21st Century Regenerative Technology

1. Toyota, EDF Team Up For London Plug-In Hybrid Test
2. Think Recharging With Big Funds for Electric Vehicles?
3. Poet Grabs $14M from Iowa for Cellulosic Ethanol

Toyota, EDF Team Up For London Plug-In Hybrid Test

2008-09-11 19:30

Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy

As the automotive giants gear up to launch their next-gen green cars in 2009 and 2010, more and more are rolling out trials to test out how the vehicles will perform with the power grid. This time it's in and around London, where Toyota is partnering with EDF Energy to install and test 40 plug-in vehicle charging stations.

The cars being tested in London are supposed to be the next-generation plug-in versions of Toyota's much loved Prius. About 50 EDF Energy employees will cruise around in the cars, testing out how well the car works in the urban environment and to evaluate the usability of the charging stations. They’ll also get to see how well the billing system, which will charge ‘by the charge.’

The point of the London test program, as well as similar test programs in Berlin and Oslo, is not just to test the viability of plug in hybrid cars, but also to test what they are being plugged in to. There are tens of thousands of cars on the streets of any major city, and if even a small percentage of these cars were to be charging at the same time, you can probably imagine what the increased demand could do to an already taxed electrical system.

The trial is similar to a test program that Toyota did last Fall in France with EDF's parent company, Electricité de France; the London tests are a way for Electricité de France to expand its vehicle charging capabilities in other markets.

A successful test of the new charging stations could hopefully lead London "one step closer to making our ambition of becoming a number one location for low-carbon vehicles" John Hutton, British Secretary of State for Business told the Financial Times. For London it will increase the number of car charging stations on city roads; Mayor Boris Johnson has vowed to add more stations over the coming years.

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Think Recharging With Big Funds for Electric Vehicles?

2008-09-11 17:51

Craig Rubens - Automotive

Even if you’ve got a fully developed electric car, it still takes a lot of capital to get it on the road. The latest news is that Think Global AS, maker of the highway certified two-seater electric car TH!NK city, is looking to raise a third round of funding in the neighborhood of $80 million to increase production capacity, VentureWire reports (via PEHub.)

Of all electric car startups, Think has had some of the biggest names circling its little electric cars. Once owned by Ford, the company was bought by Norwegian investors from solar giant REC, and it has since partnered with GE to help put A123 lithium-ion batteries in their cars. Think also brought on Porsche Consulting to help design its manufacturing plant.

That plant, located in Aurskog, Norway, is supposed to produce 1,200 vehicles this year for distribution in Europe and the U.S. with that number jumping up to 10,000 in 2009. In April, Kleiner Perkins and Rockport formed the joint venture Think North America to handle distribution, and the VCs promised hundreds of TH!NK City cars for fleet operators would hit the streets by the end of this year and thousands for consumers next year. We’re still waiting to hear back from Kleiner and RockPort on the status of U.S. distribution.

So who will provide Think the funds this time? Alex Haislip from PeHub has some thoughts and notes that the company has already raised more than $97 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Rockport Capital, GE Energy, Element Venture Partners, Capricorn Investment Group (Jeff Skoll's money), Wintergreen Advisors, CG Holdin, Hazel Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Image courtesy of Think Global.

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Poet Grabs $14M from Iowa for Cellulosic Ethanol

2008-09-11 16:44

Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy

The Iowa Power Fund, which doles out millions of dollars for clean power projects, has just made a $14.75 million commitment to help corn-ethanol maker Poet build its first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the state. Add that to the $5.25 million from the Iowa Department of Economic Development, and the state has now pledged $20 million to help Poet build its cellulosic plant.

When fully completed the Emmetsburg, Iowa, plant (dubbed Project Liberty) will produce 125 million gallons per year of ethanol, of which 25 million gallons will be made from corn waste. The plant will need a total capital investment of more than $200 million, Poet says, and it will create at least 35 new jobs. Poet also says that the technology used for Project Liberty could be added onto its six other ethanol plants in Iowa, as well any biorefinery in the state — if that were the case the investment needed would total $2 billion and create 2,700 new jobs in Iowa.

Project Liberty, which will start construction in 2009 and will be operational by 2011, is an important milestone for the biofuel industry. As one of the established corn-based ethanol producers, Poet has decided to start producing cellulosic ethanol in a measured approach, by using corn fibers and cobs (corn waste) taken from conjoined traditional corn ethanol plants. Compared to companies building cellulosic ethanol plants from the ground up and having to secure feedstocks, Poet’s approach could be more economical, less risky and quicker to production.

Poet is moving relatively quickly for a large, older company — it already plans to start churning out cellulosic ethanol at a $4 million pilot-scale cellulosic ethanol facility in Scotland, S.D., which is supposed to be completed and operational within 2008.

Perhaps the biggest questions are, What are the details of how Poet will convert its corn waste into fuel? Is the process itself economical or advanced, and can its IP compete against pure cellulosic firms that have been cropping up? Some form of cellulosic ethanol will eventually replace corn ethanol, so Poet’s future will depend on the answer to these questions.