http://earth2tech.com/2010/08/10/energ2-kicks-off-fed-backed-factory-first-ultracaps-then-the-world/
EnerG2, a company working on synthetic carbon materials for energy storage devices, hit pay dirt last summer with the award of a $21.3 million stimulus grant under a highly competitive Department of Energy program. Today, in Albany, Ore., the 7-year-old startup finally kicked off the $28 million commercial-scale manufacturing project made possible by that DOE grant. Based in Seattle, Wash., EnerG2 was spun out of the labs at the University of Washington in 2003 under the leadership of then-Ph.D. candidate Aaron Feaver and materials science professor Guozhong Cao, and has now raised upwards of $14.5 million in equity financing. The company’s entire 25-person staff is in Albany today for the launch of the factory project, which will involve converting an old warehouse into a high-tech factory, Chief Operating and Financial Officer Chris Wheaton told us this morning. There won’t be any “exotic pieces of machinery,” he said, but the installation and integration of equipment needed to crank out the company’s nano-structured carbon powder, or electrode carbon, “is really the magic that’s going to occur over the next 12-14 months.” <more>
