10 briefs so farlast update 22:24 UTC
Volkswagen Group chief executive Oliver Blume drew up a plan to shut four factories in Germany by 2030, according to Germany's Manager Magazin.
The magazine reported that the plan also called for eliminating 100,000 workers, both in Germany and around the world, by 2030.
Manager Magazin said the plan would be made public at a company board meeting on July 9.
Source: cleantechnica.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
FuelCell Energy has agreed to supply up to 380 MW of molten carbonate fuel cell systems to Fit Energy USA LP for data center baseload power, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.
The equipment purchase deal covers baseload supply rather than backup duty, Hydrogen Fuel News reported, placing carbonate fuel cells against the round-the-clock load profile data centers require.
The company's backlog now stands at USD 3.646 billion, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.
Separately, FuelCell Energy holds a 75 MW reservation in Texas, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.
The same carbonate technology is being applied to industrial carbon capture. FuelCell Energy deployed the first industrial carbonate fuel cell CO2 capture modules at ExxonMobil's Rotterdam site, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. Carbonate cells concentrate CO2 from an exhaust stream while generating power, giving the same hardware two commercial routes: power sales into data center demand and capture services at industrial sites.
The 380 MW figure and the 75 MW Texas reservation sit inside a backlog that Hydrogen Fuel News puts at USD 3.646 billion, tying near-term equipment orders to a contracted revenue base.
Source: hydrogenfuelnews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
Riverside Transit Agency has opened a liquid hydrogen refueling station and put its first five fuel cell electric buses into service, according to Hydrogen Fuel News, marking the start of a move away from natural gas toward a zero-emission fleet under California regulation.
The agency covers 14 cities across about 2,500 square miles in western Riverside County, California, Hydrogen Fuel News reported. It had switched its fleet to compressed natural gas in 2001, according to the same report.
Hydrogen Fuel News attributed the current fleet turnover to California's Innovative Clean Transit rule, which applies to public bus operators in the state.
The liquid hydrogen station gives the agency on-site refueling for the five buses now running, rather than reliance on off-site supply. The deployment is described as the first tranche of the transition, not the completed fleet.
Source: hydrogenfuelnews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
Chile's H2V-TRANSDRIVE program has unveiled a locally engineered hybrid fuel cell truck rated for 600 km of range and a 2,000 kg payload, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.
The vehicle pairs an electric drivetrain with hydrogen fuel cells and runs on green hydrogen produced from wind and solar energy, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.
Pilot deployments in central and southern regions of Chile will validate the truck's performance and support the national hydrogen infrastructure roll-out, according to the same report.
The engineering work was done domestically, which places the program among the country's efforts to build heavy-duty hydrogen transport capability rather than import it. The declared 2,000 kg payload sets the load class the pilots will test, and the 600 km figure defines the refuelling interval that the planned infrastructure has to serve.
Source: hydrogenfuelnews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
Gold Standard has published a Green Hydrogen Production methodology that allows carbon credits to be issued for hydrogen made through water electrolysis, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The announcement came from the certifier's Geneva office.
The methodology sets rules covering four areas: additionality, traceability of the renewable electricity used, temporal matching of that electricity to production, and water safeguards. Hydrogen Fuel News described those rules as strict.
Under the framework, projects would earn Verified Emission Reductions registered under a Paris-aligned registry, per Hydrogen Fuel News. The outlet reported that the framework could reshape how green hydrogen projects secure financing.
Temporal matching and electricity traceability are the two conditions that separate an electrolyzer running on contracted renewable output from one drawing grid power with certificates attached after the fact. Both appear in the published rule set. Water safeguards address the other input to electrolysis, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Source: hydrogenfuelnews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
Hitachi, Ltd. and Bloom Energy Corporation announced a partnership in early September 2026 to deploy solid oxide fuel cell systems for on-site power at Japanese data centers and industrial sites, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.
The arrangement covers on-site generation intended to improve reliability and support distributed generation at those sites, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.
The two companies are offering modular on-site power generation built around solid oxide fuel cell stacks, according to the same report, which describes Japanese data centers as facing surging electricity demand from artificial intelligence workloads and semiconductor manufacturing.
Solid oxide fuel cells convert fuel to electricity electrochemically rather than through combustion, and the modular stack format lets operators size capacity to a specific site rather than wait on a grid connection. Hydrogen Fuel News frames the tie-up as a response to that demand pressure on data center and industrial loads in Japan.
Source: hydrogenfuelnews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
PETRONAS has signed an agreement with Iraya Energies to integrate agentic artificial intelligence into its myPROdata platform, with the aim of speeding up evaluation of Malaysia's upstream opportunities and investment decisions, according to World Oil. The state company signed through Malaysia Petroleum Management (MPM).
World Oil reported that PETRONAS is seeking approximately RM50 billion to RM60 billion in annual upstream investment.
PETRONAS also wants to cut the time from discovery to first hydrocarbons from 100 months to 50 months, World Oil reported.
Iraya Energies will act as consortium lead integrator under the agreement, setting the technical, commercial and security framework for the AI capabilities and for the wider rollout of the program, according to World Oil.
The agentic AI capabilities go into the existing myPROdata platform rather than a separate system, and PETRONAS is deploying them to move faster on evaluating upstream opportunities.
Source: worldoil.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
Three Iranian crude tankers were hit by American forces and one of them destroyed, the U.S. military said, describing the action as a reply to ballistic missiles fired by the IRGC at two U.S. Navy warships, World Oil reported.
Tehran's account differs on who shot first. Iran said its own strikes hit three oil tankers that had taken an unauthorized route through the Strait of Hormuz, plus several ships with U.S. links, and framed the attacks as payback for American strikes on Iranian tankers, according to World Oil.
One of the tankers hit by U.S. forces, the Suezmax-sized Kylo, went down in the Gulf of Oman, U.S. Central Command said.
Two further vessels were left out of action, per the same Central Command account: the Suezmax Stark I in the Gulf of Oman, and the very large crude carrier Downy in the Persian Gulf close to Kharg Island, Iran's oil export hub.
Merchant movement through the chokepoint has all but stopped. Kpler data cited by World Oil show a single commodity vessel crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, with observable traffic through the waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman still sparse.
Source: worldoil.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
OPEC+ left October oil production quotas unchanged as fighting with Iran continued, according to World Oil.
A sub-group of seven countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia met by video conference on Sunday and decided to keep targets steady in October, following a series of symbolic quota increases, World Oil reported.
The hold comes as the conflict widens. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered fresh attacks on Iranian facilities, and Iran retaliated against American bases in the region, per World Oil.
Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, said the group's recent decisions have had limited effect on supply. "For now, OPEC+ is moving barrels on paper rather than in the physical market," Leon said.
The alliance's next task is an audit of how much crude each member can physically produce, World Oil reported. Those figures will feed into the calculation of member production limits for 2027, and the review is due to be completed at the end of this month.
The seven-country sub-group is scheduled to meet again on October 4.
Source: worldoil.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reportedly investigating the rollout of the Tesla Cybercab, according to CleanTechnica.
The vehicle at the center of the reported probe departs from conventional car design. CleanTechnica describes the custom-designed robotaxi as a vehicle that does not include a steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors.
Those three omissions matter for federal vehicle regulation, because steering controls, driver-operated pedals, and rearview mirrors sit among the standard equipment items covered by US motor vehicle safety rules that NHTSA administers. A robotaxi built without them has no fallback for a human occupant to take over driving.
CleanTechnica characterized the NHTSA inquiry as reported rather than confirmed.
Source: cleantechnica.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink