energy

Ford today celebrated the opening of the most flexible plant the company operates. The Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP) has been designed to build gasoline-powered, battery electric, hybrid electric, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the same line. The plant assembles the new Ford Focus, and will begin producing the Focus Electric later this year.

In December, the company announced an investment of $550 million to remodel the assembly plant.

According to a Ford statement, the Wayne, Mich., plant "features an environmentally friendly workplace with flexible manufacturing capability."

"MAP epitomizes the best of what Ford stands for--fuel efficiency, … Read more

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. hopes to reconnect power as early as Saturday to a dangerously overheating nuclear power plant damaged by last week's earthquake and tsunami, Japanese state broadcaster NHK said today.

The power company, also called Tepco, is working to restore power to the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power station about 140 miles northeast of Tokyo. A new power supply could help run pumps to cool the reactors and their associated spent-fuel ponds, a challenge that's been growing harder ever since the massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunamis knocked out power … Read more

SustainX announced today it's received $14.4 million in funding from GE subsidiary GE Energy Financial Services, Cadent Energy Partners, Polaris Ventures, and Rockport Capital.

The New Hampshire-based company is a start-up that grew out of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in 2007, and has been developing a compressed-air energy storage unit intended for integration with smart grids.

Simply put, its innovative storage unit uses compressed air to store, then generate electricity. But unlike other compressed-air storage units, which use a compressor to store air underground, SustainX stores the air in a standard tank located above … Read more

Progress Energy is moving forward with its plan to spend $500 million to upgrade two of its electric utilities in Florida and the Carolinas to a smart-grid system.

Together the two utilities provide electricity service to over 3.1 million customers. The Raleigh,N.C.-based company is paying for the upgrade in part with a $200 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The grant came out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and is part of the high-profile push by the Obama administration and many state leaders to upgrade U.S. electric grids.… Read more

March is known as the green month, so it's fitting that only one week into it there's already some interesting news for algae fuel supporters.

Agricultural giant Monsanto today announced it's signed a deal with algae-crude producer Sapphire to collaborate on genetic engineering research that could be applied to both algae and agricultural crops.

The research involves identifying traits in algae genes for growth and durability. But the science can also be applied to plants like cotton, soybeans, and corn, according to Sapphire.

As part of the deal, Monsanto is making "an equity investment" in … Read more

GENEVA--Fisker Automotive plans to use its recently acquired plant in Delaware in part to build vehicles for other automakers.

The start-up automaker plans to use only one-third of an installed 300,000 units of capacity at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Del., for its vehicles, which will be built there in late 2012.

"We want to offer this manufacturing capacity to other OEMs," Fisker COO Bernhard Koehler told Automotive News on the sidelines of the Geneva auto show.

Fisker is spending $120 million on the Delaware plant and, within the next two years, will expand its … Read more

Oil has climbed to over $100 a barrel and there's historical unrest in oil-producing countries of the Middle East. Yet, at times it's hard to tell how strong this country's commitment to clean-energy technologies is.

A vivid example is the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which was funded two years ago to research potential breakthrough energy technologies and determine their commercial potential.

The U.S. prides itself on its technology and many people believe that innovation will revitalize our economy. Economic competitiveness was perhaps the dominant theme at the ARPA-E Summit, a conference held last week. Yet … Read more

Building systems management giant Johnson Controls announced yesterday it has signed an agreement to acquire the EnergyConnect Group. EnergyConnect, based in Campbell, Calif., announced that this will be a cash deal totaling $32.3 million.

The demand response technology company EnergyConnect is best known for GridConnect, its software platform for enhancing electrical-grid efficiency, especially in the cases of regional shortages or peak pricing changes.

The system includes real-time monitoring of energy markets, as well as energy information.

"The $0.2253 per share acquisition price represents a significant cash premium of approximately 73 percent over the previous closing share price … Read more

Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill today that would permanently stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating emissions blamed for warming the planet.

President Barack Obama would veto a bill that permanently blocks the agency from tackling climate change, administration officials have said. Obama has pledged to the world the United States will cut greenhouse gases to about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced the bill, called the Energy Tax Prevention Act.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a climate skeptic who is writing … Read more