All of those green people in all of those green cars. The Toyota (NYSE: TM) Prius was a gamble when the auto company first designed and built it. The price was more than its "all gas" counterparts because the electric component of the engine was expensive to build. The Japanese firm had to bet that buyers would want to save the environment by purchasing an automobile aimed at cutting emissions.

All of that planning by Toyota worked. The Prius has now sold one million units worldwide. Reuters says that the car company said "Toyota believes that Prius vehicles worldwide have contributed to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by producing approximately 4.5 million tonnes less CO2 when compared with gasoline-powered vehicles in the same class and of similar size and driving performance."

And who is to say that the calculation is wrong, at least by much.

Toyota has once again put its competition in a situation where they have to catch up. When the company began to produce almost flawless cars 20 years ago, Detroit and Europe had to up their quality to stay in the game. Now they will need to aggressively follow Toyota into the hybrid market.

Being first to market sometimes has its advantages.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

The idea behind switching energy usage from fossil-based fuel like gas to ethanol is that it is better for the environment. Much of the push to create alternative energy companies has been based on this premise and it has also helped the American farmer get more for crops like corn.

Now it appears that ethanol may not be so "green." According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "a study published in the latest issue of Science finds that corn-based ethanol, a type of biofuel pushed heavily in the U.S., will nearly double the output of greenhouse-gas emissions." A second study appears to support those findings. Part of the CO2 increase created by biofuels is due to changing land from forest to farmland. The process causes large amounts of greenhouse-gas emissions to be sent into the atmosphere.

The news is hardly good for the hundreds of biofuel companies that have been created around the drive for "green" fuel, and it may not be good for farmers who are getting higher yield from the crops they plant to create alternative energy.

But it may be very good news indeed for Big Oil.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) plans to have 50% of its cars in the US running on ethanol by 2012. Reuters says that "GM will have 11 ethanol-capable vehicles on the market this year and 15 in 2009."

The move may help keep oil and gas prices down and it may cut dangerous emissions, but it also may not save the consumer a dime. CNN Money reports that "corn and soybean prices soared in 2007 due largely to demand for the alternative fuel ethanol." That means the fuel is likely to get much more expensive.

At this point, the cost of an alternative energy car is several thousand dollars higher than the price of a gas-powered car. Increased production volume may solve that over time, but those savings may not hit the consumer for several years.

Being "green" may come with a high cost. If the economy stays weak, that may not sell.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), after seeing sales plummet for larger cars and SUVs over the past 18 months because of higher energy prices, is now doing a major about-face. It's no secret that a large part of GM's future strategy is tied up in alternative fuels and electric vehicles for the consumer market. Translation: inflation and energy prices are changing consumer gas price attitudes.

Robert Lutz, GM's product design expert extraordinaire (oh, and Vice Chairman), is placing a large bet on the Chevrolet Volt, a 100% electric vehicle that GM hopes will capture the imaginations -- and wallets -- of energy-conscious consumers. Lutz even calls the Volt GM's "moon shot" in a reference to a once-in-a-lifetime NASA goal to place a man on the moon in the 1960s. GM has a once-in-a-product-cycle chance to get a mass-produced, well-liked electric vehicle into dealer showrooms before any other global auto manufacturer.

Lutz, who speaks the best geek-speak there is concerning vehicle dynamics and drag coefficients, seems certain that GM can outfox Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) by getting a popular, 100% electric vehicle into mass production first. Toyota's existing Prius is a hybrid (gas and electric), and the race is on to get a completely electric car onto the showroom floor. Since there is no gas engine, which provides power for air conditioners and many other components, all systems from entertainment to windshield wipers had to be created from the ground up for the new Volt. From reading this Lutz interview, the Volt has the potential to place GM on top of the auto world again. That is, if done right and before the competition beats it to the electric vehicle game.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) joined the slew of companies this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas which touted their technological advances and gave insight into what was ahead. CEO Rick Wagoner even took the opportunity to introduce a Cadillac concept vehicle during his keynote speech that uses fuel-cell and battery technology for propulsion. Translated: no fossil fuels needed.

The Cadillac concept is powered by the promising fuel-cell technology along with lithium batteries. Additionally, it will be built on the same platform as GM's previously-announced and uber-anticipated Volt 100% electric vehicle scheduled to roll off assembly lines sometime before or in 2010. Wagoner even drove a Volt onto the stage where he gave his keynote. If that's not grandstanding for the future of the auto industry, I'm not sure what is.

The Cadillac Provoq will have all the style and luxury of the Cadillac brand if it makes its way from concept to reality, to which Wagoner said "it is fitting that our premium brand would be propelled by our most advanced technology." The details pit this as not a bad auto performer all things considered: 300 mile range before re-fueling, 0 to 60 in under nine seconds and a 100 mph top speed. It's good to see GM really promoting a green vehicle agenda instead of $2,500 DVD navigation systems linked to Bluetooth smartphones that dress you and cook your breakfast while you drive. Well, something like that anyway.

One of the most novel arguments against raising oil production is that it won't help decrease prices. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it is what the ministers of OPEC want consuming nations to believe.

Algeria's Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil told Reuters, "We have all the factors that impact the price, so if we increase, we are going to have the same phenomenon that happened before, which means, it may not even impact on the price." He may have missed the "supply and demand" lecture in his college economics course.

OPEC has several reasons for not improving supply, but the idea that it will not affect prices is absurd. Just the announcement of improved output from the cartel could cause a stampede of selling in oil futures.

What OPEC does want are guarantees from the big consuming nations, especially China and the U.S., that they will not invest too much in nuclear power and biofuels. The producing nations want to know that there will be oil demand two and three decades out. They are making plenty of money now, but will that continue in 2030?
The attitude being taken by OPEC is that it will not increase output in December. That could cause prices to rise again. But a promise of dialing back alternative energy development that might cut oil demand would almost certainly get more shipments of crude moving.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer explains why the unique dynamic of oil as a commodity gives alternative fuels a "magic" price point.

Boy, that ethanol is cheap. It's cheap if we use corn, and it is even cheaper if we use soy. It doesn't matter how much it costs or how much infrastructure is needed, it's become the low-cost gasoline even with the stupid unnecessary subsidies.

Amazing, isn't it? But that's why Monsanto (NYSE: MON) (Cramer's Take) and Bunge (NYSE: BG) (Cramer's Take) are so cheap and why all of the various "sun" stocks are inexpensive. Oil at $92, going to who knows where, is going to make all of these unnaturally natural alternatives the low-cost fuels.

There are a lot of fuels that are cheaper to produce than oil now, particularly if you read Chris Edmond's unbelievably good series out of the Middle East. It's all demand-on-fire, supply disappearing that is controlling the price. It isn't Nigerian terrorism or Iranian intransigence or Iraqi-Turk tensions.

Those are all just headline terms by writers searching for a reason to write about oil jumping. They have no choice. They can't keep writing "because supply is outstripped by demand," even though that's what is happening.

In a sense, we have a fabulous opportunity as a country to make some headway here on domestic security because of this umbrella. Even coal, which will now never amount to much given the Democrats' desire to stop global warming, becomes too viable to ignore as the rallies in Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) (Cramer's Take) and Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) (Cramer's Take) show.

So, the endless moves up will continue. I have never seen a commodity that has no price at which demand tapers. So anything with a price point of $80 or less is now a go.

Including all crops that will burn.

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RELATED LINKS:

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

The 'Hannah Montana' Stock Index

Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.

Our failure to prioritize alternate fuel development over the past 20 years is showing up in more places than just the gas pump. This year, experts anticipate a huge reallocation of U.S. acreage from soybeans and cotton to corn, yet the price of corn-related products will continue to climb.

Acres planted in corn come mostly at the expense of soybeans, another hugely important crop. As our soybean inventory dwindles, look for increased prices in this market as well.

This is bad news in several ways. Many argue ethanol produced from corn has a negative energy value (NEV); i.e., it requires more energy to produce than it supplies.
The ethanol produced is more expensive than petroleum. And, worst, we are allocating the very best of our cropland to grow fuel crops, while other plants that could take advantage of marginal land remain underdeveloped.

Most of us remember President Bush's famous reference to switchgrass, a hearty grass that thrives in poor soil and produces energy fourfold what it requires to cultivate, yielding 1.5 times that of corn per acre. Another candidate, the jatropha bush, is already used to power rail traffic between Mumbai and Delhi in India. Like switchgrass, the bush can grow in poor soil and yields biomass easily converted into a biodesiel fuel.

While most of the world cannot grow corn or, like Brazil, sugar cane, crops such as switchgrass and jatropha could provide struggling economies with cash crops to aid in their development, while at the same time helping to solve the world's fuel crunch and diversify its sourcing.

Growing corn on our best land squanders our natural resources. How long will a free market support such inefficiency?

When a highly-visible Illinois senator calls on you to offer alternative fuels alongside traditional gasoline, you know the fight has just begun. Wal-Mart, which sells gas alongside many of its stores across the country, could do well to start having alternative fuels made available alongside standard gas. This would go along with many of its newer green initiatives.

With "flexible fuel" vehicles growing -- but not near the amount of standard gas-powered vehicles -- Wal-Mart would most likely install E85 pumps in Wal-Mart locations where they would we utilized fully right off the bat in order to judge demand and build a case for installing more. But, until automobile manufacturers begin making more flexible fuel vehicles for the common soccer mom down to the all-day delivery driver, will the impact be significant at all?

Don't get me wrong: this is a great start here if many of the national retail companies Obama writes to would start the game off correctly. But, there is more help needed than that -- the average consumer needs to demand this type of alternative fuel technology from the carmakers where they all buy cars. What would be the question you would ask if buying a new car?