North Carolina awards $950,000 in "Green Business" grants to 14 firms

Local Tech Wire, August 7, 2009

North Carolina awarded $950,000 in "Green Business Fund" grants to 14 companies Friday as Gov. Bev Perdue signed legislation that moved the State Energy Office to the Department of Commerce from the Department of Administration.
Firms working on biofuel, battery solar energy and a variety of other so-called green technologies were selected.
The biggest grant of $99,486 went to Semprius, a startup focused on solar cells. Semprius is based in Durham.
In 2008 in the first year of hte program, the state awarded 13 grants worth nearly $1 million. Grants ranged in size from $18,000 to $100,000. The grants with detailed description of each program as provided by the governor's office:

• Aerofab Manufacturing Corp., Apex - $45,435
• Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, Lenoir - $81,000
• Centralina Council of Governments, Charlotte - $85,000 - Greater Charlotte Region Biofuel Facility: "Brown" grease is waste oil from food preparation. It often is responsible for clogging sewers, causing overflows. In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region, brown grease contributes to more than 55% of sewer overflows. The grant will help develop a Greater Charlotte Region Biofuel Facility that will turn brown grease from the region into bioful that can be used by consumers.
• Clean Marine Solutions, Wilmington - $84,602
• CPS biofuels Inc., Raleigh - $50,000 High Performance Biofuel Product Dervice from Biodiesel Waste: This project develops a fuel additive made from glycerol, a waste product of biodiesel production. The additive improves fuel economy in gasoline and diesel engines by increasing octane.
  
• EnSolve Biosystems, Inc., Raleigh - $50,000
• FLS Energy Finance LLC, Black Mountain - $60,000
• Innova Homes LLC, Asheville - $51,160
• InnovaTech Inc., Research Triangle Park - $53,317 Cost Effective Harvesting of Algae in Phytobioreactor Bio-fuel Systems: The grant funds development of a prototype phytobioreactor - a large tank for growing algae - to harvest algae for use in biofuel production. This project will increase the efficiency of algae-to-biofuels conversion.
• Microcell Corp. Raleigh - $80,000
• NC State University Solar Center, Raleigh $95,000
• Semprius Inc., Durham - $99,486
• Vesture Corp., Asheboro - $75,000
• Visible Energy Inc., Durham - $40,000

U.S. Pumps $2.4 Billion in Creating a Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Base & Thousands of Jobs

MYGreen Education and Career, August 5, 2009

Further accelerating the manufacturing and deployment of electric vehicles, batteries, and components here in America, and creating tens of thousands of new jobs, President Obama today announced 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
These projects, selected through a highly competitive process by the Department of Energy, will accelerate the development of U.S. manufacturing capacity for batteries and electric drive components as well as the deployment of electric drive vehicles, helping to establish American leadership in creating the next generation of advanced vehicles.
....
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, whose Department selected the 48 winners, visited Celgard, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to announce a $49 million grant for the company to expand its separator production capacity to serve the expected increased demand for lithium-ion batteries from manufacturing facilities in the United States. Celgard will be expanding its manufacturing capacity in Charlotte, North Carolina, and nearby Aiken, South Carolina, and the company expects the new separator production to come online in 2010. Celgard expects that approximately hundreds of jobs could be created, with the first of those jobs beginning as early as fall 2009.
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