STUFF

Australia's largest combined cycle power plant using 97% less water, cutting emissions by half v. existing coal plants.

China in 1H spent $31B on hard assets, $23B on T bills, other US bonds.

Subsidies for fossil fuels (US) ~$72B '02-'08 v. ~$29B for clean E.

US military cost to protect Persian Gulf oil $44B in '07.

DOE '00 study: oil market cost US ~$7T in '98 dollars from '70 to '00.

Clean E stocks lost almost $400B in value this yr (about 15%). Factories expanded beyond demand. Just a matter of time for consolidation, mergers, buyouts, etc. But clean E and E efficiency will need $10T in cap investment thru '20. Solar global manufacturing capacity may reach 23.5GW in '11, 40% over demand. Wind turbine makers will increase to 64.2GW capacity, 30% over expected demand. 517 alternative E takeover deals so far in '10, avg. $75M each. '09 same amount of deals with $104M avg.

Wall St Transcript: In '04 world investment in clean E was $42B. Should be over $200B in '10. But US policy (Republicans) has kept US clean E industry from scaling up equal to global competition. I guess we just like to give and give some mores.

We pretty much lucked out this hurricane season. 4 years on sailboats in Florida meself mateys (early '90's).

Wells Fargo to fund $100M for US solar projects for '11, joining Morgan Stanley and Citibanco in shifting investments from dirty to clean E. G. $100M. Don't get crazy. It's a start I guess.

Mass production of Chevy Volt started today.

US homeowners can get low-cost E audits to get fed-insured loans for upgrades. Announced today.

October budget deficit (US) $140B. Down 20% from last year.

Did anyone know Obama's goal is cutting deficit to 3% of GDP. We're at 10%, last I checked. How the hell did we have budget surpluses at the end of the last millenium?!

Massive gamma ray bubbles at center of the galaxy. OURS! They span (spam?) 50k light years. Could be black hole eruption or outflow from star formation burst. Spans over half the visible sky. Seen them? Maybe millions of years old. Found out by Fermi gamma ray telescope launched in '08. Gamma rays the highest energy form of light.

Preliminary proposals from debt commission out. Social security, medicare cuts, increase in gas tax, et al. Twill be fun.