Who says corporate blogs can’t be informative? Sometimes what is deemed worthy of a blog post can speak volumes about the companies publishing them.

Let’s look at two companies and their posts. Both employ a lot of U.S. autoworkers. One of them is seeking a massive bailout from the U.S. government. The other is managing OK on its own. Can you tell from their blogs which one is which?

First up is Company No. 1, which announced on its blog today a new hybrid car running on natural gas that will be displayed at the Los Angeles Auto Show this week. The car replaces a gas hybrid’s fuel system with a compressed natural-gas system, giving it a range of up to 250 miles on a fuel whose price has been much less volatile than gas.

And while Company No. 1 stresses it’s just a concept car, it’s one of many alternative fuel applications under study.

This concept vehicle is a statement that we intend to include CNG in our diverse portfolio of future alternative-fuel R&D. Our purpose in building it as a concept is to demonstrate the efficiency and adaptability of Hybrid Synergy Drive, and to demonstrate that we continue to work with a variety of power-train concepts to ensure that we have products that meet the current and future needs of our customers on a global basis.

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J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Blansett created some buzz in the solar sector Monday with a note urging investors to make a “flight to safety” — noting that companies will have to weather “reduced solar subsidies next year, higher solar system borrowing costs and increasing competition at all levels of the solar PV food chain.”

Those factors, combined together, could damage the weaker players in the industry.

And investors, having stomached several months of volatility — most of it downward — are surely craving some safety. Just this week, MEMC cut its own forecast for this quarter. The solar-wafer manufacturer expects $500 million in revenue (down from $570 million) and its gross profit to be 48 percent of profit (down from 50 percent).

MEMC’s darker forecast follows another one that made even bigger waves last week: JA Solar (JASO), whose executives weren’t content with slashing its own guidance but went a big step further and used a word that can trigger a cascade of sell orders: “At this moment the market reaction has been panic,” JA’s CEO Samuel Yang said.

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Coskata has a pretty sweet deal in its grasp, if it can work out the details with a Florida sugar producer. This morning, U.S. Sugar Corp. and the cellulosic ethanol startup say they have entered into an agreement to look into building a 100 million gallon per year cellulosic ethanol facility in Clewiston, Fla., that will convert leftover sugar cane into ethanol. U.S. Sugar has been in the process of selling much of its land in the Everglades to the state of Florida so that it can be restored, and Florida Governor Charlie Crist has also endorsed building ethanol plants on the land as a way to keep jobs in the area.

Coskata and U.S. Sugar have been negotiating a potential deal for a $400-450 million ethanol plant for several months, but they’ve been waiting for the state to work out the contract for purchasing the land from US Sugar. Last week, U.S. Sugar said negotiations with the state concluded in a deal under which U.S. Sugar would sell 181,000 acres that it owns for $1.34 billion to Florida but retain ownership of the sugar mill, refinery and citrus processing facilities, railroads, office buildings and equipment. That deal still needs to be approved by the boards.

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“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” seems to be the place to be if you want to pitch your grand energy idea. Author and energy technology evangelist Thomas Friedman was the guest on Tuesday, and last night T. Boone Pickens pitched his Pickens Plan on the show. Stewart opened last night’s show saying, “Thomas Friedman last night talking about the green revolution; T. Boone Pickens on tonight to tell us how we’re going to pay for it. Very exciting, this new energy revolution we’re about to have.”

Octogenarian Texans aren’t regulars on “The Daily Show,” but Pickens seemed to win over the audience, or at least Stewart, with his plan to switch America’s trucks to run on natural gas. Pickens explained: “When people talk about ‘We’re going to go to the electric car,’ I love it. But remember, they said car, not truck. A battery won’t move an 18-wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18-wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline — and our domestic natural gas. There’s where the fuel needs to go.” It only took Pickens six minutes to have Stewart standing, saluting and shouting at him, “Sir, reporting for duty!” in support of his plan. The Pickens Army likely picked up some new recruits following the Comedy Central appearance.

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The Department of Defense is funding both sides of a new battle, not one between countries, but between battery technologies — lithium ion and lead acid. This week the department announced investments aimed at the development of automotive batteries that employ both technologies: $2.4 million to International Battery for lithium-ion batteries that can be swapped in for lead-acid batteries by soldiers in the field, and $2 million to Firefly Energy for lightweight lead-acid batteries made with carbon foam.

International Battery is designing its Lithium Ion 6TLi Battery to be the same size as currently deployed lead-acid batteries so that soldiers can swap them out on location. The Oakland, N.J.-based company says its battery has four times the energy, half the weight, a significantly longer life and enhanced combat readiness as compared to the current lead-acid battery systems.

Meanwhile, Firefly Energy is using carbon foam to make more lightweight lead-acid batteries for use in military and commercial trucks. The batteries are for the military’s “Silent Watch” program, which allows reconnaissance vehicles to turn off their noisy engines and instead power sensor and communication arrays silently with on-board batteries. This is the fourth time the DoD has provided funds to Firefly, bringing the total received $12.75 million.

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In addition to receiving an infusion of cash through its merger with Winrock International, the Environmental Resources Trust’s Greenhouse Gas Registry also got a name change: It is now the American Carbon Registry. But the folks with the money at Winrock are doing more than just thinking about what the world’s first carbon registry should be called; they have helped the registry compile the detailed new guidance documents it’s rolling out today.

According to American Carbon Registry Founder and Nobel Prize winner Wiley Barbour, the hope is that this will position the registry for success when the federal government institutes national cap-and-trade legislation for carbon. Barbour says private registries with a history of quality offsets and a transparent registration process based on solid guidelines may be able to get offsets through the federal compliance process more quickly. A federal system could create a huge market — in the range of hundreds of millions — for quality offsets, according to Barbour.

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One of the unintended but still entertaining side effects of deflated market caps is the corporate catfight.

As of yesterday, we have a promising one being performed in the energy sector: After a few weeks of gentle pawing at smaller rival NRG Energy, industry giant Exelon has gone hostile. NRG rebuffed the $6.1 billion tender offer Exelon made last month, so Exelon CEO John Rowe responded with a polite letter that ended on an unvarnished threat:

We are fully prepared to negotiate with the new board following the 2009 NRG annual meeting of shareholders.

That’s corporate-speak for: It’s on.

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James Bond might want to pay attention to the new hybrid vehicle technology Freescale Semiconductor announced today: a regenerative braking system that will use a special “boost button” to release the recovered kinetic energy for “a burst of extra power.” The regenerative braking system, which collects kinetic energy during braking and stores it to give the car extra oomph during acceleration, is being developed in collaboration with McLaren Electronic Systems for Formula 1 race cars in 2010.

The Freescale/MES system wouldn’t work exactly like the boring regen system in your Prius. Regenerative systems in passenger vehicles collect kinetic energy during braking and store it for use in regular acceleration. Freescale and MES have more of a Batmobile/Knight Rider approach to using that banked energy. According to the press release: “The stored kinetic power is released using a “boost” button that delivers a burst of extra power to the car for a short period — for example, while overtaking a competitor or defending a position.” A sort of cleantechy afterburner, if you will.

Freescale says the main goal of the project is to increase the car’s fuel efficiency, which would mean fewer pit stops. The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile’s (FIA), the governing body of world motorsports, has committed to greening motorspots, an effort that has also brought innovations from tire makers and biofuel brewers. It’s a truism in the auto world that many innovations, from biofuels to efficiency to crash safety, are trialed on the race track before becoming part of everyday driving, and this initiative is no exception. According to the companies, this Bond-esque technology will lead to smaller, lighter and more efficient hybrid systems in mainstream vehicles.

Image courtesy of FIA.

America’s corn-ethanol companies are tired of being kicked around. Maligned for using corn as fuel while the world goes hungry, beaten down in the financial markets, threatened by falling gas prices — now, they are fighting back.

How? By forming a “moral purpose organization.”

That’s how Jeff Broin, CEO of ethanol producer POET, described a new trade organization called Growth Energy to the Des Moines Register. Growth Energy is lashing out against critics of corn ethanol by buying ad space in the New York Times and issuing “policy briefs” (bulky pdf files peppered with Excel graphs).

In other words, it’s a full-on PR offensive. Which might have had some impact if public relations hadn’t been all but dashed as the ethanol industry’s problems have come to light. An aggressive PR front might have helped corn ethanol a year ago. Now the realities facing it are much more substantial, and much more daunting.

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Oerlikon Solar, born out of Oerlikon’s coating and vacuum businesses, today unveiled its newest technology, “Amorph High Performance,” which allows manufacturers using Oerlikon equipment to add a zinc oxide layer to their thin-film product, boosting efficiency by nearly a percentage point while also increasing fab capacity by 50 percent.

Oerlikon doesn’t make the actual cells, instead it sells the manufacturing equipment to customers like Ersol and Schott Solar, who then make branded solar products. Applied Materials has the same business model, and Sharp formed a joint venture with chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron to make thin-film fab lines starting in 2009. Both are competitors of Oerlikon’s.

The idea is that the equipment manufacturers will develop better thin-film solar fabrication methods, while the manufacturers use the equipment to make the product. “More and more you’re going to see an ‘Intel-inside’ approach to thin-film production,” Chris O’Brien, Oerlikon’s head of market development in North America, tells us. Just as Intel makes the chip but doesn’t sell the computer, Oerlikon makes the solar fab line but doesn’t sell the panels.

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