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GM gives the Chevy Volt its first auto show exposure at the 2008 Paris Motor Show. With a game-changing powertrain, the Volt is as relevant in Europe as it is in the U.S. The Volt uses a series hybrid system, using an electric motor to drive the wheels with a gas engine to generate more electricity once the car’s lithium-ion battery pack is depleted. Under electric power alone, the car has a 40 mile range, and can be recharged at any AC outlet. For many people, that range will cover their daily commute, which will result in no actual gas usage during a typical work day.

Click here for photos of the 2011 Chevy Volt at the 2008 Paris Motor Show.

See all coverage of the 2008 Paris Motor Show.

A sampling of green-tech news with quick commentary:
• Small actions add up to big impact on climate change - Wall Street Journal
  American consumers contribute 65 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to McKinsey & Co. The report suggests that individuals making small changes in driving habits and energy use could slow climate change.


Increasing acidity, shown in pink and caused by atmospheric carbon, would enable high-pitched sounds to travel deeper in the ocean, researchers say.

(Credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, David Fierstein)

• Imitating electric eels to power medical implants - ZDNet
  Researchers say artificial energy-producing cells could mimic those of electric eels, and would be ideal for firing up tiny medical devices. It’s an example of biomimicry, which patterns technologies after structures found in nature.
• Suntech plans aggressive expansion - The Associated Press
  The Chinese solar company, snapping up EI Solutions, aims to dominate one third of the U.S. solar market.
• Noise will pollute warmer, acidic oceans - Live Science
  As oceans become more acidic due to higher levels of carbon dioxide, noise can travel to greater depths. Sounds in the soprano range will reach deeper and could interfere with communication among whales and ships, according to a study from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
• Will America run out of gas soon? - Treehugger
  Energy investment banker Matt Simmons say a scarcity of oil soon could eclipse the financial crisis. Whether you agree with the alarm, the worst-case scenario may be worth imagining.

The massive U.S. financial bailout plan, signed into law Friday afternoon, renews existing tax credits for renewable energy and includes rebates for plug-in hybrid drivers.

Representatives from the wind and solar industries have lobbied for months to extend the credits to ensure continued growth. Without the supports in place, they warned business would stall, resulting in thousands of lost jobs.

In addition to the renewable energy “extenders,” the law boosts subsidies to invest in technologies to burn coal more cleanly and to sequester carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants underground.

Also important to the clean-tech industry is $800 million in available bonds for renewable energy generation facilities from renewable sources, such as biomass and geothermal.

For solar, the law:

• Extends for eight years the 30 percent tax credit for solar residential and commercial solar installations.

• Eliminates the $2,000 cap on that tax credit for solar electric panels installed after the end of this year.

• Allows utilities to benefit from these tax credits.

Wind power installations can benefit from the tax credits as well. For small wind turbines under 100 kilowatts, the federal government will now give a tax credit of up to $4,000 for the next eight years.

Residential geothermal systems have a $2,000 tax credit. And credits for marine power systems were extended eight years as well.

In a statement, Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), said that “this bill is a major step in our long journey toward energy independence and ensures that solar energy will be a significant part of America’s energy future.”

He said that by 2016, solar energy will be the least expensive source of electricity for consumers.

“By passing this bill, Congress has finally given the solar energy industry ‘policy certainty’ that will attract investment, expand manufacturing, and lower the cost of solar energy to consumers,” Roger Efird, SEIA chairman and president of Suntech America, said in a statement.

Similarly, the American Wind Energy Association on Friday put out a statement lauding politicians for maintaining a policy in place. Previous, renewable energy tax credits have lapsed and delayed growth of the industry.

Transportation and efficiency

The law will give drivers of plug-in hybrid vehicles a tax credit between $2,500 and $7,500, depending on the capacity of the battery. Larger vehicles, such as trucks, have larger credits.

Also in the fuels arena, the law extends the alternative fuels tax credits and extends for one year the existing $1 per gallon credit for biodiesel and renewable diesel production.

Energy efficiency gets a nod as well with measures, such as rebates for appliances and bonds available to building operators that decrease building energy usage by 20 percent.

Companies seeking to establish solar power farms around protected wildlife areas can face a long, byzantine government permitting process. Why not set up utility-scale, renewable energy in polluted zones instead?

That’s what the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing. Its map for Google Earth show the potential for solar, wind, and biomass plants across 480,000 sites marred by toxic industrial waste and mining.

Interactive EPA maps for Google Earth expand on the data shown here.

(Credit: EPA)

The agency says 850,000 acres it has cleaned up, among 15 million contaminated acres total, are exceptional destinations for clean-power companies, in part due to the low cost and existing infrastructure there. Plus, brownfields, former mines, and Superfund sites are unattractive for most commercial and residential development, especially in rural areas.

Demand for cleaner forms of energy will expand by 31 percent over the next quarter-century, according to the Department of Energy. Its National Renewable Energy Laboratory worked with the EPA to suggest destinations for green-energy projects.

However, the Christian Science Monitor and others voice concern about the safety of workers who would build and staff these renewable-energy plants.

Early in 2007 the EPA made data about toxic wastelands available for the public to map with Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey is also online, in formats including XML and RSS.

Hawkes Ocean Technologies, a Richmond, Calif., company, was close to finishing a deep-ocean submersible for entrepreneur Steve Fossett when he disappeared a year ago. It’s called the Deep Flight Challenger.

(Credit: Hawkes Ocean Technologies)

Steve Fossett was known for many things, but perhaps the millionaire entrepreneur was best known for the many world records he set in a variety of different adventure sports.

And were it not for what seems certain to be his untimely and tragic death in a small airplane crash high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Fossett was poised to set a new record, one that could have far surpassed his many others in scope and shock value.

The record? To become the first human being to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 36,000 feet below the ocean surface near Guam.

This was no scuba dive, of course. Rather, Fossett had hired a Richmond, Calif., company called Hawkes Ocean Technologies, which specializes in building submersible vessels, to build him the craft that he could take down to the deepest known spot on Earth.

This is a CAD drawing of the Deep Flight Challenger with its outer skin on.

(Credit: Hawkes Ocean Technologies)

That submersible is called the Deep Flight Challenger, and the company was just four weeks from putting it through its first real tests when Fossett disappeared in September of 2007. But already, it had gone through a series of tests at U.S. Department of Defense facilities and was deemed strong enough to withstand water pressure of up to 20,000 pounds per square inch, more even than the 16,000 PSI pressure known to be found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

The project was first reported by KGO-TV.

“It’s been well known that for the last ten years, we’ve been working on revolutionary designs for underwater flying craft,” said Graham Hawkes, the firm’s chief engineer, “and we wanted to solve the problems of getting ultra deep. So I think it was fairly natural that he’d come to us.”

Hawkes explained that because of the tragedy of Fossett’s death, the Deep Flight Challenger is now sitting behind locked doors in a warehouse near Hawkes Ocean Technologies offices. It is owned by Fossett’s estate, and it is not known what will happen to it given that the adventurer is no longer around to make the dive himself.

But–with apologies to Native Americans–to hear Hawkes talk about deep diving like this is tantamount to what it must have been like to talk to someone explaining that the American West was unexplored territory and that he (or she) had the technology to take people there to open up a giant new frontier.

This is a CAD drawing of the Deep Flight Challenger without its outer skin.

(Credit: Hawkes Ocean Technologies)

Today, Hawkes said, there are just five deep ocean submersible craft in the world, all of which are owned by national governments. The United States has one, Russia has two–including one used by film director James Cameron to shoot some of the underwater sequences in Titanic–and both France and Japan have one.

Each of those vessels, however, are vastly expensive operations that require dedicated “motherships” to launch a mission, and which, Hawkes said, have extremely limited exploration range once they reach their desired depths.

By comparison, he said that his company’s expertise has been the development of submersibles that are just one-eighth the weight of the nationally-owned crafts. And that’s the major benefit of the technology. The submersibles can be launched from a wide variety of small rented ships; and once at depth, they can explore as much as 20 kilometers of territory.

And because the company’s submersibles are so much lighter and don’t require dedicated ships, they can cost approximately a tenth as much as the existing technology, said Karen Hawkes, the company’s manager for marketing and communications.

Further, Graham Hawkes said, while the government’s submersibles require as much as 20 tons of fuel oil per day, his company’s craft can operate on just a few gallons of fuel per hour.

While the Fossett project may be on hold indefinitely, Hawkes Ocean Technologies is hoping to become the world leader in (relatively) affordable submersibles for private and public customers.

Hawkes said recent changes in how countries determine the outer edges of their sovereign territory have resulted in the United States and many other nations claiming twice as much coastal territory as they had before. In fact, he said, the U.S. and other countries are now claiming exclusive economic zones that extend to 200 miles beyond their shores.

“Few people noticed in the United States,” Hawkes said, but many others outside the country did. Now, “the U.S., along with every other ocean state, has doubled their sovereign territory, and that territory has not been explored.”

Here, the Deep Flight Challenger team poses for a picture with the craft. Due to the tragedy involving Fossett’s plane crash, it is not known what will happen to this submersible, but the company is hoping to develop similar craft for private investors looking to explore deep ocean territory all around the world.

(Credit: Hawkes Ocean Technologies)

And alluding to the nineteenth century opening up of the American West, he added that, “You think of the Lewis and Clark expeditions going West to find out what was there, and we’re back in that” kind of exploration.

Of course, the United States is not alone in its interest in discovering what resources exists in these newly-claimed economic zones. Other countries, like India, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have all been building up new fleets of oceanographic exploration ships, Hawkes said.

“These kinds of craft, we see as being necessary to be the cutting edge of that exploratory effort,” Hawkes said, “so we see markets in 26 countries that are already gearing up for ocean exploration. It’s not the kind of marine science where you’re looking at protecting marine species, but you’re looking at…expanding your national territory.”

Among the resources that various national and private interests think they could find in these deep ocean places are new kinds of minerals as well as food sources.

Not being able to complete the Fossett mission, of course, has been a blow to Hawkes and his company’s plans, and while it must certainly be frustrating to see the Deep Flight Challenger sitting prone behind locked doors, Hawkes said it isn’t in any way up to him to determine what happens to the vessel now.

But given that the company was so close to completing the project when Fossett went missing, it is easy for Hawkes to envision having finished.

“I would obviously have liked for Steve not to have crashed into that mountainside,” he said, “and gone off and finished that expedition. It would have been a game changer.”

That’s because, he continued, his company’s technology would be the world’s first to easily and cost-effectively get man into the deep ocean.

“That’s what I would have wanted to happen,” he said. “How we get there from here, that chapter is about to be written.”

For the last few years, most of the attention on new territory to explore has been up in the sky. Hawkes thinks that the private interests that have been pouring money into such efforts have it wrong.

“We’re telling the five people in the United States building rockets and rocket companies that (space is) wonderful,” Hawkes said, “but that they’re 180 degrees off course, and they need to turn that thing around.”

According to a report this week from Verizon Business, risk factors for data breaches vary industry to industry and defy a “cookie cutter” approach to security, which is why Verizon has revisited an earlier report. The goal of both the new and the prior report is to offer detailed insight into how data breaches occur, so that companies can address the problems within their specific industry.

The June 2008 report spanned four years and included more than 500 forensic investigations involving 230 million compromised records. The new report uses that same data but drills down within four key industries: financial services, tech, retail, and food and beverage. The four constitute 82 percent of all the attacks in the original Verizon report.

Verizon found the attacks on the financial industry tend to be sophisticated. A majority come from outside hackers, although a healthy amount could also be attributed to insiders who have been granted access to the data. Retail and food and beverage, which includes restaurants and grocery stores, are the polar opposite. In both retail and food, less sophisticated attacks are used and are often the result of a compromised third-party vendor.

Bryan Sartin, co-author of the report and director of investigative response for Verizon Business security solutions, talks with CNET News’ Robert Vamosi about some of the investigations Verizon has done into thefts by third parties, and the possible ties to organized crimes and terrorism.

Listen now:

Download today’s podcast

Updated at 10:40 a.m. PT to reflect the House of Representatives’ approval of the bill.

Last week, the Bush administration proposed a three-page bill to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. It died in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week.

On Friday, though, the House approved a far bigger, broader, and beefier version of the bill–which has ballooned to a remarkable 442 pages. The vote was 263 to 171, with the bulk of the opposition coming from Republicans. Because the Senate already approved the measure, it now goes to President Bush for his expected signature.

On the theory that this may be a way to convince previously critical Democrats to approve the measure, one large chunk of the bailout bill is devoted to renewable energy, energy-efficient appliances, and so on (the “Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008″). The authors hope to lure Republicans with protections from the alternative minimum tax (via the “Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008″).

That includes, as the New York Post pointed out, millions in tax breaks and related pork for kids’ wooden arrows, Puerto Rican rum producers, auto race tracks, and corporations operating in American Samoa. (The explanation for the latter: StarKist has a large tuna-canning operation in American Samoa. And StarKist’s parent company happens to be located in the district of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)

The bill has become, in other words, something most unrelated to the business of bailing out Wall Street. The Beltway term for this is a “Christmas tree bill,” meaning everyone gets to hang their favorite spending projects on it–though by the time Congress gets it through, it more closely resembles a slop bucket.

“We will not Christmas-tree this bill,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat promised a few days ago. “The times are too urgent. Everyone has their own desires and needs. It’s going to have to wait.”

So much for that idea.

Here’s a look a some of the green-tech measures:

• One-year extension for wind and refined coal energy tax credits. A production credit for electricity produced from renewable marine energy sources (meaning through wave power and river power, or by exploiting the differences in ocean temperature). Energy credits for “small wind properties,” geothermal heat pump systems, and energy-efficient residential properties.

• New renewable-energy bonds. Up to $800 billion in energy bonds may be offered to the public, with a third from “public power providers,” a third from governments, and the remainder from “cooperative electric companies.”

• Tax credits for “cellulosic biofuels” and for “carbon dioxide sequestration.” An extension of an alternative fuel credit. Tax credits for “new qualified plug-in electric-drive motor vehicles.” Bicycle commuters get a nod, as do regulations aimed at “residential top-loading clothes washers.”

IRS undercover operations: Privacy invasion?

The bailout bill also gives the Internal Revenue Service new authority to conduct undercover operations. It would immunize the IRS from a passel of federal laws, including permitting IRS agents to run businesses for an extended sting operation, to open their own personal bank accounts with U.S. tax dollars, and so on. (Think IRS agents posing as accountants or tax preparers and saying, “I’m not sure if that deduction is entirely legal, but it’ll save you $1,000. Want to take it?”) That section had expired as of January 1, 2008, and would now be renewed.

Starting with the so-called Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1988, the IRS has possessed this authority temporarily, with occasional multiple-year lapses. A 1999 internal report said the IRS had 126 “trained undercover agents” working in field offices at the time. This is the first time that such undercover authority would be made permanent.

Sens. Max Baucus (D) and Chuck Grassley (R) have been pushing to make it permanent for a while, claiming (PDF) in April that: “Undercover operations are an integral part of IRS efforts to detect and prove noncompliance. The temporary status of this provision creates uncertainty, as the IRS plans its undercover efforts from year to year.”

There’s another section of the bailout bill worth noting. It lets the IRS give information from individual tax returns to any federal law enforcement agency investigating suspected “terrorist” activity, which can, in turn, share it with local and state police. Intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency can also receive that information.

The information that can be shared includes “a taxpayer’s identity, the nature, source, or amount of his income, payments, receipts, deductions, exemptions, credits, assets, liabilities, net worth, tax liability, tax withheld, deficiencies, overassessments, or tax payments, whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, or any other data received by, recorded by, prepared by, furnished to, or collected by the Secretary with respect to a return.”

That provision had already existed in federal law and automatically expired on January 1, 2008.

What’s a little odd is that there’s been little to no discussion of the IRS sections of the bailout bill, even though they raise privacy concerns. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said this week: “I will continue to work with congressional leaders to find a way forward to pass a comprehensive plan to stabilize our financial system and protect the American people by limiting the prospects of further deterioration in our economy.” He never mentioned the necessity of additional IRS undercover operations.

Pininfarina showed off the B0 in its booth at the Paris Motor Show.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

If you want to build a new car, even a small, economical car, get Pininfarina to design it. That lesson is made clear with the launch of the B0 at the 2008 Paris Motor Show, the best-looking small car we’ve seen here. The B0 has smart lines and a graceful arch between its front and rear wheels, yet maintains the dimensions and configuration to be a practical car. This car is actually a collaboration between Pininfarina and Bolloré, the latter being a consortium of companies with expertise in batteries and capacitors, and is intended to go into mass production late in 2009.

The B0 uses solar cells to help recharge the batteries.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

The B0 uses a lithium metal polymer battery pack occupying the undercarriage of the car, with an electric motor driving the front wheels. A super capacitor provides short-term storage for electricity recovered from regenerative braking. Solar cells set into the roof and front of the car trickle energy to the battery.

As configured, the car has a range of 150 miles and an electronically limited top speed of 80 mph. It’s not exactly fast, with a 0 to 37 mph time of 6.3 seconds. Bolloré hasn’t released 0 to 60 mph times, but assume they will be close to 15 seconds.

As shown, the interior of the car uses two LCDs for its instrumentation, both center-mounted, with a main display on the instrument panel showing climate control, navigation, and entertainment. A smaller display sits on top of the dashboard, showing speed, charge level, range, and other trip information.

See all coverage of the 2008 Paris Motor Show.