Americans are increasingly moving away from traditional combustion engine autos in favor of more energy efficient and cleaner burning hybrids and electric vehicles.

Toyota has had great success with its Prius model – selling more than 115,000 this year alone. The Japanese automaker continues to increase its Lexus hybrid offerings as well.

The electric car is also getting renewed attention with the high profile launch of the Chevy Volt (coming soon) and the Nissan Leaf.

Any discussion on the future of transportation would not be complete without discussing methanol, says Bruce Aitken, CEO of Methanex, the world’s largest methanol producer. Not widely used in the U.S. in cars, “30% of all methanol today goes into fuel in some way or another, it’s the sector that’s growing most rapidly as well,” Aitken says; China, for example, uses more than one billion gallons of methanol per year as a transportation fuel.

Tech Ticker caught up with Aitken in New York this week, where he was showing off the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-fuel, which runs on a mixture of gasoline, bioethanol and methanol.

The major advantage of methanol comes down to price. “The good news about methanol is it’s very inexpensive to produce relative to the competition. Today methanol sells around $1.20 per gallon,” Aitken tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. And, unlike ethanol, methanol doesn’t benefit from government subsidies that keep prices artificially low. “You don’t need subsidies; you can manufacture the stuff and it’s competitive with gasoline," he says. "That’s why it has huge potential.”

Investors apparently agree. Methanex shares are up about 62% in the last year.  Aitken is confident the stock has further to run. "We’re only half way there,” he boasts. “On any sort of multiple analysis we’re still a cheap stock."

But, like the future of methanol as a transportation fuel, the market will be the ultimate judge.

It's safe to say the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn't winning the company or the oil industry any fans. Goldman Sachs' business practices look downright cuddly compared to BP's handling of the catastrophic disaster off the coast of Louisiana.

The animosity towards Big Oil is nothing new and the subject of Why We Hate the Oil Companies, recent book from former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, who says there are lots of reasons oil companies are almost uniformly disliked.

First is a matter of bad public relations. "The industry does a miserably poor job of explaining who it is and what it does, to the American people," says Hofmeister, who retired from Shell in 2008. This is recently exemplified by several gaffes made by BP CEO Tony Hayward.

The government is the other major reason we hate oil companies, he claims. Absent of a comprehensive energy policy, when things go wrong, “fingers are always pointed at the nasty oil companies,” says Hofmeister. "So our own political leadership has taught us to hate the oil companies."

Hofmeister is as open and honest as they come in the oil industry. Yet, he’s also an insider who defends the industry from what he believes are common misconceptions.

As Aaron points out, many believe the oil companies own Washington and were the driving force behind both Iraq wars. Hofmeister refutes these claims. “Governments decide who goes to war or when they go to war, oil companies have absolutely nothing to do with that,” he says.

He also claims, that in his experience, as a whole, the oil industry is not trying to thwart the push for alternative energy sources.

Earlier:

$6-$8 Gas? Energy Prices Will "Skyrocket" If U.S. Stops Drilling, Former Shell Exec Says

BP's efforts to halt its massive oil spill hit a snag on Wednesday, as the diamond-tipped saw being used to cut through the pipe became stuck, Reuters reported. This as the U.S. opened a criminal inquiry into the disaster, and the oil spill reached Florida's beaches.

Officials say the spill won't be plugged until August, at the earliest, inflaming public outrage over the disaster. On Sunday, BP CEO Tony Hayward only added fuel to the fire by telling CNN: "There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Hayward has since apologized, but the damage to his already battered reputation was done. 

"One of the compensations of most of the financial crisis meltdown has been that all these appalling CEOs were at least Americans," says our guest Matthew Bishop, U.S. business editor for The Economist. "Now as a Brit, we've got maybe one of the contenders for 'the least competent chief executive' award." 

The April 20 rig explosion killed 11 people on the Deepwater Horizon and triggered one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history, for which there's no end in sight.

The spill caps a dramatic decline for British oil giant BP ...

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Newsweek columnist Daniel Gross, author of the recent cover story "America is back!" is optimistic. As detailed here, he argues a combination of massive government intervention, rapid restructuring and increased private-sector productivity has created an economy stronger than anyone would have imagined just 18 months ago.

But what about jobs?

U.S. unemployment is hovering at 9.7%, with the so-called real unemployment rate (U6) at 16.9% in March. Where will the jobs growth come from? "The reality is you never know. It's not simply hopeful to say it, but it's sort of historical record," Gross tells Henry in the accompanying clip.

Gross points to a summit led by then White House economics advisor Larry Summers in 1992 after the election. Amid all the analysis, deep thinking and stacks of briefing papers, one word was not mentioned: the Internet. "We never know what's going to be that big, transformative thing that touches all areas of the economy that will create a boost to jobs," Gross says.

That being said, there are areas likely to create not only jobs but entire ecosystems, Gross explains. Those sectors include ...

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From The Business Insider, Jan. 1, 2010:

Think that now is a bad time to start a ? Think again.

According to Entrepreneur, self-employment rates have been increasing at an average rate of 4.5 percent per year since 2000, and the past two years are no exception. Analysts are even expecting to see a possible uptick in the number of created in 2009 when those numbers come out.

Of course, some areas are a better bet than others. Entrepreneur came out with ten business trends that are thriving, not just surviving, in this "Great Recession."

Click here to view the list of opportunities.

More coverage from The Business Insider:

• Ten amazingly wasteful stimulus projects
• Ten American industries that will be destroyed in the next decade
  

From The Business Insider, Dec. 9, 2009:

1. Wind N’ Go Freedom Shaver

The Wind N’ Go Freedom Shaver is powered by cranking a plastic handle for a full minute, which provides enough power for one shave. If you're too lazy to shave using a razor, the last thing you're going to add to your morning routine is sixty seconds of winding to charge up your environmentally friendly gadget. Replacement blades and foils sold seperataly.

2. Tweet-a-Watt

The Tweet-a-Watt starter pack is a system that lets you share your energy-saving successes with the entire Twitter community, because people want to know exactly how much you can brag about living green. Just make sure you already own a Kill-a-Watt power monitoring system and be prepared for some serious DIY action. Setting this up requires taking the Kill-a-Watt apart and attaching the Tweet-a-Watt's various capacitors and resistors and things.

3. Mode Premium All-In-One Recycling Center

Even though you're already recycling, you might still want to fork up $270 for the Mode Premium All-In-One Recycling Center, a bulky device that keeps all your paper, plastic, glass and metal in one unit. Sure it holds very few recycling products, but at least it comes with a carbon filter for odor control.

4. Bedol Water-Powered Clock

The Bedol Water-Powered Clock runs on a combination of water and lemon juice, and that's cool, but a cheap gadget you have to "refill" every six weeks that saves a negligible amount of energy is a little ridiculous. Especially considering there's no alarm on this model. The water-powered clock with an alarm will cost you $29.

5. Eton Solar Link Radio

Another wind-up gadget, the Eton Solar Link Radio, a clock/radio with USB cell phone charger connectors, is supposedly for "emergencies," just so long as they don't involve rain (it's not waterproof). It is sun-friendly, but to run on solar power it takes a whole day of direct sun light for a few hours of operation. Not recommended: owning more than one gadget that requires cranking a flimsy plastic knob to charge...

See more from The Business Insider:

• 15 Gadgets That Changed Everything This Decade
• What Will the Xbox 720 and PS4 Look Like
• 10 Awesome Foreign Airports That Mike Ours Look Awful

Click "more" to view the rest of the list.

Wall Street is getting back into the alternative energy business. The WSJ reports Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have invested $100 million each to finance separate wind farms this month, taking advantage of the Obama administration's $3 billion grant program for renewables. 

The program is a move in the right direction, but ultimately a drop in the bucket that's needed to take renewable energy mainstream, says Gordon Johnson, head of alternative energy research at Hapoalim Securities. "Three billion is not enough for just one sector."

Ultimately the cost of alternative energy -- such as solar panels -- must come down significantly before more consumers let go of fossil fuel-generated energy. (It now costs about $17,000 to install solar panels on a single-family home.) That's why Johnson thinks competition from low-cost manufacturers in China is a good development for the solar sector.

A recent, negative setback for renewables: Caps to Germany's Feed-in Tariff or FIT incentives, which have fueled solar growth in Germany, one of the world's largest solar energy markets. FIT incentives require utilities to pay a set price for solar energy, subsequently making it more attractive for businesses to make green investments. (For now, FIT incentives are not a huge part of America's energy policy.) 

Because of high costs associated with solar power, Johnson says wind energy may be the smarter alternative energy play at the moment. 

Bigger picture though, it's America's aging infrastructure -- decades-old transmission lines -- that may derail our alternative energy growth, Johnson notes. That's a key reason why oil man T. Boone Pickens' wind farm project was derailed.

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While investors have been warming to stocks this summer, the solar sector has gone cold. Gordon Johnson, head of alternative energy research with Hapoalim Securities, says there's good reason to be skeptical.

Jim Cramer thinks FirstSolar is the top choice in the group; Johnson respectively disagrees. Johnson has a 'sell' rating on the stock with a $90 price target. First Solar "has a great management I just think it's overvalued right now and I think the street is a bit aggressive on the EPS estimate," he says. The price advantage that allowed for First Solar's wider margins is shrinking because "polysilicon prices have collapsed," according to Johnson. Plus, that polysilicon material it uses isn't as efficient as the competing photovoltaic crystalline.

And potentially more troubling, is what might be classified as questionable accounting. It's a story Johnson and Barron's have highlighted. The June quarter earnings were bolstered by what Barron's dubbed, "accounting help." Senior Editor Bill Alpert wrote in an August 17th article:

"After banks lent money to the project -- a 53-megawatt solar farm southeast of Berlin -- First Solar gave up its right to convert its own investment into an equity stake, and then decided to recognize sales and profits on the solar panels it supplied the project."

Johnson calls it "false demand" and says the move was contrary to what First Solar originally claimed. Johnson notes that on the first-quarter conference call the company said, "they would not recognize revenue until we find an equity investor." They obviously changed their mind.

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Gordon Johnson, head of alternative energy research at Hapoalim Securities, says the group is lagging, and will continue to struggle into 2010, for several reasons:

• Big government subsidies in China, Spain (since ratcheted down) and the U.S. (just getting started) led to massive overinvestment in the space.
• Polysilicon manufacturers are still profitable even though prices have cratered in the past year, leading to yet more supply and disappointing results for many solar names.
• Natural gas prices have plummeted to a 7-year low and solar demand is more closely correlated to natural gas prices vs. oil, which itself is still about 50% below last year's peak despite a significant rally this spring.

Johnson has been bearish on solar stocks for much of the year and remains negative on most of the big names in the space, as we discuss in greater detail in a forthcoming segment.

Rice paints a "pretty dire picture" of the whole alternative energy industry, with the possible exception of wind, based on the following:

• Global warming patterns have reversed in the past decade, Rice says, citing studies by meteorologist Dr. Judah Cohen, whom BlackRock has on retainer. Ten years is microscopic in geological terms but "you'd better hope global warming is caused by man-made [carbon dioxide] if you're investing in these sectors," he says. "I think that's a huge risk based on some of the evidence that's been coming out."
• Alternative energies are not economical without major government subsidies or a large enough carbon tax. The cap and trade legislation currently being debated is "not enough to do anything," Rice says. "All it does is provide Obama a pass to Copenhagen" where the U.N. is hosting a climate change conference in December.

More government subsidies for alternative energy could be forthcoming but...

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