In 40,000 years, after the last of the Himalayas have disappeared under the Indian Ocean, and future generations with webbed feet and gills rule the world from their outposts on rusted-out oil platforms, the memory of corn will have long been forgotten. Perhaps it will survive as a chapter in some elementary school history book - "The Cult of Corn," or possibly "Corn: God of the Ancients" - though it's doubtful anyone will understand our close, personal relationship with the cereal grain. I certainly don't. What's interesting about our addiction to corn are the steps government bodies have taken to maintain corn prices at artificially low levels. And there are several examples. The Corn Laws, enacted in Britain in the 1840s, sought to keep grain prices at extremely low levels to protect British farmers from cheaper imports. The tariffs resulted in both the collapse of British agriculture and the founding of The Economist. Tariffs on the import of refined sugar were aimed at protecting a burgeoning sector of the U.S. corn production industry - high fructose corn syrup, a form of sugar made from corn. This tariff, while crippling agriculture production in developing countries, has succeeded primarily in making Americans fat. With the average American now consuming roughly 42 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup annually, and with per capita production up 4,000 percent since 1973, the average American now consumes an additional 75,281 calories per year. But in the future this shouldn't be a problem, because the Renewable Fuels Mandate has succeeded primarily in raising food prices and cutting down on the amount of corn moving in to direct and indirect food consumption. The new corn tariff, which is what the RFM is, has raised prices for animal feed and, therefore, animal products sold in super markets, resulting in a short to medium term 10 percent increase in food prices. The long term effects of this may be even more drastic. Other advances are possible. There's an open debate now about what else the government can do to keep corn prices artificially low while attempting to solve some ongoing macroeconomic problems. One solution is to "Make mortgages out of corn. Turn what is plentiful into what is scarce." The credit crunch roiling international markets can easily be solved by transforming corn into mortgages, which "can be 'offset' by employing other corn products as corbon-offset and corn price deflators." In other words, with the right mix of wrong-headed government subsidies and continued reliance on an agricultural commodity that has no business outside of Oaxaca, we can make the banks start trusting each other again. Basing the overnight Fed rate on corn production would spur an increase in lending, while decreasing the amount of production devoted to making Americans fat. Ultimately, we believe, along with Long or Short Capital, the optimal strategy is to go "long corn, long real estate and long any problem which can be solved by corn, which as far as we can determine is EVERY problem." Because anything else but a corn-based economy would be untrue to the primary goal - making farmers rich.

The troubled times continue for Hoku Scientific. On May 12, Hoku filed an S-3 with the SEC notifying investors that it intends to raise $110 million through a mixed stock offering. The reason? The $185 million loan financing deal the company signed with Merrill Lynch in December 2007 has fallen through. As part of the deal, Merrill Lynch told Hoku they had to raise $35 million in contingent financing. However, Hoku's only been able to pocket $25 million - a sum they picked up in a one-time deal that saw Suntech Power take an 11.7 percent stake in the would-be poly manufacturer. The Suntech deal happened in early March, which means Hoku's been high and dry in the financing world for the last two months. But Dustin Shindo & Co. aren't without their share of enablers. Projected costs for the 3,500 metric ton plant in Pocatello, ID, are coming in at $390 million, according to the S-3 filing. Hoku's planning to use $240 million in customer prepayments, in addition to about $40 million the company has lying around in unmarked twenties. Steadfast friends Suntech Power and Solarfun have extended the company's financing deadlines from May 31 to Dec. 31. However, both companies, in addition to Sanyo Electric, have extended their financing deadlines a number of times. And, with these new extended deadlines, come a new set of lowered expectations. Both companies have lowered their financing requirements to $75 million, down from the original $100 million. One of Hoku's biggest challenges will be completing the pilot plant at Pocatello by October 2008. The pilot plant is expected to cost $112 million - part of this will come from money raised from Suntech, part from a previously committed $29 million, and the rest from the first $55 million tranch of its $110 stock offering. If that ever happens. Hoku's plant is a high risk endeavor - if it fails the company's going to be in big, big trouble. Right now the only thing keeping Hoku afloat are PV and electricity sales, mostly in its native Hawaii. It recently penned a deal with the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission for a 218 kW system. Still, it's failure to cut it in the fuel cell game, and pretty lame attempt at switching over to PV and poly fail to inspire confidence. The company posted an earnings loss in the fiscal year ending Mar. 31, 2008 of $4.3 million - compared with a $2.8 million loss in the previous, while its revenue took a long jump off a short pier, falling to $621,000 from $1.1 million. It's uncertain what kind of end is in site for Hoku. The company's S-3 said "we expect our costs to increase significantly, which will result in further losses before we can begin to generate significant revenue from our Hoku Materials and Hoku Solar divisions. If we are unable to generate signficant revenue and achieve profitability, we will not be able to sustain our operations." In other words, its got to bring this plant online in a quick and orderly manner. Hampering that will be a growing shortage in tricholorsilane, a key input in the poly production process. Good thing Suntech's stepped in to help Hoku snag some of that rare TCS - without it the plant may very well be done, despite the fact the company's committed to building it's own TCS capacity. A tight silane market and rising costs - Air Liquide and Praxair recently raised their prices 20-30 percent - are among the factors contributing to Hoku's ongoing problems. Without it, though, Hoku's planned 2009 production ramp may be in jeopardy.

Tesla Motors has a couple of problems looming on the horizon. First, the EV company is involved in a handful of legal actions involving IP theft and broken contracts. In February, Magna Powertrain sued Tesla for breach of contract, alleging the EV company failed to pay it for design and engineering work it perform on Tesla's always problematic transmission drivetrain. Tesla sued Fisker Automotive in April, alleging the Other EV Sports Car Company stole some of its engineering designs and used those plans to build its own EV roadster. Earlier this week Fisker filed a motion to remove the case to arbitration in Orange County, arguing the design contract between Henrik Fisker and Tesla contained an arbitration clause barring private rights of action. But this is the U.S., and companies suing the pants off each other is nothing unusual. Tesla's real problem is that its production ramp is about as lame as my family's old dog with leukemia and Addison's disease. After two months of production, the company has only managed to fully complete five cars. Six and seven are in the pipeline, though company predicts a full ramp up by November, two months after its proprietary drivetrain gets delivered. That is, of course, if its able to figure out that pesky Magna lawsuit. So much for a car a week. The problem here is that mass production of such a technically complex vehicle is pretty ambitious - maybe too ambitious, and also incredibly expensive. Especially when you're relying on third-party components, as Tesla is, and definitely when it looks like you might be running out of cash. Did somebody say IPO? With all this mess, what is a girl to do? Tesla's decided to take a page out of the Magnificent Seven playbook and hire itself a mercenary in the form of Larry Sonsini, chairman of the legendary Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Tesla appointed Sonsini, whose particular skill set involves taking companies public, to its board of directors this week. Tesla chairman Elon Musk said "Larry Sonsini has played a role in building and advising some of the most successful companies in existence today. His guidance will be invaluable." What guidance is that? Most likely one that extricates Tesla from their nasty legal problems, and probably one that guides the beleaguered, over-hyped EV company onto the public markets. Either way, Sonsini's appointment may mean Tesla's gearing up for an old-fashioned Sand Hill showdown. Best hide the women and children.

Applied Materials has appointed Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers to its board of directors. Applied is one of a handful of dominant PV production equipment manufacturers, though it only entered that market about two years ago. It's devoted a ton of resources recently with the aim of beating out Oerlikon for market share in the thin film production equipment industry. So, what's the dealio, yo? One clue is Duke's recent plan to invest $100 million in solar power. North Carolina's RPS requires utilities to hit a 12.5 percent target by 2012. Duke, which is one of the largest utilities in North Carolina (and the U.S. - 4 million customers with 36,000 MW of good ole' American coal power), has got a pretty large portfolio to fill. Rogers's plan involves acting like a PPA provider, building and operating solar capacity on commercial and residential rooftops, selling it to consumers and buying back the excess. But thin film is an interesting choice. By way of comparison, the 40 MW plant going up in Germany right now will cost $170 million and use about 550,000 panels from First Solar. The project's size is in excess of one million square meters. Big though it may be, 40 MW doesn't really knock it out of the park. Could Rogers's appointment be based only on his love/hate relationship with renewables, or maybe something a little more mutually beneficial. Applied could be using Rogers to build up their connections in the utility world - a place Rogers knows like the back of his (it is, actually, the back of his hand) - as a way of gaining customers building utility-scale projects. Contracts on the big projects would certainly put a dent in Oerlikon's plan for world domination. Rogers, in turn, could use the board seat to clean up Duke's image and grease a few thin film palms looking for good deals on fab equipment.

The IPO market for greentech companies has always been a little spotty. Between 2005 and 2007, only five greentech companies listed on the NASDAQ, "raising an average of $77 million each and reaching average post-IPO valuations of $245 million." First Solar, which raised $400 million in its 2006 IPO, has so far been the great success story in greentech exits. With American VCs literally killing each other to fund greentech companies, investing $3.43 billion in the first three quarters of 2007 - up roughly 50 percent in 2006, the nagging question of how far the tide can rise before it lifts all the boats remains. How will VCs, who typically expect a 10x return over a five to seven year investment horizon, squeeze $34.3 billion out of a relatively tight exit market? Will there be a killer amp? Will there be a greentech Google? The answer is a little murkier that many have expected. A primary difference between greentech and, say, the web or telecom, is that with greentech we've got a defined endpoint: to disrupt and revolutionize the global energy infrastructure. Simple, huh? The company or companies or sector that wins out and becomes the Next Big Thing will need to build products that are easily integrated and accessible, satisfy demand in a major market, and can get by without requiring a vast restructuring of policy-backed incentives, subsidies, or consumer habits. In short, the Next Big Thing might not be what we need. Instead, we may need to look for The Silent Killer. Who among you aspires to rise to the level of heart disease, radon, or cooties? The hope is that all of the big deals announced in the recent past, including Heliovolt's $101 million, Project Better Place's $230 million, and the $250 million+ raised by perennial favorite Bloom Energy over the past years, will come to fruition this year. Surely IPOs from any of these companies will generate investor interest, big returns, and more than a few new Ferraris in the Valley. In fact, the NVCA and PricewaterhouseCooper have gone out on a limb, naming 2008 the year "cleantech comes of age." But do these companies satisfy all of our Silent Killer criteria? Not quite.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed into law one of the nation's most comprehensive energy bills this week. The bill also received significant support in Florida's House, passing with a 117-0 margin, and the Senate, where a lone dissenter changed his vote at the last minute, inching up the vote count to 40-0. Despite this outpouring of legislative affection, which came about only after more than two years of infighting and millions of lobbying dollars, some groups in the state are only now girding for battle. Yesterday a group of "Solar Energy Companies Growing in Florida" sent Gov. Crist an open letter (pdf) urging him to adopt a feed-in tariff for the state. The energy bill creates a mandate for the Florida Public Service Commission to issue and enforce a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for utilities. An RPS would require utilities to generate a certain percentage of their electricity from renewables or efficiency programs, and would be backed up by a Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) trading program. REC programs are technology agnostic, merely providing the seller with a cash payment per MWh of renewable energy generated. Buyers, typically utilities, accrue RECs as a means of meeting their RPS requirements. The pricing structure for RECs fluctuates depending on the type of renewable energy used, supply volume, demand constraints, etc. In the second half of 2007 (pdf), the cumulative weighted average price in New Jersey ranged from $197.90/MWh in August to $233.89/MWh in November. Depending on how you look at it, RECs have two critical problems.

Shell's decision Wednesday night to drop out of the proposed London Array has created a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of unanswered questions. The oil giant pulled its 33 percent stake in what would have been - and may well still be - the world's largest offshore wind project, saying only that the decision was part of an "ongoing review of projects and investment choices." Shell's stake in the $4 billion, 1GW wind project will be diverted into development of the Canadian tar sands, which have become a better looking investment given Shell's recent forecast that "if oil prices remain at $100 per barrel, we expect 2008 reported production to be broadly flat compared with 2007." Tar sands development makes sense if the price of oil remains high, which will likely happen as easily-recoverable reserves dry up and development and delivery of high CAPEX deposits becomes the norm. These high-risk projects have other costs too, however. But who's really at fault for the crash-and-burn at the London Array? The investor group, made up of Shell, E.On, and Dong Energy, recently entered the project tendering phase for assignment of major construction contracts. Shell, who is alone among the group in having a lucrative way out, probably looked at the cost projections from steel and cement suppliers and turbine makers, threw up a little in its mouth, and promptly left the room. But why would a company that made $8 billion in profits during the first quarter (thats about $4 million an hour) balk at these kind of expenses