STUFF

Spain's solar sector to sue their gov for the drastic reductions in FITs retroactively. New tariff regime will cut payouts for ground-mounted solar by 45% this year. I guess that's what happens when your gov is getting bailed out by the EU. 25% redux for large roof-mounted systems. 30k jobs lost already.

Lloyds and Chatham House: oil supply crunch appears likely ~'13. $200/bl not "infeasible". DOD ('10) report: By '12, surplus oil prod capac could "disappear". As early as '15, shortfall could reach 10mbpd. IEA ('09): world's heading for catastophic E crunch because most of major oil fields in world have passed peak production. Bell ringers?

Meester Obama to call for a 5-yr spending freeze tonight. I assume on fed spending. Wow. Has change come huh?

Every year 1.3M exajoules of solar E hits dry ground on Earth. As soon as I find out what an exajoule is, I will let you know. Anyway, we now use 487 exajoules. That's a little easier math. But don't ask me to do it. Not right now.

Research funded by USAF has discovered a batt tech that can power a laptop for 30 years w/out a recharge. GE has sodium batt tech for locomotives.

Biofuels Digest: global advanced biofuels (no food) capacity to reach 4B gal by '15 based on 13 comps' announcements (some I've herd of). Major projects to come online in '11: Enerkem (in stuff yesterday I think), Ineos' 8M gal/y bio waste to eth in FL, 10M gal renewable diesel from LS9 in FL, Neste Oil's renewable diesel project in Rotterdam and 5M gal US Biofuels project in Calif.

Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems. Capturing waste heat. In Australia, heat capture from timber plant to power kilns to dry the lumber. ORC systems use thermal oil or silicon-based oil that powers turbines @ lower temps needed for steam. Stacks - or pipes - at coal or nuke plants can recover waste heat. We can go from 30% efficiency to 80%. If we just try. This should be in gov incentives, subsidies as much as fossil fuels. You think?

Biomass Crop Assistance Program began June '09. Ever herd of it? Me neither. Offers matching pay for producers of eligible biomass crops who sell to qualified biomass conversion facillities. Reality was wood waste was redirected from wood products (4X8 wallboard and cheap furniture I'm guessing). Revised BCAP announced in Oct'10. And I can't even report what the heck they revised it to because I just don't have that much governmenteeze in me to interpret it.

And, by the by, looks like Lebanon will be in the hands of Hezbollah. Happy motoring.