In the meantime, consider the possibility of the BMW i3 becoming the basis for the rumored "Apple Car," see how Illinois is looking to stop drivers from blocking electric-car charging stations, the. We've been out driving most of this week, and consequently are down a couple of stories today, but we'll be back at full steam from here on out. MORE

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and representatives from the Illinois Tollway, 350Green LLC and 7-Eleven, Inc. 7-Eleven convenience stores at four of the Illinois Tollway Oases now have dedicated space for fast-charging stations. The Chicago-Area EV Infrastructure Project is funded in part by the state’s Illinois Jobs Now! The project is one of several initiatives now underway in Illinois to promote the adoption and use of electric vehicles. The Illinois Jobs Now! MORE

So when a journalist in Carmi, Illinois spotted a Second Circuit Judge charging his electric car at Wayne County Courthouse, they ran a story claiming Second Circuit Associate Judge Mark Stanley For centuries, the role of Judge has carried with it a solemn duty to uphold justice, the law, and to ascertain which facts are true, and which are not. MORE

A policy analysis by two University of Illinois researchers argues that Congress should minimally modify, not repeal, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In the study, law professor Jay P. Kesan and Timothy A. MORE

Facts like this from his blog Climate Progress: The University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center — has become weary of having their data misreported by global warming deniers like Will. Greenius Blog Fires Daily Breeze Editors, Takes Over Environmental Coverage. MORE

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a new law to increase the speed limit from 65 to 70 mph (105 to 113 km/h) on rural four-lane highways, and to lower the limit by five mph for excessive speeding. The new law lowers that threshold to 26 mph over the limit to increase safety on Illinois roads. MORE

announced the successful commissioning of its first fully integrated biorefinery (IBR) in Peoria, Illinois, to produce algal oil. Solazyme, Inc. Solazyme has been running routine fermentations at commercial scale since 2007 and began running fermentation operations at the Peoria facility in Q4 2011. Solazyme uses heterotrophic microalgae—i.e., they grow in the dark (in fermenters) by consuming sugars. MORE

plug-in cars charging charging infrastructure Illinois legislationAs more public electric-car charging stations appear, they're creating a thorny etiquette issue. Charging stations may occupy parking spaces that everyone wants to use--no matter what they are driving. Sometimes, an electric car driver will pull up to a station, only to find that an internal-combustion-engined car is blocking it. Drivers call this. MORE

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a high-power and high-energy density microbattery constructed from interdigitated three-dimensional (3D) bicontinuous nanoporous electrodes. MORE

The company has manufacturing, distribution, and engineering facilities in Troy, Michigan; Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Saint-Étienne, France; Osasco, Brazil; and Pune, India. Wrightspeed Inc., MORE

That's the conundrum facing diesel-engine engineers, as summarized by Don Hillebrand, the director of energy systems research at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. "You have power, you have energy, you have emissions: You get to choose two of them." And the VW diesel emission cheating scandal shows just how tough those tradeoffs become in. emissions EPA TDI VW selective catalytic reduction (SCR) AdBlue MORE

Chemists at the University of Illinois report that the catalyst enables the selective hydrogenolysis of aromatic carbon-oxygen (C-O) bonds under mild conditions. Biofuels Green cars Latest news biomass nickel nickel catalyst science University of IllinoisA paper in the current issue of Science reveals how the development of a nickel-based homogenous catalyst could support the production of fuels and chemical feedstocks from biomass. MORE

But they don''t last forever, as buyers in Illinois and Georgia are learning; the Ilinois program has been suspended, and Georgia seems likely to kill off its program as well. Green Georgia Illinois Texas incentives plug-in cars rebates state laws tax credit State tax credits and purchase rebates have proven effective in kickstarting the early market for plug-in electric cars and other green vehicles. MORE

Illinois suspended its own rebates to close a gaping budgetary hole, and Texas may do the same. It hasn''t been a particularly good year so far for electric-car purchase incentives. As feared by advocates, last week Georgia passed a highway-funding bill that killed its $5,000 income-tax credit for purchase of a battery-electric vehicles. DON''T. Green Georgia Manufacturing Politics incentives plug-in cars state laws tax credit MORE

While they may seem like the obvious answers given their extensive green car push, the answer is actually: Illinois. That’s because Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (pictured) has announced the availability of the largest network of fast charging electric vehicle stations in the [.]. Electric cars Green cars Latest news electric cars electric vehicle chargers green cars IllinoisSo which state has the lead on electric vehicles? Perhaps California? Or Oregon? MORE

As the song says, you can "get your kicks" on Route 66--but soon you''ll also be able to get a charge. The historic highway and the towns it passes through were largely done in by the construction of the Interstate highway system, but the need to stop and charge every so often makes an electric-car road trip more suited to the slower pace of Route MORE

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) project in Decatur, Illinois, has begun operation by injecting carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into a large saline reservoir. Simon Sandstone in the Illinois Basin—one of the largest saline aquifers in the world. MORE

In a new open-access paper in Nature Communications , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers describe how their successful integration of several cutting-edge technologies—creation of standardized genetic components, implementation of customizable genome editing tools, and large-scale automation of molecular biology laboratory tasks—will enhance the ability to work with yeast. MORE

Linde has executed a new long term contract with PdV Midwest Refining LLC to supply hydrogen to the company’s CITGO Lemont, Illinois, oil refinery. The hydrogen will be produced by a new plant that Linde is building for CITGO’s production of ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel. MORE

Illinois-based Li-ion manufacturer AllCell Technologies, LLC received a $460,433 grant as part of the Illinois Energy Plan. The PCM technology spun-out from Illinois Institute of Technology and AllCell developed its products as the first tenant in the state-funded incubator at University Technology Park at IIT. AllCell plans to increase production capacity for lithium-ion batteries at the company’s manufacturing facility in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. MORE

Green Illinois air pollution emissions legislation Over the past few years, some of America''s, shall we say, less enlightened drivers hit upon a new trend. They started modifying big diesel trucks to spew clouds of soot and smoke whenever the driver hit the accelerator. It''s called "rolling coal"--and drivers of hybrid and electric cars report that it often seemed to be directed at them. MORE

Don''t let the name fool you; Normal, Illinois, is actually unique. That''s because this small town--with a population of 53,837--has more than 300 plug-in cars roaming its streets. MORE

The Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago has entered into an agreement with New Energy Innovations, Inc. MORE

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are applying new materials and concepts integrated within the battery cell to enable a variety of critical features including fail-safe or autonomic shutdown, self-healing of battery performance, and greatly extended lifetimes. MORE

The story is the same for new microbatteries developed at the University of Illinois, but the researchers there are making even bigger claims than most. We''ve heard it all before--new battery technologies appear, set to revolutionize the way we use electric products. Imagine a battery so small it could feature in a credit card-sized cellphone MORE

The store will offer 36 new stations across 18 new locations before the end of the year – including an expansion across the states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin for the first [.]. One of the leading department stores in the USA – Kohl’s (logo, pictured) – is to extend its plug-in vehicle charging station initiative. MORE

Illinois announces a plan to electrify Route 66 by adding public charging stations, Washington state mulls electric-car incentives, and the first plug-in electric car sales figures for November are in. We''ve got news from all across the U.S. today. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Will Washington state grant electric-car owners tax breaks MORE

One example is Naperville, Illinois. Small-town America is all about quaint Main Streets, mom''n''pop stores, and. electric-car charging stations? MORE

The City of Chicago has put so much time and money into supporting electric cars that Nissan has decided to reward Illinois by moving forward the planned Chicago launch of its Leaf electric hatchback to this Fall. Quinn of Illinois signed a bill investing $1 million in electric car infrastructure throughout the MORE

CleanFUEL USA has partnered with the City of Springfield, Ill., to convert 24 police patrol cars and pickup trucks to clean burning propane autogas. We estimate our fuel savings in the first year alone to be more than $82,000. Transitioning our fleet to propane autogas was an extremely easy decision to make because we are saving taxpayer dollars, improving the environment through cleaner auto emissions and supporting a domestically produced fuel source. MORE

No sooner do I discuss University of Illinois researchers who have created 3D antennas for mobile phones using nanotechnology than another group of researchers at the University of Illinois (this time at Urbana-Champaign) have developed 3D material for batteries that combines the qualities of supercapacitors with those of batteries and could MORE

sales of the Leaf into several Southeastern states plus Illinois. The 2012 Nissan Leaf electric car will include more standard equipment, but it will carry a higher price tag as well. Announcing the updates for the second Leaf model year, Nissan said today it will expand U.S. The 2012 model of the first battery-electric vehicle sold in the U.S. MORE

Mitsubishi was one of the first major automakers to announce plans for a mass-produced electric car and even had a working prototype out testing as far back as 2008 in the form of the first generation i-MiEV. Since then the i-MiEV has gone through a series of redesigns until finally being launched in production trim last year in Japan and Europe MORE

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) should be modified and not repealed: that is the verdict of researchers at the University of Illinois. MORE

The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC), one of seven regional partnerships created by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to advance carbon storage technologies nationwide ( earlier post ), has begun injecting carbon dioxide for their large-scale CO 2 injection test in Decatur, Illinois. The CO 2 is being captured from the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Ethanol Production Facility in Decatur, Illinois. MORE

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. The Illinois Institute of Technology will develop ultrafast, self-powered, programmable, autonomously operated, bidirectional solid-state circuit breakers using transistors based on gallium nitride (GaN). University of Illinois at Chicago. Universal Battery Supercharger The University of Illinois at Chicago and its project team will develop a new high-power converter topology for fast charging of electric vehicles (EV). MORE

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Illinois Basin-Decatur Project has successfully captured and stored one million metric tons of carbon dioxide, injecting it into a deep saline formation. The carbon dioxide is captured from the Archer Daniels Midland Company ethanol-production facility in Decatur, Illinois, and is compressed before traveling across a mile-long pipeline and injected approximately 7,000 feet below the surface into the Mount Simon Sandstone formation. MORE

Peter Wolynes of Rice, Martin Gruebele of Illinois and Illinois alumnus Eduardo Berrios of Chile simulated reactions in two dimensions that, if extrapolated to three, might just produce energy efficiently from deuterium and tritium or other elements. MORE

Regulatory hurdles are hindering the successful commercialization of emerging liquid biofuels, according to a new study by University of Illinois law professor Jay P. Slating, a regulatory associate with the University of Illinois Energy Biosciences Institute. Wisconsin Law Review ; Illinois Public Law Research Paper No. MORE

Scientists at the University of Illinois claim they have created the most powerful microbatteries yet, that are so energy-dense that a mobile phone powered by them could be used to jumpstart a car. MORE

The winners are Professor Elizabeth Biddinger, City College of New York; Professor Joaquin Rodriguez Lopez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Professor Joshua Snyder, Drexel University. Professor Joaquin Rodriguez Lopez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship Selection Committee has selected three recipients who will receive a minimum of $50,000 each for fellowships for projects in green energy technology. MORE

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has entered into a licensing agreement with Xerion Advanced Battery Corp under which Xerion has the exclusive right to bring the University’s patented StructurePore electrode technology to the market. The StructurePore technology was developed by Dr. Paul Braun, of the Department of Materials, Science & Engineering at the University of Illinois, who is presently also an officer and director of Xerion. MORE

If you're eager to get behind the wheel of an electric car, then there are few cheaper ways of doing it than one lease deal from an Illinois Mitsubishi dealer. O'Brien Mitsubishi in Normal, IL, is offering a new Mitsubishi i electric car for lease from just $69 per month over 24 months--far less than Mitsubishi's official lease program, at $249 MORE