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Today, Secretary Steven Chu announced that the Department of Energy has closed on its loan offer of $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Company to transform factories across Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio to produce more fuel efficient models. The loan is part of the Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which supports the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies to create thousands of clean energy jobs while helping reduce the nation's dangerous dependence on foreign oil. The loan for Ford Motor Company is the first to be finalized since the program was appropriated in the fall of 2008. This announcement builds on steps taken by the Obama Administration earlier this week to require an average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon in the year 2016. That standard will reduce oil consumption by an estimated 1.8 billion barrels, prevent greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 950 million metric tons, and save consumers more than $3,000 in fuel costs. The funding announced today will help Ford meet those targets.

-Amory Lovins, a renowned author and big thinker on energy, specializes in making the impossible real. His 4,000-square-foot Colorado home has no furnace, uses a few dollars' worth of electricity a month, and features an indoor tropical garden with banana trees and papaya plants. In conversation, he's quick to pull out his iPhone to show a car prototype inspired by the Hypercar, which is three to five times more efficient than conventional cars. He's the chief scientist and co-founder of nonprofit advisory firm Rocky Mountain Institute, which develops environmentally friendly solutions using business as a lever. Among the organizations it advises are Ford Motor, Wal-Mart, and the Pentagon.

The American auto industry is running on fumes. General Motors, the nation's largest automaker, warned Friday that it may run out of money by the end of the year after piling up billions in third-quarter losses and burning through cash at an alarming rate. Ford sustained heavy losses, too. The situation is so severe, GM has suspended talks to acquire Chrysler and is appealing to the government for help as the slumping economy drags cars sales to their lowest level in a quarter century.