STUFF

To further compete with coal and NG, wind turbines now have optical sensing tech to report machine's ongoing health, adjust blades, etc. ~$30k/turbine. National Instruments, Micron Optics some of the comps.

EnviroMission (EVOMY) got $30M debt/equity for design/engineering of solar tower in AZ, with a PPA commitment from SoCal Public Power Authority. Utility-scale tower needs to be 3k feet high to use temp differential to drive turbines at the bottom of the "tube" with a flanged base over a mile in diameter. Pretty neat. 200MW unit might cost $700M to build. A lot of steel-reinforced concrete to calculate into overall GHG reductions, though. But pretty neat tech.

Lebanon, Tunisia governments in chaos, Sadr back in Iraq and now Baby Doc back in Haiti. Oy. Australia under water, Brazil mudslides, birds fall from the sky, fish dead in water, crabs swept up on beach. Wonders never cease. Just working on a song.

Thermal coal (utility grade) now $140/ton, up 40% last 12 months. That's where we get most of our electric. If your bills haven't gone up, they probably will. Which makes clean E even more competetive. Silver linings.

In 1904 a bushel of wheat (60 lbs) cost ~ a $20 gold piece, which had an oz of gold. I love history. That was the typical price until the mid-60's (v. gold). Today, wheat at $7.75/bu., an oz of gold can buy ~187 bushels. Lb of wheat today ~13 cents. A lb of wheat makes a loaf of bread (with other ingredients, o' course). Cheapest bread I know of is at the day-old bread store for under a buck. (Not worth eating). Just a little story from a guy who helped produce 18M pounds of hard red winter wheat in 3 years. And busted the ice in the water tanks for the cattle in 40-below wind chills and took down fence in a blizzard and put up fence on hot summer days. Pards, if the experience ever presents itself to ya, take it. O yea, sprayed the hell, too, out of those Russian wheat aphids attacking our crop in the late '80's. The highest historical price for wheat was during WWI. Though maybe it was higher during Joseph's days in Eqypt. Anyway, we were glad to get $3 wheat in the late '80's. But, alas, all this nothing to do with clean E except that it takes E to make wheat and bread and mine, glean, and smelter gold. It also takes E to put this stuff up onto this blog and store it forever. So I really should be cutting it short. I just want to say you gotta need the dough to make the bread.

Non-OPEC crude production increase was just over 1mbpd (million barrels per day) in '10. Projection for '11 is 200k and flat in '12. EIA expects OPEC to pick up the slack (for world recovery demand) and oil to avg $93 in '11. Kuwait says world econ can take $100. Sure, they would say that.

We Energies' 2nd Oak Creek coal unit now online in Wisconsin. Over $2B, 5 yrs in construction. "Among 5 most efficient coal plants in country". I would hope so. The utility also had to commit to a biomass plant, so they're putting all of $255M toward that, which now is on state regulators' plate.

Solo Power, a Calif maker of thin-film solar cells and modules, to locate another plant in Oregon. Initial phase 75MW. 170 jobs. 300MW eventually. $340M cost (I'm thinking just the 1st phase. Not sure, though. May be the whole 300MW.) A little rusty on that. Up to $40M could come from Oregon (loans, tax credits). And possible DOE loan guarantee.

Maine local groups got state legislators to submit bills to slow down wind turbine placements on their mountains.

If you want to give high school kids an idea: Ecotech Institute, outside of Denver, just opened up - 1st and only, so far, college solely focused on clean E trades/industry.

Sempra Generation plans to build another $46M solar PV plant in Boulder, CO. Construction in late '12. Comp also opened a 48MW plant in Boulder in Dec.

Texas lost the 3rd-round in their legal fight to halt Fed regulation of GHG's. Every other state is going along.

ICF Intl, a leading E consultant, projects 20% of US coal fleet could be retired over next 10 yrs in response to new regs.

Hawaii's new FIT for solar PV not having big impact. Yet. Think about it. They're laid back, pards. I'm tellin ya. Ben there.

Icahn has agreed to take independent power producer Dynegy private for $665M cash, $4B debt assumption. He already owns 10%, options on 5%. Expects NG prices to "recover". Could sell off plants. 12GW in production on east, west coasts and IL. Utilities lately have been going private. Hm. Regulated monopolies going private. Hm.

Arch Coal bought a stake in a controversial (dredging, legacy) west coast terminal to ship its Powder River Basin coal to Asia. Terminal on former Alcoa aluminum smelter site with 5M ton/yr capacity. Arch could also ship from CO, UT mines, plus a MT mine in development. They also said 4Q profit fell short because of mining and rail problems in central Appalachia. 2nd largest US coal producer.

Sask Power (Saskatchewan) added a peak-load 138MW NG station in Dec for $250M. (Oil sands territory). Increases total gencap to ~4GW. 3 GE turbines operated through sat remote control from Regina. Helps out the wind on the grid. Wind goes down. 261MW station in construction.

Turk Power (TRKP) signed their 1st project - a consulting contract for a 40MW wind plant in Turkey.

ENOC got a $10M contract with a MA-based grain processor.

WI Gov Walker proposing new restrictions on wind development. How close can wind projects be to residences? Bona fide issue.

Salem's Doyle Sailmakers working on harnessing ocean currents for power.

Maine's supreme court hearing arguments on 2 proposed wind farms.

DOI's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly Mineral Mngmt Services) has asked wind E comps for notices of interest on fishing waters south of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket. Well, there was once a girl from Nantucket...

Range Fuels' cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia "temporarily" shutting down. "Lack of investment capital". Burns wood chips, some other biomass maybe. Ever hear of Georgia Pacific?
So far a small quantity eth produced. They received the 1st-ever loan guarantee for a commercial-scale cellulosic-eth plant from USDA 2 yrs ago plus grant from DOE. Got $300M in funds since groundbreak in '07. But not enough now to expand to commercial production. Also plant "technical problems". Hm. Just a hm. If you're going to rip off the gov do it big. Just a what the hay. And the rest of the story may come later.

LA Metro retired their last diesel bus. Is that beautiful? Now ~2.2k buses run on NG, 1 on el, 6 on gas-el hybrid power. Eliminates 300k lb GHG's/day from the sky. 10-15% higher operating costs. A cost to cleaner air and healthier lives. Duh. At least we know about how much it is.

GE to acquire Lineage Power for $520M ($450M revs in '10) to get into datacenter energy solutions.

Remember and thank Martin Luther King. He was one of our greats. Ever. And he could have still been alive. With John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and the other martyrs we still have to learn about. Medgar Evers one.

Happy trailers pards.