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With nary a sunbeam in sight, TVA and the Electric Power Research Institute on Tuesday unveiled a concept for charging the electric vehicles that are just beginning to hit the local highways.

Equipped with about 12 kilowatts’ worth of solar panels and a battery array with about five kilowatt-hours of storage, the six-parking-spot station will be used to analyze the potential impact of electric vehicles on the electric grid as well as ways to supplement that power. It is the first of two such stations to be built in East Tennessee and will serve as a research prototype to model how electric cars can be juiced up when they’re away from home.

via Solar Knowledge: TVA Unveils Electric Vehicle Charging Station Prototype.

Pretty fascinating technology that will support the upcoming launch of many electrical vehicle models.

The Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt will be competing for eco-conscious car buyers who don’t mind paying extra to cut back on gasoline usage. In the case of the Leaf, gasoline is eliminated entirely. The tradeoff is that the car must be plugged in and recharged. Charging stations are popping up throughout Tennessee, but the Volt enjoys the flexibility of taking its juice from both a charger and a gas pump.

Federal and state incentives knock $10,000 off the price, for now. Here’s a look at three key comparisons:

via Leaf vs. Volt: A comparison | Nashville Business Journal.

I’ll be curious to see the response to the electrical car market.

I think the market exists, but the price of petrol will rule the day and the timing.

Auburn University is slated to receive $938,000 from a BP initiative that designated $5 million in rapid response funds for Alabama’s Marine Environmental Science Consortium, Auburn officials announced this morning.

The money is to be used for immediate state research programs in response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to an Auburn University news release.

Auburn’s funding is spread among multiple projects in the College of Sciences and Mathematics, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, College of Agriculture and the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences.

via Auburn to get almost $1 million for Gulf oil spill response projects | al.com.

Congrats to Auburn for securing this grant from BP and kudos to BP for putting more money into research that will help with future oil issues in the gulf.

Montreal’s loss is Memphis’s gain. Electrolux AB, the world’s second-biggest home appliance maker, said yesterday its decision to shut its l’Assomption plant by late 2013 and shift production to a new $190-million factory in Tennessee is final.

L’Assomption, off the eastern tip of Montreal Island, loses its principal private-sector employer and 1,300 jobs. Electrolux will hire 1,250 employees in Memphis to produce new-generation built-in and specialty kitchen appliances in a new 700,000 square-foot plant.

Memphis city and county have provided the land in the Frank Pidgeon Industrial Park at no cost. They are putting up $20 million U.S. each for such infrastructure as roads and sewers and the state is kicking in another $92 million, local filings said. Another $400 million will be invested by suppliers.

The new plant, starting up in mid-2012 and slated for full production in 2013, will mesh closely with Electrolux’s existing kitchen-range plant in Springfield, Tenn., with a workforce of 3,000.

via Electrolux jobs moving to Memphis.

While I am happy for Memphis and my home state of Tennessee, economic development can sometimes be a “zero-sum” game when some lose while others win.

Efficiency will continue to rule the day and those who believe in a socialist economy will do well to see how these jobs moved from a strongly socialist, union environment to a free-market, non-union market in a sun-belt state.

Amazon.com Inc. has made final its commitment to build new distribution centers that will create up to 1,400 jobs in Chattanooga and neighboring Bradley County, economic development officials said Monday.

A statement from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development said the Seattle-based online company plans to spend a total of up to $139 million building the two facilities. The jobs are expected to be created in the next three years and there will be hundreds of other peak season jobs.

The new distribution centers are expected to be operating before the 2011 holiday season at Enterprise South Industrial Park in Chattanooga — near Volkswagen’s new assembly plant that starts production in 2011 — and on State Route 308 in Bradley County.

Amazon.com’s North American Operations vice president Dave Clark said in the statement that the new facilities in Tennessee will allow the Seattle-based online company to “serve customers more quickly and efficiently.”

via Amazon.com moving ahead with centers in SE Tenn. – Bloomberg.

A great Christmas present for Chattanooga and the entire state of Tennessee.

Congrats!

Bryan Daniels has been named president and CEO of the Blount Partnership, the Blount County development organization announced on Monday.

The Blount Partnership includes the Blount County Chamber of Commerce, Chamber Foundation, Economic Development Board and the Smoky Mountain Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“The Joint Operating Committee recently voted to appoint Bryan to the president and CEO position of the Partnership based on his credentials and his past work with each of the partner organizations. He has served our organization well in an interim position since July 2010,” Matt Murray, chair of the Economic Development Board, said in a prepared statement.

via Bryan Daniels named president of Blount Partnership » Knoxville News Sentinel.

Congrats to Bryan on his new role!

Officials in Chattanooga are deciding if they will approve a tax break for a planned distribution center that a Chamber of Commerce executive says would create 1,250 jobs.

No one is naming the business.

The Cleveland Daily Banner reports that plans for a similar hush-hush project that would create hundreds of jobs in Bradley County are being discussed by officials in Cleveland.

WTVC-TV reports that Hamilton County commissioners were asked Wednesday to put a proposed “payment in lieu of taxes” for an unnamed business on their agenda for next week.

via Chattanooga officials consider tax break for secret project » Knoxville News Sentinel.

Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) held a groundbreaking for its new development in Cleveland, TN, The project includes an approximately 1 million square foot manufacturing facility for built-in, premium cooking products, as well as a 400,000 square foot distribution center. Gray Construction, of Lexington, Ky., is building the new facilities.

The ground breaking ceremony took place at the future site for Whirlpool Cleveland – Benton Pike and Michigan Avenue, Cleveland, TN. Attending the kickoff were Al Holaday, Vice President, Whirlpool Corporation, and Dicky Walters, plant leader, as guest speakers. Local officials Tom Rowland, Mayor of Cleveland, and Gary Davis, Mayor of Bradley County, also spoke at the ceremony.

via Whirlpool breaks ground for manufacturing facility in Tennessee : Business & Heritage Clarksville – Local News, Business, Arts, Heritage – DAILY..

A panel of venture capitalists who control a portion of the state’s TNInvestco dollars spoke out today in support of the biotechnology industry, arguing that Tennessee should look for more ways to support its growth.

Harry Jacobson of TriStar Technology Ventures, Gary Stevenson of MB Venture Partners and Joe Cook Jr. of The Limestone Fund spoke during Life Science Tennessee’s annual meeting this afternoon at downtown’s Renaissance Hotel.

The panel functioned as a bit of a pitch to incoming Gov. Bill Haslam, who was not at the event.

via TNInvestco firms talk up biotech future | Nashville Business Journal.

I would have attended this event, but I was speaking at another during the same time.

I look forward to the investing in Life Science area by TNInvestco firms.

In its first report on the use of “geosocial” or location-based services, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project finds that 4% of online adults use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. On any given day, 1% of internet users are using these services.

Location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla use internet-connected mobile devices’ geolocation capabilities to let users notify others of their locations by “checking in” to that location. Location-based services often run on stand-alone software applications, or “apps,” on most major GPS-enabled smartphones or other devices.

via 4% of online Americans use location-based services | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

This is an interesting survey and it makes me wonder how Geosocial services will advance and change in the coming months and years.

In an era when privacy is a huge issue it seems that Geosocial services are heading in the opposite direction.  I predict that Geosocial services will migrate to the staffing world in the USA in a big way sometime soon and will dictate who gets a call and who does not based on ease of access to a certain locale.