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Balqon (BLQN.OB)
High-potential clean-tech energy play emerging in California The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are the largest ports in America and the fifth-busiest in the world. The Port of Los Angeles alone accounts for:
- 1.1 million jobs in California
- 3.3 million jobs in the United States
- $89.2 billion in California trade value
- $223 billion in U.S. trade value
- $5.1 billion in state tax revenue
- $21.5 billion in federal tax revenue
Unfortunately, pollution from the short-haul diesel trucks accounts for nearly 5,000 premature deaths annually in nearby communities. Multiply the deaths in Southern California by the number of US cities impacted by high CO2 levels and we have an emergency that few have heard of. It’s easy to see why the EPA is expected to declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant, and elected officials are scrambling to address the issues as rapidly as they can. If you factor in the need to eliminate dependance on foreign oil and the US economy’s dependance on trucking to keep the economy flowing the problem becomes gigantic. (As is the potential reward for the lucky company that has the solution.)
Balqon CEO Balwinder Samra
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, center, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the Port of Long Beach on Thursday. (Jeff Gritchen / Staff Photographer)
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About Balqon Corporation
Balqon is a rapidly growing heavy-duty electric truck manufacturer focused on designing and building trucks for short haul heavy-duty vocational applications.
Port authorities received $6 million in federal stimulus money Thursday to spur continued replacement and retrofitting of soot-spewing diesel equipment blamed for contributing to some 5,000 premature deaths annually in communities surrounding San Pedro Bay.
The money will help clean up about 140 cranes, yard tractors, forklifts and tugboats based in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which air quality regulators list as the region's largest fixed source of health-damaging air pollution.
"It's another step in helping relieve the burden residents and workers living near the port face every day," said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson during a visit Thursday to Long Beach. "These residents and workers bear the brunt of diesel pollution leading to 5,000 premature deaths in Southern California alone."
The port money is part of a $26.5-million round of grants awarded to Southern California communities most affected by pollution caused by heavy industry moving goods to and from California's seaports and transportation hubs.
Funding comes from the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which has also helped fund security upgrades in local ports in recent months.
- The company, founded in 2005, has grown by 1332% as the manufacturing operation gears up.
- Opportunity Green Sustainable Business Conference selected 25 green technology companies, including Balqon Corporation, for their combination of innovative thinking and simplicity of execution.
- The L.A. port has signed on for 25 heavy-duty trucks at a cost of $5.7 million. Balqon hopes to market its products to distribution warehouses, mail facilities, military, railroads and others, paying the port a royalty for each truck sold to customers other than Port of Los Angeles.
- Experts say Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are putting to rest the notion that environmental regulation is bad for business, contending that green technology will provide the next leap in new jobs and revenue for the state's economy.
- The EPA has awarded more than $7 billion to fund or supplement a variety of environmental projects across the country, including designing new long-range vehicle batteries, creating solar and wind-power farms and studying alternative fuels.
- "The next knowledge-intensive technology sector is going to be energy efficiency," said David Roland-Holst, a professor at the UC Berkeley Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability. "They can help revolutionize traditional practices around the world while addressing climate change, the most momentous environmental issue of our time."
- In 2008 Balqon produced the globe's first all-electric Class-8 truck capable of pulling the 60,000-pound containers universally used by ocean carriers, rail companies and trucking firms
- Balqon in 2009 implemented Lithium ion batteries across its product line to increase range to 100 miles on single charge.
- And because the electric truck shuts off during idle - which is how most truckers spend nearly half their shift waiting at terminal gates or in traffic - Balqon trucks provide significant fuel savings.
- With wild fluctuations in fuel prices, Samra argues that during the trucks' lifespan, its higher purchase price will be offset by fuel cost savings. Current diesel prices mean a driver shells out roughly 40-45 cents per mile, while electric charging costs equate to less than 20 cents per mile with an electric truck. But there's another - perhaps more important - factor driving investment in all-electric rigs, and that's the zero-emission aspect. Communities in and around the harbor suffer from some of the nation's poorest air quality, which the Environmental Protection Agency blames on diesel soot emitted by the trucks, trains, ships and cargo-handling equipment moving freight. By switching to electric transportation models, diesel emissions - and the well-documented health problems caused by the soot - can be dramatically reduced.
If you would like more information on Balqon Corporation please call Paul DeRiso at 925-465-6088. To email Paul please click here.
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