years. I spoke with Milt in January and he gave me his latest estimate: We pay an extra $10.07 for every gallon we buy.

First, let me say that I never quite knew whether to trust his numbers -- after all, there really aren't any good numbers for the externalities of gas. But I found his background -- in defense,  the Heritage Foundation, and then alternative fuels -- intriguing, provocative and a good starting place for trying to figure out how much a gallon of gas really costs us. (Milt also offered a heck of an interview, ranging through housing stock in China to military plans to turn garbage into fuel, to his children, his wife, with time for a short primer on flash pyrolosis.)

Here's how he broke it the cost of of a gallon of gas: