The timer has been reset for Detroit — precious billions to spread around for a couple months until the new administration assumes power and rolls up the sleeves for the real work on how to keep the doors open and keep building cars dreamed up by American-based companies. Detroiters across the region are sighing in relief this weekend as the Bush admin choked up the cash. It’s a metaphor for the strung out family member that gets a little extra just because it’s Christmas, a willful present. Not enough to fix the problem, but enough to make it through the cold winter’s night. The message is the same – change or go down with the antiquated ship. But the path to recovery is not so clear.

Yet, while Detroit is temporarily taken off time out, now is the time for mindful leaders to use common sense and acknowledge what needs to be done on a civic level to promote development and change within an industry. That means taking logical steps and stopping the scolding for the sake of political posturing. That means speaking up and acknowledging responsibility for government’s part in the problem. That means examining an infrastructure that is not designed for sustainable transportation in it’s planes, trains and automobiles. That means working directly with fuel companies and emerging companies capable of providing viable renewable resources That means creating hydrogen filling stations to speed up access to emissions free automobiles. That means working on a federal level with states to modify emissions laws to create a universal standard for diesel vehicles. That means concentrating on encouraging consumers to drive smaller cars and actually encourage Americans to look at new products with some kind of praise. Or do better, and build on existing research efforts at universities such as MIT and the University of Michigan that already are working with a coalition of car companies for the next big green break. That means looking at the global market and take initiatives to be a leader and not a follower of countries like Brazil and Sweden. That means changing how we think about driving and moving ourselves around.

The solution is probably a bit of all of the above. Truth is, we’re still very far off from the solution. The car companies can build it, but the infrastructure can’t sustain it and the question is unclear whether the consumer will actually dish the dough out for it. This SF Chronicle editorial passage explores some of these technological advances with stony realism.Highly hyped and subsidized hydrogen cars rely on the most impractical fuel on the planet. Beyond the estimated $2 trillion we’d need to build production infrastructure and filling stations, hydrogen is the most co-dependent atom on Earth (it just hates to be alone).

The energy needed to pry it from water, compress it into tanks and then convert it into electricity in a fuel cell wipes out 80 percent of its energy at the axle. That energy has to come from somewhere – like a coal-fired power plant. Not to mention the energy needed to truck hydrogen to filling stations. If they existed.Heavily subsidized corn ethanol generates far more carbon than it saves. Intended or not, almost all biofuel production leads to new land being cleared, directly or indirectly – which (whether scrubland or rain forest) releases 93 times the volume of greenhouse gas saved by fuel from that land, according to a Nature Conservancy scientist published in the journal Science.

None of this is to suggest we can’t do better. But hydrogen cars are 80 percent energy-inefficient and 100 percent unaffordable. And biofuels cause 93 times more global warming than gasoline. Take lines like that out of context, and they sound like Ronald Reagan calling ketchup a vegetable. But such is the state of our subsidized knowledge, as of now.

While hybrids also wear a green face, it’s widely known that they just aren’t enough to reduce global warming on their own, with fuel economy numbers that are only slightly better than gasoline counterparts. No one has the solution, but it lies somewhere in the structure, in setting up a process that is not built on earning reports for every quarter, but a long term slow climb, and educating average drivers, riders, and commuters about the choices they are making, in finding a healthy balance between competition and cooperation among all carmakers. It’s about using what we do have — a strong manufacturing arm centralized in the US, with experience and knowledge on how to move the line efficiently forward. We need to support that process with the implementation of green ways that support research, sustain jobs and reach consumers. What we need is a country built on development and the pursuit of a future with clear goals built on firm humble beginnings. We need sturdy vehicles and a collective conscience, too. What we need most is patience and clear thinking.

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