Last month, GE broke ground on two factories in Huntsville, Alabama that will produce CMC materials. MORE

The unit train pulled out of Aurora heading to Birmingham, Alabama where the ethanol will be blended in gasoline to enhance octane. Aventine Renewable Energy Inc., a leading producer, marketer and supplier of ethanol, announced its first BNSF unit-train shipment of ethanol produced at its two ethanol facilities in Aurora, Nebraska. A BNSF ethanol unit train may consist of 96 ethanol tank cars, 2 buffer cars (62' in length) and 4 BNSF locomotives (75' in length). MORE

Southern Company: Alabama Power. Southern Company: Alabama Power. Southern Company and its electric-generating traditional operating companies—Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, and Mississippi Power—have been and will continue to be leaders in the advancement and promotion of the electric transportation market. MORE

New Flyer of America Inc, the largest transit bus and motor coach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America, will invest $25 million in major building renovations and expansions at its Anniston, Alabama production campus. The investment adds fabrication equipment that enhances component manufacturing, streamlines the weld process, expands the operational footprint, and adds capacity and an innovation center for zero-emission bus production. MORE

The Ohio State University in collaboration with the University of Alabama and Green Biologics. The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) has selected seven projects to receive up to $10 million to support innovative technologies and solutions to help advance the development of advanced biofuels, including bugaboo and drop-in hydrocarbons. MORE

The demonstration project calls for the capture and compression of CO 2 from the flue gas of a coal-fired plant by a CO 2 capture facility built at Southern Company’s Plant Barry in Alabama, and its sequestration in a saline formation at a depth of 3,000-3,400 meters in the Citronelle Dome geologic structure, approximately 12 miles west from the plant. A carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) demonstration project jointly under way by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. MORE

It will be a case of ’sweet home Alabama’ for Yang Rong, a Chinese automobile tycoon who is preparing to launch a plan to make clean-tech cars in the United States. Yang is likely to co-operate with the Alabama state government on the project which is expected to create thousands of jobs in its initial phase, according to the source. There has been no comment from Alabama economic development officials. MORE

MBUSI) has purchased 72 Plug Power GenDrive hydrogen fuel cell units to operate its Hyster electric lift truck fleet in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Mercedes-Benz US International, Inc. The GenDrive fuel cells will power a portion of the automotive plant’s lift truck fleet. The GenDrive units will replace lead-acid batteries, which require space-consuming charging areas and an expensive maintenance infrastructure. MORE

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama, Inc. TMMAL), an engine-production subsidiary of Japan-based Toyota Motor. Corporation (TMC), held a line-off ceremony to mark the beginning of. four-cylinder engine production. The 10-year old plant now has the capacity to produce approximately 216,000 4-cylinder engines, 146,000 V6 engines, and 144,000 V8 engines per year. TMMAL-produced 2.5-liter and 2.7-liter four-cylinder engines will go into the all-new. 2012 Camry, Highlander, Sienna and Venza. MORE

in Alabama. The trucks will be dedicated to routes moving automobiles from Honda’s Lincoln, Alabama factory to a new CSX rail facility. Mainstay Fuel Technologies, Inc. MORE

Alabama and Mississippi are forming a partnership to further study the oil sands resources in the two states, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant announced on Saturday while speaking to the Southern States Energy Board. MORE

Alabama Graphite Corp. AGC) reported positive electrochemical results from downstream lithium-ion battery tests recently performed on its silicon-oxide-enhanced coated spherical purified graphite ("Si-CSPG") produced from the AGC’s ultra-high-purity 99.999 wt% C natural flake graphite. MORE

The University of Oregon, along with The University of Alabama, DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Protonex Technology Corporation, will develop and test promising new materials for hydrogen storage. The US Department of Energy is awarding more than $7 million to fund four 3-year projects in California, Washington and Oregon to advance hydrogen storage technologies to be used in fuel-cell-electric vehicles. MORE

Green cars Latest news Mercedes Nissan Alabama four-cylinder engines Mercedes-Benz Renault Twingo Renault-Nissan Alliance smart TennesseeThe Renault-Nissan Alliance has furthered its alliance with German carmaker Daimler after agreeing to manufacture Mercedes-Benz four-cylinder petrol engines at its Decherd, Tennessee, assembly plant. Its engines will be used for both Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz models with production to start in 2014. MORE

The infield flowlines will be welded at the Group’s spoolbase in Mobile, Alabama. BP Exploration & Production Inc. awarded Technip a lump sum project for the design, engineering, fabrication, installation and pre-commissioning of the new production pipeline systems on the south side of the Thunder Horse production drilling quarters unit. MORE

A new high-level white-paper from clean transportation industry group CALSTART shows that US companies that develop and manufacture high-efficiency, low-carbon technologies for heavy-duty vehicles are ready to support more efficient trucks and buses. MORE

million acres on the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The sale encompassed 134 whole or partial unleased blocks covering approximately 465,200 acres 125 miles south of eastern Alabama and western Florida. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the latest oil and gas lease sales for federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico garnered $872,143,771 million in high bids on 329 tracts covering 1,707,358 acres. MORE

The Nikkei reports that Nippon Steel and ArcelorMittal will jointly acquire a ThyssenKrupp automotive steel sheet plant in Alabama for approximately ¥200 billion (US$1.95 ThyssenKrupp invested US$5 billion in its Calvert, Alabama complex: $3.6 By acquiring the state-of-the-art Alabama facility, at a relatively low price, Nippon Steel and ArcelorMittal will boost overall US capacity to 4.2 MORE

With the recent approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Eesti Energia (internationally known as Enefit) of Estonia has purchased a 100% interest in Oil Shale Exploration Company ( OSEC ) of Alabama, which has significant oil shale interests in Utah. MORE

Seventy million of those gallons were to come from an Alabama company called Cello Energy, but Cello has now been found guilty in a Federal court of civil fraud for lying to a major investor about its ability to make ethanol from grass and other woody, non-food materials. Tags: Biofuels Green cars Latest news Alabama Cello Energy cellulosic ethanol EPA MORE

Still, I made it from New York''s cold, snowy Hudson Valley into the warm, humid climes of Alabama in my first three days--as I wrote about yesterday. A cross-country road trip in a Tesla Model S electric car requires a fair amount of forward planning and contingency research. Then, waking up on Day Four, I had a stroke of unexpected luck. DAY 4 MORE

Precision Partners is headquartered in Ontario, and employs more than 1,000 employees, including about 300 engineers and skilled tool makers, across eight plants in Ontario, Alabama and Kentucky. AK Steel signed an agreement to acquire Precision Partners Holding Company, a leading North American automotive market company that provides engineering, tooling, die design and hot and cold stamped steel parts, for $360 million in cash. MORE

Field testing the potential for combining geologic carbon dioxide storage with enhanced methane recovery is underway at a site in Alabama by a US Department of Energy (DOE) team of regional partners. Southern Company, El Paso Exploration & Production, the Geological Survey of Alabama, and the University of Alabama are all participating in the field test, known as the Black Warrior CO 2 Storage Project. MORE

Carbon dioxide injection—an important part of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology—is underway as part of a pilot study of CO 2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Citronelle Field of Mobile County, Alabama. A project team led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham is conducting the injection. Project performers include the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Birmingham, Ala); Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Normal, Ala.); MORE

Los Angeles-based start-up, Hybrid Kinetic Motors (HK Motors) has announced plans to construct a new green-vehicle manufacturing plant in Baldwin County, Alabama in the US. HK Motors Chairman, Yung Benjamin Yeung cited the strength of Alabama’s economy and the quality of its workforce as the main reasons for the board’s decision to locate its primary manufacturing operations in Alabama. Tags: Green credentials Alabama green hybrid kinetic motors MORE

The new 2015 Hyundai Sonata will be built at the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama plant in Montgomery, Ala. 2015 Sonata 2.0T Click to enlarge. Hyundai introduced its seventh-generation 2015 Sonata mid-size sedan at the New York International Auto Show. The new generation offers a more refined look through a new Fluidic Sculpture 2.0 design language, stiffer body structure, better ride quality, reduced noise, vibration and harshness and advanced safety and convenience features. MORE

Mercedes-Benz was the first major automaker to open a passenger car facility in Alabama. Mercedes-Benz will invest $1.3 billion to expand SUV production in the US and turn the Mercedes-Benz plant Tuscaloosa into a high-tech location. The Mercedes-Benz plant Tuscaloosa will also assemble the next SUV generations including the hybrid versions. The plant expansion includes a new Body Shop, major enhancements to the SUV Assembly Shop as well as upgraded logistics and IT systems. MORE

Spacing to be filled in. when time permits. However, one can "No Kidding" April Fool's Day do a GOOGLE on the following: Jerry Asher Plug-ins. and be amazed as EVJerry was! Way beyond expectation! Next time I'll endeavor to listen more closely to PHEV3A Co-Chair, Joe Lado. More to follow. Spirit" & EVJerry MORE

The expansion will allow Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Inc. Toyota will invest approximately $80 million its Huntsville, Ala. engine facility to increase North American production of V6 engines. The investment will bring total plant investment to more than $700 million. TMMAL) to build an additional 216,000 engines each year, boosting total V6 annual capacity to 362,000. A new 300,000 sq. building will be constructed. The increased production will begin in March 2014. MORE

150-million investment in Huntsville, Alabama plant. Toyota is embarking on a multi-year plan to realign its manufacturing operations in North America in support of the Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) ( earlier post ), a comprehensive approach to achieving sustainable growth by making ever-better vehicles more efficiently. Toyota also announced an expansion of its joint venture plant, Guangzhou Toyota Motor Co., GTMC), in China (one of Toyota’s three assembly plants in China). MORE

After starting in Portland, Oregon on December 26, the team drove down the West Coast, before cutting across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama Well, they made it! Tesla Model S-driving trio Peter Soukup, Tina Thomas and Luba Roytburd successfully arrived in New York City after almost five thousand miles of driving coast-to-coast. MORE

In order to accommodate these new model introductions and high demand for light truck products in North America, production of large-sized SUVs which have been concentrated at the plant in Alabama will be expanded to another plant. MORE

Managed by the Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), the site characterization well drilling projects occurred in the resource-rich Black Warrior Basin in northwest Alabama; the Newark Basin, underlying a heavily industrialized region in parts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and the Rock Springs Uplift in southwestern Wyoming, in proximity to some of the state’s largest sources of CO2 emissions. MORE

The University of Alabama. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding nearly $55 million for 24 projects to develop and deploy advanced vehicle technologies, supporting the Energy Department’s EV Everywhere Grand Challenge to make plug-in electric vehicles as affordable to own and operate as today’s gasoline-powered vehicles by 2022. Through the Advanced Vehicle Power Technology Alliance with the Energy Department, the Department of the Army is contributing an additional $2.26 MORE

Fleets in the following states are welcome to submit proposals: Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi and Washington DC. The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME) and Virginia Clean Cities (VCC) at James Madison University (JMU) are requesting proposals from fleets in the southeastern US interested in converting eligible gasoline vehicles to run on propane autogas. MORE

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of Alabama (UA) researchers working within the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Chemical Hydrogen Storage Center of Excellence have demonstrated a new single-stage method for recharging the hydrogen storage compound ammonia borane (H 3 N-BH 3 , AB). Ideal overall reaction scheme for AB (H 3 NBH 3 ) regeneration from PB (“BNH”) with hydrazine (N 2 H 4 ). Sutton et al. 1428 Click to enlarge. MORE

will soon start producing electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries, initially at its Daikin America plant in Alabama, and begin selling them in January. The Alabama plant will have an annual production capacity of around 2,000 tons. Nikkei. Japan-based Daikin Industries Ltd. Daikin says its product can be charged at higher voltages than conventional electrolytes, helping to lift battery capacity by 20%. MORE

This important step came after ArborGen’s extensive field testing of the trees produced from tissue cultures in Merkle's lab in Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. Researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) have crossed American sweetgums with their Chinese cousins, creating hybrid sweetgum trees that have a better growth rate and denser wood than natives, and can produce fiber year-round. MORE

The trucks will be deployed in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio and Texas later this year. UPS announced an update to 125 Workhorse E-GEN series hybrid electric delivery trucks that improve fuel economy as part of the company’s broader Rolling Laboratory approach. MORE

First introduced in 2007, and built on the same Alabama production line that also assembles A seven-passenger full-size sport utility vehicle that weighs roughly three tons is rarely anyone’s idea of a green vehicle, but the 2011 Mercedes-Benz GL Class gets the nod when it’s fitted with the company’s Bluetec clean-diesel engine. MORE

A pipeline rupture in Alabama has led to fuel shortages. Fuel Gasoline oil Alabama gas stationThe term "range anxiety" is commonly associated with electric cars because of relatively short ranges for many of them, along with a lack of charging infrastructure in many regions. But at the moment, many drivers of gasoline cars in the southern U.S. may begin feeling exactly the same thing. MORE

UPS currently operates 31 CNG fueling stations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia and runs CNG vehicles in 38 states in the U.S. UPS plans to build an additional six compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling stations and add 390 new CNG tractors and terminal trucks and 50 liquefied natural gas (LNG) vehicles to its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet. MORE

The pilot-scale project use both free (soluble) sugars and biomass (cellulosic) sugars from Ceres’ sweet sorghum hybrids grown in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Tennessee. Liquid fuel and chemical production from sweet sorghum. Source: Amyris. Click to enlarge. Amyris, Inc. MORE