Closing of local automotive assembly plants may lead to increases in deaths from opioid overdose, according to a study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts General Hospital. The findings highlight fading economic opportunity as a driving factor in the... Read more →

Solaris will supply seven Urbino 12 series-hybrid buses to Ząbkowice Śląskie, Poland by 31 July 2020. The buses will serve on routes of the new public transport lines to be established in the municipality. The seven 12-meter buses feature a series-hybrid drive consisting of a 120 kW electric motor and... Read more →

The government of Egypt has awarded major offshore exploration acreage in both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to international oil companies and partners. ExxonMobil has secured more than 1.7 million acres (6,900 km2) for exploration offshore Egypt in the Mediterranean. The acquisition includes 1.2 million acres in the North... Read more →

UK-based AFC Energy launched its H-Power electric vehicle (EV) charger based on alkaline hydrogen fuel cell technology. The self-contained charging system overcomes issues associated with poor grid coverage to provide rapid electric vehicle (EV) charging anywhere it is needed. In the UK, a recent study commissioned by Scottish Power found... Read more →

Researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, with colleagues at the Université de Toulouse, France, have developed a process for the direct production of levulinates from cheap residual lignocellulosic biomass using an affordable homogeneous catalyst. A paper on their work is published in Fuel. In Canada, the lumbering industry produces... Read more →

The partners in Nigeria LNG (NLNG)—Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) (49%), Shell (25.6%), Total (15%) and Eni (10.4%)— have taken the final investment decision (FID) for the expansion project of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Bonny Island. This brownfield development, which is expected to start-up in 2024, will... Read more →

Tsuruga City in Fukui Prefecture, Japan and Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation (Toshiba ESS) announced that the H2One Station Unit has started opening in Tsuruga City, which is the first launched hydrogen station in the Hokuriku region. The H2One Station Unit made by Toshiba ESS is a system which... Read more →

Matson, Inc., a leading US carrier in the Pacific, took delivery of its newest vessel, the largest combination container / roll-on, roll-off (con-ro) ship ever built in the United States, from General Dynamics NASSCO. Matson’s Lurline launches into San Diego Bay Christened Lurline, the new ship is the first of... Read more →

The BMW iFE.20 Formula E racer uses a cooling shaft manufactured from flax fibers—the first BMW race car fielded by a works team with parts made out of renewable textile fibers. Compared with carbon, flax has greater absorption and greater impact resistance, which can be advantageous on the street circuits... Read more →

Element Markets Renewable Energy (EMRE) has filed applications for certification of three California LCFS (Low Carbon Fuel Standard) Tier 2 pathways for biomethane (Bio-CNG, Bio-LNG, and Bio-L-CNG) from anaerobic digestion of swine manure produced by Valley View Farms located in Greencastle, Missouri. The calculated carbon intensities are -345.68, -334.41, and... Read more →

Canada-based Greenlane Biogas North America Ltd., a subsidiary of Greenlane Renewables Inc., has secured a new US$6.3-million biogas upgrading contract with a customer in California, whose name is being withheld at this time for confidentiality reasons. Engineering work will begin immediately on the California-based landfill project. Order fulfilment will begin... Read more →

Under the Volkswagen’s latest plans, the company expects to reach its original strategic target of one million electric cars by the end of 2023—two years earlier than previously predicted. The Volkswagen brand now expects to produce 1.5 million electric cars by 2025. In mid-December at the Autostadt, the Volkswagen brand... Read more →

Highview Power Storage, Inc., a provider of long duration energy storage solutions, and Encore Renewable Energy, a developer of renewable energy generation and storage projects, jointly announced plans to develop the United States’ first long-duration, liquid-air energy storage system. This facility will be a minimum of 50MW, provide in excess... Read more →

Thomas Built Buses Inc (TBB) has been selected as the provider of all 50 electric school buses allocated for the initial phase of Dominion Energy’s electric school bus replacement program in Virginia. The program represents the largest deployment of electric school buses in the United States. After the initial 50,... Read more →

Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation (Toshiba ESS) has delivered a mobile 30kW hydrogen fuel cell system to a fuel cell ship. The fuel cell system’s volume per unit power output is reduced to 1/3 compared to a stationary fuel cell system due to its simplified design and improvements in... Read more →

A new report from Tractica forecasts that the global market for Mobility as a service (MaaS) to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.0% to become a $563.3 billion market by 2025, largely driven by ride-hailing applications. Tractica defines mobility as a service (MaaS) as technology-driven programs... Read more →

Air Liquide Hydrogen Energy is seeking California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) certification of two pathways for gaseous hydrogen produced by steam methane reformation (SMR) produced onsite at the LAX hydrogen station, using average North American landfill gas and fossil natural gas (NA NG), respectively. The pathway for gaseous hydrogen... Read more →

Researchers at EPFL have patented a new concept that could cut trucks’ CO2 emissions by almost 90%. The EPFL system captures CO2 directly in the trucks’ exhaust system and liquefies it in a box on the vehicle’s roof. The liquid CO2 would then be delivered to a service station and... Read more →

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation launched two new 100V N-channel power MOSFETs for automotive 48V electrical system applications. The line-up includes the low On-resistance “XPH4R10ANB,” which has a drain current of 70A, and the “XPH6R30ANB,” with a 45A drain current. The new products are Toshiba’s first 100V N-channel power... Read more →

New methods of testing and simulating air quality should be considered in order to help policy makers have a more accurate understanding of how emissions affect air pollution levels, new research suggests. In a review published in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, the authors claim that... Read more →

Dense, hazy fog episodes characterized by relatively high humidity, low visibility and extremely high PM2.5 have been a headache to many megacities including those in Mainland China. Among pollutants that are less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5), airborne sulfate is one of the most common components of hazy air... Read more →

The Government of Sweden has launched a study to offer proposals on how to implement a ban on sales of new gasoline and diesel cars, and the timeline for the phase-out of fossil fuels. The final report is to be presented by 1 February 2021. Sven Hunhammar will chair the... Read more →

Copper use in automotive wire harness will continue to grow according to new research commissioned by the International Copper Association (ICA). The research, conducted by Martec Group, found that the average weight of copper use per vehicle in automotive wire harnesses globally increased from 11.0 kg in 2016 to 12.6... Read more →

Trillium, one of the US’ leading providers of alternative fuels systems and renewable fuels, is adding two new public compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling stations to its network of California locations. The alternative and renewable fuel provider designed and built CNG stations at two Love’s Travel Stops located in Lost... Read more →

On a per-capita basis, the number of vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) on the nation’s roads varies from a low of 5,300 annual miles in the District of Columbia to 16,900 annual miles in Wyoming. These data are for 2017, the most recent year for which vehicle miles of travel are available.... Read more →

Everfuel Europe A/S has been awarded in excess of €6 million from the Danish Energy Agency for the project HySynergy, which aims to establish a large-scale, electrolysis-based hydrogen production facility at the Shell refinery in Fredericia, Denmark. Everfuel will be the owner and operator of the hydrogen production facility, while... Read more →

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) has aded two BYD battery-electric buses. The K9M 40-foot buses are part of the airport’s fleet of “terminal-to- terminal” shuttles used to transport passengers between the international and domestic terminals, and from the international terminal to the Rental Car Center. The vehicles carry 22 passengers... Read more →

ExxonMobil announced an oil discovery offshore Guyana at the Mako-1 well southeast of the Liza field, marking the 15th discovery on the Stabroek Block. Mako-1 encountered approximately 164 feet (50 meters) of a high-quality oil bearing sandstone reservoir. Mako-1, drilled in 5,315 feet (1,620 meters) of water, is located approximately... Read more →

Rivian has closed an investment round of $1.3 billion. The financing was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Amazon, Ford Motor Company and funds managed by BlackRock also participated in the round. The investment announcement is Rivian’s fourth of 2019. In February, Rivian announced... Read more →

Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy), Everfuel Europe A/S, NEL Hydrogen A/S, GreenHydrogen AS, DSV Panalpina A/S, Hydrogen Denmark and Energinet Elsystemansvar A/S have been awarded funding of DKK 34.6 million (US$5 million) for the H2RES project from EUDP’s second 2019 call for applications. The partners will build a 2MW electrolysis plant... Read more →

A new analysis led by a team from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, estimates that on a global scale, obesity contributes to extra GHG emissions of ~49 megatons per year of CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) from oxidative metabolism due to greater metabolic demands; ~361 megatons per year of CO2eq from food... Read more →

With a two-day hackathon, Mercedes-Benz started the brand’s #MoveSafety initiative which in a first step focusses on creating a contextual application helping users to get where they want to be, as safely as possible. The new app will be based on “Tuban Xiong”, an app which has already been successfully... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) will conduct a public meeting 23 January 2020 to consider policy recommendations to increase the use of Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEV) per Senate Bill (SB) 498. CARB staff will present the policy recommendations identified in the draft report “Assessment of CARB’s Zero-Emission Vehicle... Read more →

Sandia National Laboratories is establishing a collaborative facility to help researchers worldwide study low-temperature plasmas, the most pervasive state of matter in the universe. The 5-year, $5.5 million project, called the Sandia Low Temperature Plasma Research Facility, is sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Participants will be... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has recently posted six Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Tier 2 pathways applications for the production of liquefied hydrogen from renewable and fossil gas. Shell Energy North America seeks certification of a renewable hydrogen pathway produced by steam methane reformation at Air Products &... Read more →

Power management company Eaton Corporation plc completed the acquisition of the Souriau-Sunbank Connection Technologies business of TransDigm Group Incorporated for $920 million. Headquartered in Versailles, France, Souriau-Sunbank is a global leader in highly engineered electrical interconnect solutions for harsh environments for customers in the aerospace, defense, industrial, energy, and transport... Read more →

The BMW Group has delivered half a million electrified cars to customers worldwide so far. The company aims to have one million electrified vehicles on the road within two years, said Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG. Next year, the BMW X3 will become the... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE), Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MoE) along with the Israel Innovation Authority have selected seven clean energy projects to receive $6.4 million under the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Energy program. The total value of the projects is $15.4 million, which includes $9 million... Read more →

LeMond Carbon announced the results of an independent technical audit conducted by Bureau Veritas (BV) of its carbon fiber manufacturing process. The audit was conducted on a pilot line at Deakin University’s Carbon Nexus facility in Geelong, Australia. The total oxidation time and material properties verified by BV support LeMond’s... Read more →

ExxonMobil has started oil production from the Liza field offshore Guyana ahead of schedule and less than five years after the first discovery of hydrocarbons, which is well ahead of the industry average for deepwater developments. The Liza Phase 1 development is approximately 190 kilometers offshore in water depths of... Read more →

Toyota has launched a new program to license its Intellectual Property to interested parties. Toyota IP Solutions is intended to help promote and serve as an access point for the licensing of patents to US and global companies. Initially, the patent portfolios available for licensing will be in four areas:... Read more →

Germany’s Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure Andreas Scheuer announced the founding of a new national control enter for charging infrastructure. The mission of the National Control Center is to ensure the swift and coordinated establishment of nationwide charging options in Germany. The automotive industry and the energy industry... Read more →

The light metal foundry of the BMW Group plant in Landshut has been certified for its sustainable use of aluminum. It meets the standards of the Aluminum Stewardship Initiative (ASI), an international organization that is supported by environmental and industrial associations, aluminum producers and manufacturing companies. ASI has defined sustainability... Read more →

China-based Weichai Power Co., Ltd. has acquired Germany-based electric powertrain component manufacturer ARADEX AG as another component of its global strategy in the new energy power systems industry following its strategic investment in Ballard Power and Ceres Power. Weichai Power, a provider of traditional powertrains for heavy-duty commercial vehicles, is... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has released the 2018 Base-year Emissions Inventory Report, as required by Senate Bill 1014 (SB 1014, California Clean Miles Standard). (Earlier post.) SB 1014, enacted in 2018, directed CARB and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to develop and implement measures to reduce GHG emissions... Read more →

NVIDIA will provide the transportation industry with access to its NVIDIA DRIVE deep neural networks (DNNs) for autonomous vehicle development on the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) container registry. NVIDIA DRIVE has become a de facto standard for AV development, used broadly by automakers, truck manufacturers, robotaxi companies, software companies and... Read more →

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have received a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a novel design that could increase the efficiency and reduce toxic emissions from gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines. The theoretical design lays out methods for rapidly... Read more →

As the lithium-ion batteries that currently power most phones, laptops, and electric vehicles become increasingly fast-charging and high-performing, they also grow increasingly expensive and flammable. A team of engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has demonstrated how they could—by using aqueous electrolytes instead of the typical organic electrolytes—assemble a substantially safer,... Read more →

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved a proposal to develop a standard for safety considerations in automated vehicle (AV) decision-making and named Intel Senior Principal Engineer Jack Weast to lead the workgroup. The new standard—IEEE 2846—will establish a formal rules-based mathematical model for automated vehicle decision-making... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule that establishes the required renewable volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program for 2020, and the biomass-based diesel volume for 2021. The EPA is committed to ensuring a net of 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuel is blended in 2020.... Read more →