STUFF

US gov reports slight drop in life expectancy. G, couldn't be all the stress from the crash, could it?

Americans' wealth grew 2.2% Q3. Well, that must have been the billionaires and millionaires. G, God love them.

Zuckerberg pledges to give away his wealth. What the hell. A young man giving his money away. Guilt? And wouldn't their money do better to create jobs? 10M jobs at $40k is $400B. US corps reportedly made $1.6T profit in Q3. Just reiterating.

Cancun: Bolivia prez Morales: "we're not here to convert nature into a commodity or revitalize capitalism with carbon markets". Paraguay, Cuba, Nicaragua and others against C trading. Well, sure, still the communistic belligerent history in their bones. Just trying to pay them to conserve their forests. G, so solly. Amazingly, Venezuela was sounding like they wanted out of that block on Friday. And Bolivia has lots of lithium.

Deleware River Basin Commission -- responsible for NYC/Philly watershed - backed off toughest restrictions on Marcellus shale drilling. $5M bond for drilling each well now $125k.

A Rhode Island offshore wind project more than doubled to 1GW. 200 turbines. $6B to build. Will lower kwh costs to mid-teens, more in line with Cape Wind project. 18 miles offshore. Transmission cables from Mass to NY. Could beat Cape Wind online. Don't know the companies involved unfortunately.

Ethanol. From an ethanol backer, I presume: acre corn yields 165 bushels. 2.7 gal eth/bushel. 445 gal eth/acre. 5 gal fossil fuel used/acre. Net gain 89 gal/acre on some kind of scale only they know. Only uses the starch, other corn nutrients remain for food supply. Well, then why does corn and food prices keep going up?

New Greenland ice sheet research shows it's not gradual warming causing the most melting. It's short-term weather extremes. But it's still climate change.

Sinopec buying Occidental's Argentine assets. And the march goes on.

Belize to ban all bottom trauling of their ocean. One of the 1st.

OPEC in Ecuador this weekend.

In current form, the tax deal made earlier this week would kill the Clean E grant program. O Barrack. What have ye done.

Clean E has raised over $150M in VC funds in December so far.