Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. pushed ahead in three states with new natural gas fueling infrastructure. As part of an ongoing partnership, Clean Energy is spreading the use of compressed natural gas (CNG), operating and maintaining 14 fueling stations in upstate New York to support the 450-vehicle fleet of utility operator National Grid. In Connecticut, Clean Energy opened a station in West Haven at the headquarters of Metro Taxi, Connecticut’s largest full-service taxicab company. By the end of this year the taxi operator expects to have 110 CNG cabs in its fleet. And in Illinois, Clean Energy is working with Peoria Disposal Co., the city’s residential waste and recycling hauler, to build another CNG commercial fueling station in the city of Peoria. The station will serve as headquarters for 12 new CNG-powered trucks operated by the waste hauling firm.

The natural gas-fired Russell City Energy Center project being jointly developed by Calpine Corp. and a unit of General Electric is on schedule, albeit still more than a year away from beginning commercial operations in the East San Francisco Bay town of Hayward, CA, in 2013. Calpine and GE Energy Financial Services joined community leaders, contractors and construction trade union representatives in marking the project’s midpoint milestone. The Russell City project, which has been changed several times and was eventually saved by GE joining with Calpine, dates back to 2001 when Calpine and a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel proposed the project as a 600 MW gas-fired plant (see Daily GPI, May 25, 2001).

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