STUFF

Pinon ridge - a tilde over the first n, of course - Paradox Valley (and we know about paradoxymorons) - is a proposed new U processing facility, the first in the US in 25 years. Looking for CO regulators' approval next month. Now-closed U mines in area could supply $175M worth. Vanadium also comes from the mines (strengthens steel).

Approval of new nuke plant 120 miles SW of Houston. Excelon v. local ranchers. Early site approval. Enough water in drought a Q. $10B gamble. Hay, roll the dice. 700 perm jobs @ avg $70k.

Papers filed for construction of Braka reactors to be built in UAE - 4 S. Korean comps consortium reactors. Online '17-'20. $20B. Same reactor as those nearing completion in SE S. Korea except 50 Hertz output v. 60 with the higher ambient temps, sand storms. Lightbridge (LBRG?) consulting.

China has lost 20M acres of arable land to urbanization/industrialization/forest replanting/natural disaster damage. Don't have timetable on that. 37% of China suffers from land degradation. 21% world pop, 8.5% total arable land, 6.5% world fresh water reserves.

Earlier this month China announced CPI rose 5.1%, food climbing 11.7%. From some previous point. Climate change expected to reduce ag productivity 5-10% by '30. Are we even going to be here? 200M farmers.

Rusal, world's top aluminum producer, battles for control of Norilsk Nickel.

"Garbage is Gold". Palm fronds, lawn clippings and go forth and multiply. Biorubber and it just goes on.

TSLA insiders were free to sell 75M shares on Monday. Do dah. The lock out rule.

Bloom fuel cells claims power at 9-11 cents/kwh.

FERC (fed el regulators) approved 100% cost sharing for new el transmission. In Midwest about 10GW of wind spinning. Texas started it with CREZ (Competitive Renewable Energy Zones). "Now we can move to implementation": Midwest Independent System Operator. 17 projects.

Almost 100 banks that got bailout funds may fail.

FSLR the 2nd most shorted stock after Sears. 30% of float. As S&P 500 Index shorting fell to one-year low. Go figure the bear.

Britain gets 1/4 of its NG as LNG. NG supply from North Sea dwindling. May be forced to import up to 70% of NG need from imported LNG by '20.

China reducing export quotas of rare earth (RE) minerals in early '11. Will be 35% drop v. 1H '10. In tons. China mines 95% of REs, 99% of least common. Essential for smartphones, EV's, computer components, military hardware. They issue new quotas in summer usually. Um, Molycorp if you buy NYSE stocks. Earlier, export taxes were raised again to 25% from 15% for some of the most crucial REs and some that were not taxed before now taxed. WTO prohibits export quotas or tariffs except for enviro protection or national security. China says pollution concerns on RE mining are sincere. They're retiring older mines/techs. But the reasoning is they want to force manufacturers that use REs to move to China.

Blue crab population in Chesapeake Bay has doubled to 300M since VA and MD limited the catch of females. Duh huh. Lot o pist off male blue crabs there I bet. Or happier. But Bay still so polluted from storm runoff that it's not safe to swin in 48 hours after hard rain. Could be threatened by NG fracking.

Steelers stadium being prepared for NHL game. Very cool, very smart.

Spain lowering FIT retroactively. Has their gold from Peru run out? Moody's downgrade coming? 30% redux in revs for solar next 3 yrs. Will save $6B for el users. Political backlash on solar.

Happy trailers, friends.