Sumitomo Corporation of America (SCOA), a subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, has entered into a Joint Development Agreement for the Louisiana Green Fuels (LGF) project with Strategic Biofuels (SBF), the developer behind LGF. SCOA will take an anchor position and lead the formation of a Japanese-based investment consortium aimed at funding... Read more →

Researchers from France and Albania have discovered a large natural source of hydrogen gas outgassing from the deep underground Bulqizë chromite mine in Albania. A paper on their discovery is published in Science. Deep crustal production of hydrogen (H2) is a potential source of primary energy if recoverable accumulations in... Read more →

Trillium H2 Power LLC (tH2 Power) has awarded Shell Catalysts & Technologies a contract to deliver a Shell Blue Hydrogen Process (SBHP) license agreement. The license is for tH2 Power, which involves building multiple large-scale, low-carbon-hydrogen-fuelled power generation and manufacturing projects at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in rural... Read more →

The French shipowner, Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SAS (LDA) and the Finnish mechanical sail company, Norsepower Oy Ltd, announced that the Norsepower Rotor Sail technology will be installed on the new low-emission RoRo fleet to be chartered to Airbus. The Norsepower Rotor Sail is a modernized version of the old Flettner... Read more →

Abarth unveiled the first picture of the New Abarth 600e as it undergoes its final tests. The new Abarth 600e (based on the Fiat 600e B-segment EV) features a 240HP (179 kW) powertrain, an exclusive mechanical limited slip differential, and high-performance tires developed in the Formula E field. (The Fiat... Read more →

Panasonic Energy Co., Ltd., a Panasonic Group Company, signed a binding off-take agreement with the battery materials and technology company NOVONIX Limited for the supply of synthetic graphite, the main component of the anodes of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs). In line with Panasonic Energy’s medium- to long-term... Read more →

Electra Battery Materials Corporation received a $5-million investment from the Government of Canada towards the construction of North America’s first cobalt sulfate refinery. Located in Temiskaming Shores, Ontario, the facility will produce approximately five percent of the global supply of battery grade cobalt needed for electric vehicles. The investment will... Read more →

Announced in July 2023, IONNA, the joint venture to build a high-powered EV charging network across North America, has received approval from regulatory authorities, and is now officially commencing operations. IONNA is a joint venture of seven leading automakers: BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis. With Seth... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are partnering with Achates Power, a leader in designing opposed piston, two-stroke compression ignition engines (earlier post), to develop a hydrogen-powered engine primarily for long-haul commercial vehicles. Argonne scientists recently began testing the hydrogen-powered engine in a demonstration that... Read more →

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed a closed-loop path for synthesizing an exceptionally tough carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) and later recovering all of its starting materials. A lightweight, strong and tough composite material, CFRP is useful for reducing weight and increasing fuel efficiency of automobiles,... Read more →

In Europe, Nissan introduced the next generation Nissan Interstar large van. The model features not only increased size and versatility, ensuring it can be tailored to be as unique as the customers it serves, but it is also Nissan's first large van available with a 100% electric powertrain, without a... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced $29 million in funding to drive research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of low carbon intensity, purpose-grown energy crops critical to accelerating a clean energy economy. (DE-FOA-0003209) The Regional Resource Hubs for Purpose-Grown Energy Crops funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will advance a... Read more →

Australia’s two largest iron ore producers and its biggest steelmaker have partnered in their efforts to accelerate the decarbonization of steelmaking by agreeing to investigate jointly the development of the country’s first ironmaking Electric Smelting Furnace (ESF) pilot plant. Under a new framework agreement, Rio Tinto, BHP and BlueScope will... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $20 million for 16 projects across 8 states to accelerate the natural subsurface generation of hydrogen. This is the first time that the US government has competitively selected teams to research this kind of technology. The 16 teams announced are set to receive... Read more →

GM has hired Kurt Kelty, a globally recognized battery expert and former Tesla executive, to be vice president of Batteries, reporting to GM President Mark Reuss. In this newly created role, Kelty will be charged with GM’s battery cell strategy and a new end-to-end approach. This will include the use... Read more →

The sixth generation of the BMW 5 Series Touring offers, for the first time, an all-electric drive in the form of the BMW i5 Touring. A flexible drive architecture allows model variants with gasoline and diesel engines, plug-in hybrid systems and purely electric drive systems to be produced on a... Read more →

LG Chem has secured a long-term cathode material supply contract with General Motors (GM), worth KRW 25 trillion (US$18.825 billion). LG Chem aims to bolster cooperation with GM in the North American market by utilizing its cathode plant in Tennessee as a production hub for the global battery material market.... Read more →

Lyten has secured a $4-million grant from the US Department of Energy (DoE) to accelerate the manufacturing of its advanced lithium-sulfur battery technology. The grant, awarded by DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy / Vehicle Technologies Office, specifically targets lithium-sulfur technologies that can alleviate offshore supply chain risk for EV... Read more →

Electrify America has opened its first indoor flagship station available to the public at 928 Harrison St. in San Francisco. Located two blocks from the Bay Bridge, the indoor charging station provides easy access for EV drivers visiting the South Market (SoMa) neighborhood. It features 20 fast chargers providing up... Read more →

In the presence of Rhineland-Palatinate’s Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Petra Dick-Walther, and international media, Andreas Gorbach, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck, and Juergen Nowicki, CEO of Linde Engineering, inaugurated the first public subcooled liquid hydrogen (sLH2) (earlier post) pilot station in Wörth am Rhein,... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tightened the annual health-based national ambient air quality standard for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from a level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9 micrograms per cubic meter. Along with strengthening the primary annual PM2.5 standard, EPA is modifying the PM2.5 monitoring network... Read more →

Canada-based Li-Metal Corp., a developer of lithium metal anode and lithium metal production technologies, has completed its previously-announced concept study for a commercial North American lithium metal production facility with an annual capacity of up to 1,000 tonnes. commercial-scale plant. Li-Metal produces lithium metal directly from lithium carbonate as opposed... Read more →

Li-Cycle Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of Li-Cycle Holdings Corp., a global lithium-ion battery resource recovery company, has received approval from the State of Saxony-Anhalt for a grant of up to €6.4 million for its lithium-ion battery Spoke recycling facility, located in Sülzetal, Saxony-Anhalt, as part of the “Improving the Regional... Read more →

Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, a center for iron research, have developed a process to convert the toxic red mud waste resulting from the refinement of bauxite into alumina into valuable and sustainable feedstock for iron-making using green hydrogen-plasma-based reduction. An open-access paper on their work is published in... Read more →

Spain-based Matteco is collaborating with the multinational companies Siemens Energy and Horiba, as well as the Institute of Molecular Sciences (ICMol) of the University of Valencia, and the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nuremberg for Renewable Energies (HI ERN), to develop an innovative, sustainable, efficient, and scalable electrolyzer to reduce the cost of... Read more →

Global chemical company BASF and hydroGEOPHYSICS Inc. (HGI), a leading provider of geophysical services to the mining industry, announced an exclusive partnership aimed at combining expertise in mineral processing, hydrometallurgy, and deep well injection. The collaboration aims to optimize copper extraction in the mining industry by utilizing HGI’s geophysical techniques... Read more →

Magna has been awarded a contract to supply a North America-based OEM with a specialized primary rear eDrive system for one of the company’s high-end niche vehicle platforms. The award reinforces Magna’s commitment to supporting the automotive industry’s short and long-term transformational needs. The complex system will be a variant... Read more →

Bollinger Motors has received IRS approval as a qualified manufacturer for clean vehicle credits under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the IRA). This designation enables the Bollinger B4 chassis cab to qualify for the IRA’s new credit for qualified commercial clean vehicles, providing eligible purchasers a tax credit of... Read more →

Porsche has given the Taycan a particularly extensive update. The new versions have more power, more range, accelerate quicker and charge faster with greater stability. Style Porsche has also sharpened the design and more strongly differentiated the Turbo models. All Taycan versions feature an even more extensive standard equipment list... Read more →

Toyota announced a $1.3 billion investment at its flagship Kentucky facility for future electrification efforts including assembly of an all-new, three-row battery electric SUV for the US market. The project brings the plant’s total investment to nearly $10 billion. The investment supports the previously announced future BEV assembly at Toyota... Read more →