Monday, February 28, 2011

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Market up 95/1/7. Volume a touch over normal. WTI oil down a buck. Conflicting reports on how much Libyan oil out of production. And a permit issued for deepwater drilling in Gulf of Mexico to Noble.

AMEL up 31. PSUD up 27. IFXY up 22. UBRG up 17. XSNX up 10.

PSPW down 43. SESI down 22. RVBF down 19. CYBL, ENSL down 16. PSRU down 12. NACF down 11. RNNM, AFPW down 10. PWER down 9. Check that out. FSLR down 5. Back on lines. JASO down 3. Ditto. The Italy thing.

STUFF

At least 75% of Libya oil production is shut down by one report. And the NG line to Italy was shut down - provides ~10% of Italy's NG. A natural gas line under the Med all the way from Libya to Italy?! Who knew? Learning more day by day ain't we?

An attack on Iraq's largest refinery over the weekend shut down that 150kbpd of production. Blamed on AlQaida. Doesn't help things at all. And, O yea, the Friday Baghdad demonstration (riot) with 15 killed.

Solar down today on Italy drafting a cap on solar installs for immediate implementation with no grandfathering.

Lazard Capital estimates $90B potential LED market in 5 yrs from present $5B. Though Ron Paul joined 19 others to repeal the '07 act that mandated obsolescence of incandescents. They can still get their daughters replacements for their Easy Bake Ovens and heat lamp replacements. But no, they want to keep us in 19th century tech. O. Sure. Incandescents are cheap and what right does government have over biz to outlaw product? Except street drugs I guess. Thank goodness we repealed Prohibition. O, overly waxing on this one I am aren't I.

Buried in the Wisconsin bill to strip collective bargaining is provision to allow no-bid contracts to sell off the states' power plants with no PUC review. Hm. Wouldn't be a request from the Koch Brothers, would it? Gotta love those little addendums.

Honeywell selected by Chinese org that oversees the grid to participate in project to study demand response, advanced bldg E mgmt.

And the Jasmine Revolution has apparently spread to Oman. They also have oil.

Happy trails pards.

OPEN

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Market up 87/8/7. Volume pretty normal. Oil actually down a little with Libya oil shipments going out.

AMEL up 30. News late last week. Lithium mining. Takeoff from 50-day lines. UBRG up 17. A jump off the bottom. Hit their top lines and came back. PSUD up 14. IFXY up 12. EMKR up 5, a new 12-month high.

PSPW down 40 after Friday's jump up. LEOM down 12. EVCA down 8.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

FRIDAY CLOSE

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Market up 61/43/13. Volume slightly heavy for a Friday.

RNNM up 122. Yep. On news. PSPW up 46. CLNO up 37. WNDEF up 19. WNEA up 18. AFPW up 16. PWSV up 11. HYPF up 10.

CBWP down 27. ENSL down 24. RVBF down 20. ECOS down 16. PSRU down 14. IFXY down 12. XSNX down 12.

Friday, February 25, 2011

STUFF 2

Talk about stealth. FDEI has gone undercover. No website anymore. Phone disconnected. And their stock way down another day. Are they charletans? What the hay? What the hay SEC?

STUFF

Saudis raised oil output ~8% - up 700kbpd from Jan - to >9mbpd to make up for near half of Libya exports. Kadaffy threatens to blow up oil facilities (already did on Chinese facilites, so reported). No strategic reserves released yet. OPEC doesn't plan to meet before June. Iran sees no need to increase production. Libya the world's 12th largest oil exporter. And they have sweet crude. For the Euro refineries. IEA says 500-750kbpd has "been removed" from the present market, less than 1% of global daily consumption. Euro refineries saying Saud crude not suitable. But supplies OK well into March.

OPEN

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Market up 63/34/11. Volume normal. WTI crude stable at $97. Brent had hit $119 yesterday or day before. Revised 4Q GDP 2.8%. First estimate was 3.2%. 3Q was 2.6%. Entire year was 2.8% growth, most in 5 yrs. 4Q GDP @ $13.37T.

SNRY up 23. WWPW up 17. WNDEF up 16. Jump out of its 6-week downtrend. HYPF up 10. VSPC up 9. LSCG, EFOI up 5.

RVBF, ENSL down 20. EVCA down 13. NACF down 10.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

STUFF

Sanyo forecasts $44B lith-ion battery market by '15. Deustche Bank forecasts $13B market for light vehicle lith-ion market by '15, with 3-4% market share for EV's. $3 gas = 11 cents/mile. EV's pay ~3 cents/mile for the el, ~8 cents for depreciation on battery life.

Waste heat: Photonic Devices raised $10M on top of last year's ARPA-E grant. Their chips can be wrapped around (steampipe) or attached to engines to produce el. Alphabet Energy won a $1.5M DOD contract. They use silicon nanowires to convert ambient heat to el. Far more efficent than traditional bismuth telluride waste heat semiconductors. ~55-60% of E gen in US gets dissipated as waste heat.

Varian Semi (VSEA) has partnered up with Chinese PV solar makers to insert patterned ion implantation into volume manufacturing by mid-year. Will increase cell efficiency at lower production costs. Replaces diffusion doping processes, eliminating production steps. Future step will be replacing phosphorous dopant with boron for efficiencies up to 23% (where SPWRA is).

Transphorm, a startup with backing from Google and others, to make power converters (for cellphones, laptops, etc) out of gallium nitride (same material for white-light LEDs). Current silicon converters are 85-90% efficient, the rest given off in waste heat. Transphorm may boost effic to upper 90's. Si has reached its physical limits in power conversion. Could save hundreds of TWhrs/yr with global application. NYC uses 50/yr. Vegas 33. And the entire western US 240. First products out the door by year end. Could put National Semi's converter business out of biz.
Also will reduce costs of solar installs.

Many new comps pursuing thinner silicon wafers for solar, other. Current wafer thickness ~150 microns. Best theoretical efficiency solar cell at 25 microns.

Soros and Obama's ex clean E czar partnered up in new private equity fund.

Well, may our trails get less scarifyin over the Arab rebellion. O yea, the river's risin. Grab your emergency bags. Later, pards.

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Dow down 37, Naz up 14. Heavy volume still. Oil (WTI) backed off $100.

AFPW stayed down 36. WNEA down 23. ECOS ended down 20 on some comeback in aft. Looks like right at their 50-day lines. CCGI down 17. Volume spike. BCON down 17 afterhours after announcing a reverse split. (Now 14). CABN down 16. Drop below 50-days. WWPW, CLNO down 15. WWPW a new low. WPNV down 14. MDTL down 13. PWSV down 12. HYPF down 9. FSLR down 3 afterhours, missing on revs in latest Q, but hiked the outlook. LSCG down 3, back to $4. And EFOI under a buck.

The winner - FRBE up 150 on 1k shares. PSRU up 88 on news. CBWP up 50. Another punch off their bottom. SESI up 25. Back above 50's. TSPG up 20. Back to 50's. ENSL up 15 on volume. 50's. LMCO up 12. Over last 200-day. AEGY up 10. Up to 50-days, coming off the bottom. AONE up 7 on Deustche Bank analysis of lith-ion battery market (report coming up in "stuff"). VLNC up 4 on it. CLNE up another 6. In 3-day rally, now at their 200's. And EVCA finished up 2 after hitting .024 early.

OPEN

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Dow down 24, Naz up 8, S&P flat. Volume easing back to normal. Oil steadying.

PSRU up 52 on news. BDCO up another 15. LMCO up 12. Out over last 200-day line.

AFPW down 36. Backed off their 50-days. ECOS down 33. A dive back to bottom. EVCA down 13 more. Back on their 50's.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

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Market down 107/33/8. Volume bigtime - 50% over new normal maybe. No surprise. Things didn't get worse today. Much. The whole ArabOil world in chaos. Who woulda thunk. Bout time for Mr AntiChrist to show up, A? O who knows. We keep going and going and going. In the hope of life being nice. What. In the hope of what. Life being easy? Is that too much to ask? Easy and nice. Ask those peeps born into hell on Earth what they want. A decent meal every day. A roof. Safety. And on and on and on we go. Let alone health care and education. Spinning around the universe another day. And another night cometh. What? What? Too much waxing philosophy? Yup. Solly.

BDCO up 80. THATS some 2 days. SHIT. $2 to >$6. Thank you wall street for informing us beforehand. Sorry pals I had no clue. What can I say. Solly. AFPW up 50. Over the 50-day lines. Volume. HYEG up 42. 3k shares. Crazy chart. Don't even go. AEGY up 41. VSPC up 18. The king grass stuff I s'pose. A peak over the 200's. WNEA up 16. AXPW up 15. A stretch out over the last 200 day. BLQN up 14. I told you about them when they came back to a buck. I cants do no mores than that can I? SSHO up 13.

SATC down 25. That's a lotto shares a-traded. EVCA down 21, on .036. TSPG down 19. UBRG, GCEH down 16. ECOS down 14. BWEN down 12. SNRY, CSOL down 11. HOKU down 9.

And as the Cronk would say: "and that's the way it is".

STUFF

Oil hit $100. NYMEX I guess. WTI. Not Brent. Libya's little civil war. From their little minded dictator. The world is getting tired of dictators. You think. Oil tanker still getting filled up at Libyan port today, one account.

Onward. ND windfarm planning to increase capac by 105MW to 185. Bison 2 project of MN power. Late '12 online. $160M. Also, a 345kw power line, online in '13. MN has 25% by '25 clean E mandate. 2 more 150MW farms pending.

UN report says spending 2% of global GDP/yr into green E would deliver long-term stability. ~$1.3T/y. Also phase out >$600B/y in global fossil subsidies and >$20B/y subsidies for unsustainable fisheries.

Zenith Solar (Israel) signed MOU with China for devel of combined heat/power solar for China. To build 2 10MW plants at edge of Gobi in '11. CHP gets 72% efficiency.

Iran plans to add 2.1GW clean E gencap over next 3 yrs. Wind, hydro, biomass, geo. Now 8.5GW hydro online and 130MW wind.

Abengoa to build 100M gal/yr cellulos eth plant in KS. Enzymatic hydrolysis. Successful trials at Spain pilot plant. I'm not sure. Does that take away from traditional topsoil replenishment from leftover plants after harvest that we use to plow back into the ground? Are our governments thinking clearly enough on this? Or getting bagged and tagged by the chemical fertilizer industry? I just wonder. That's what I do. And report. Sometimes in awe.

Ukraine biofuel exports were up 63% in '10 to 573k met tons. Mostly pellets, briquettes from wood, sunflower husks, grain straw. Again. Topsoil replenishment. Where will it come from?

Brookhaven National Lab (that's us) study says jatropha oil burns well for powergen. <3% S content of heating oil.

FDIC: our banks earned >$21B in 4Q. Fidelity: avg 401k balances @ 10 yr high. I guess t'ings aren't all that bad?

Trail on pards.

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Market down 35/16/2. Volume a little heavy. Kadaffy wants to be a martyr to himself. Insane.

SATC down 21 on Q/Yr report. They missed estimates. Back on their 200-day lines. EVCA down 17. Hit .036 again. NEXS down 11. Rally peak yesterday. VUOC down 10.

VSPC up another 14. News came out this morning. Back up under 200's. TRKP up 11. 2nd day off the bottom. CLNE up another 4. They got the UPS contract mentioned in yesterday's "stuff". Over 50-days.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

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Mart down 178/77/27. We got took-ed to the watershed. Volume immense. What? Libya? The whole Arab world? Yea maybe. Oil. We're a-scared. But truth be told we were due for a correction anyway. Shell at the corner has $3.26/gal. I'm thankful I can walk to wherever I need to go. Not that I wouldn't like a joy ride or two again. Or some flight time. Anyway, I limited this report to stocks with at least 100k shares traded for gollysakes.

EVCA down 32. Hit 03.6 (their last 200-day line) and bounced back up to 04.6. ZOLT down 12. That was a zolt. CCTC down 11. JASO, IFXY down 9. FDEI down 3. O so many many more.

BDCO up 50. Must have been news. PSPW up 23. TRKP up 16. VSPC up 14. NGBF up 12. AEGY up 11. CLNE, HRTE up 10. NPWZ up 9. Always. Always the trendbuckers. The showoffs. The manipulators. The uppers. The in your facers.

Out pards. Out a lot lately. Cheers.

STUFF

1.6B bls of crude held in emergency reserves by IEA members. About 60 days worth if all of OPEC shuts down (my calculation).

Well, onward and upward. O, but first, a little backstep. Kadaffy should be hung. OK, now onward and upward.

New NG pipeline/expansions now being completed in US should add ~725mcfd (million cubic feet/day) capac to total 1.2bcfd added in past year. Tapping into shale gas areas.

France and Sauds signing agreement today for cooperative development of nuke energy. Saud power demand est. to triple to 120GW by '50 (I don't see how anybody can look that far ahead). 40GW today. S. Korea also co-developing nuke power with Saudis.

US, Ukraine discussing coop on nuke energy and signed agreement for Ukraine shale gas exploration, construction of LNG terminal on Black Sea by '14.

Siemens got contract from Mexican copper producer for 250MW combined-cycle power plant.

UPS adding 48 LNG-powered big rig tractors. Compressed NG just not practical. Complete switch from diesel for US fleet would take 6tcf (trillion cubic feet)/yr. Current total US demand ~22tcf. LNG requires 70% more space than diesel tanks. Compressed NG ~6x the space (at 3kpsi). The LNG engines still use 5% diesel for start/lube. LNG chilled to -260F. UPS project got $5.5M from Calif via DOE. Kenworth, Peterbilt, Westport (WPRT) getting orders for LNG trucks. But they cost $200k v $100k. CLNE selling LNG @ equiv $1.25/gal less than diesel, but very few stations up and running for extended truck runs.

Dead baby dolphins washing up on AL, MS shores at 10X normal rate.

BP agreed to pay $7.2B to explore deepwater fields off India. Follows $8B deal for Arctic Sea exploration off Russia and last year's deals for offshore Brazil and S. China Sea. That's a complete BRIC move.

Well, we do have a strong selloff today. I think we get a correction here maybe until our Arab friends and neighbors settle the Mideast dust and sand.

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Market down 50/27/8. Volume strong, naturally. Libya crisis - substantial enough oil exports - is spooking world markets. Oil (NYMEX) back up to mid-90's. Saud king back home. Lot of flux in oil land. Good news is US markets aren't down more.

CPWY up 37. VNDB up 33. TRKP up 20. VSPC, WPNV up 15. NTCXF up 11. Can always find the grandstanders. HRTE up 10 on news, big volume.

SSHO down 16. EVCA down 10. LMCO down 9. BYDDF down 5, another new low. JASO down 4 on a blow out Q/Y report.

Monday, February 21, 2011

STUFF

MiaSole raised $106M of a $125M VC round at half the valuation of '08. A CIGS thin-film solar maker. 2H11 IPO planned. Modules up to 14% efficiency - cost ~79 cents/w, looking for 70 cents in '12 using Si efficiencies. Got $102M manufacturing tax credits in '10. Sees $413M revs in '12. Working with WalMart, Solar City; a patent issue with Solanex.

Cushing OK - WTI crude - running out of storage space. Holding 38M bls, capac ~45M.

By the by, some biotech from the last year or so:
USC scientists created cells in mice immune to HIV.
Intrexon pioneered a DNA drug that kills cancer from within.
And a Peruvian doctor established method to grow new organs/limbs on demand (already in phase II trials).

AEP getting $4M from Global CCS Institute (Australia) for 1st commercial scale CO2 capture and storage system (CCS) at WV power plant. 1.5M met tons/yr to be captured. '15 start. DOE funding 50%, up to $334M. AEP/Alstom started in '09 to capture 90% of CO2 from 20MW of gen cap. This new project to capture 235MW of plant's 1.3GW cap. Chilled ammonia system.

AZ's largest utility - AZ Public Service - contracted FSLR for a 17MW plant in Gila Bend. APS will own. Online in Sept. 1 of 5 plants now under devel by APS, going for 100MW from 6 plants. They have 288MW clean E online today. This project their first in thin-film solar.

Last Thursday, DOE made a $197M loan guarantee to Solo Power to retrofit, expand its CIGS thin-film solar plant in OR. Expected to make 400MW/yr, 500 permanent jobs. Last month, Solo raised $51M from investors. DOE total clean E guarantees so far $26B for 30 projects.

DHS awarded Raytheon a $22M contract to fix the wind turbine/doppler radar problem. >9GW of wind devel on hold in US because of the prob.

OPEC crude exports fell 2% Nov to Dec. Saudi fell to 6.02mbpd from 6.36 as their production rose to 8.37. May explain recent rise in Brent, besides the Arab revolutions going on. O yea, will the wave hit Saudi Arabia?

Libya exports ~1.5mbpd, most to Europe.

World wind turbine orders rose 75% in 2H10, 48% for all of '10.

Happy Presidents Day, A? And what is Congress doing taking this week off? What a country. Next week the possible government shutdown. After the checks go out. And the market pretty much straight up since Sept. Time for a change? Yes we can. And, finally, with all these MidEast countries going through revolution, seems probable we will have an oil problem and at least 1 Islamic state emerge. Hopefully not. Out and over pards.

Friday, February 18, 2011

2:46P

As the offices clear out this Friday in N. Am. to enjoy the spring-like wx:

Dow up 48. Naz down 3. S&P flat. O. So that's the way it's going to be. More to the big boys.

PSRU up 50. WNEA up 25. SNRY up 21. LMCO, EVSI up 12 (the ones to seriously look at as LMCO goes to 10 as I wrote). DSTI up 9 on typical Friday uprise.

ECOS down 32. EVCA down 9. HYPF went from up to down 5.

Now Dow up 55, Naz down 1. And I'm going out to enjoy some nice wx again. Happy trails pards.

OPEN

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Market up 27/3/1. Volume a little up, but Friday before holiday Monday. Also 3rd Friday. Supposed to be options expirations. But awful tame if it is. Haven't seen any news on it.

HYPF up 41. SNRY up 21. Day 2 of rally. NEXS up 9. Closing in on double since first of year. SPWRA up 8. Already down a buck from the high. It'll come back.

CSKH down 3. FDEI also down another 3. Way oversold.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

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Market up 29/6/4. Volume light. Good manufacturing report.

ECOS up 125. Just amazing. CSKH up 31. 2nd day of run up to 200-day lines. SNRY up 29. RNNM, SLRE up 25. NNLX up 18. A punch over 50-days. NANO up 11, hit new high. LMCO up 9. 2-day run up to 200's. EFOI up 8. SPWRA up 8 after hours on good Q. ESLR even up 7.

HYPF down 34. NPWZ down 13. EVCA down 8. And FDEI down 7.

STUFF

Solar City (with $40M funding lately) buying groSolar's residential install division, expanding to MA, NY, NJ, PA to be largest installer by area covered - 10 states. 1k employ.

Tessera/Stirling (disk-engine solar plants) sold their remaining project (709MW with PPA from SDG&E) to AES Solar.

WTI crude lately ~$85. Brent now $104.

China said their wheat harvest will be "fine". Could be to get the price down for a better deal. And their Jan crude imports were up 27% - 1.1mbpd over Jan '10. Some maybe from increased water pumping to fight the drought.

And that's it pards. Except for Bahrain, Yemen, Libya. And what's going on in Lebanon and Iran?

OPEN

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Market down 3/2/1 on maybe unemployment claims. Volume light again.

EQST up 51. SNRY up 52. Hit their 50-day lines and came back. RBCN up 17 on Q4/Y report. Good numbers, losses turned into profits, guidance up. A jump from 50-days to last 200-day. XWES up 16 on 4Q/Y. Revs up, slight loss on year. Jumped through all the lines. Now up 11. VLNC up 11 on winning patent infringement case. Jump over 50's, already above 200's. NCEN up 10.

HYPF down 23. Coming down after their quick 7x+ run. ITRI down 10 on 4Q/Y report. Earnings missed analysts calls, guidance down and restatement of 3 quarters coming. Fell below all lines. ULBI down 11. 4Q/Y revs all flat, loss on the year. Down to bottom 200-day. ENOC down 7. FDEI down 5 again.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

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Market up 61/21/8. Volume light to "new normal".

Didn't see much that made sense. EVCA up 63. HYEG up 42. RNNM up 29. AEGY up 23. NPWZ up 20. Maybe makes sense. GSPI, CPWY up 18. IAUS up 16. EMKR, CSKH up 11. Yea, OK, some sense. LMCO up 10. BLQN up 9. That made sense.

CGYV, MMMW down 21. AEBF down 14. Not much down. ITRI down 5 after hours after Q that wasn't that bad.

STUFF

Ontario decided not to proceed with offshore wind projects. Why.

60MW wind farm near Omaha to be dedicated tomorrow. An Omaha utility gave it a 20-yr PPA (power purchase agreement) and agreed to buy 118MW more wind E by '12.

WY joined TX in suing EPA over GHG regs. Well, sure, Powder River Basin coal. Gotta love lawyers.

NREL has added genes from e coli to Zymomonas mobilis to yield a microbe to convert cellulosic material into ethanol. In Latin America, mix spit with Zym into a gourd and come up with 8% alcoholic beer. NREL licensing on the cheap, as is NASA for tech to convert sewage into fuel via algae.

China regional govs drawing up plans for C trading. Plan to cut C intensity - CO2 to GDP - 40% by '20.

NV Transport Assoc. says the proposed 10% biodiesel blend will nullify warranties on truck engines. Present NV law requires 5%. Mercedes Benz says blend abv 5% voids the warranty. (Both my living brothers tell me no truckers are pulling into the biodiesel pumps).

Meanwhile, a Jamaican comp is launching a pilot project for biodiesel from jatropha and castor oil. Another jatropha project has been launched in Iran. CNOOC has sold it's first jatropha biodiesel to Sinopec. Zambia is aiming for 50% of fuel from biodiesel. 3 comps invested $19M in Mozambique jatropha biodiesel project. And LL Biofuels to develop up to 750k acres for jatropha in Namibia.

Global Renewable Fuels Assoc. expects ethanol production to hit 23B gal in '11, up 3%. Replaces 1mbpd of oil. US leads with >13.5B ('11). Europe looking for 15% increase this year.

REC Solar commissioned a 1.2MW solar farm in Kauai HI. 5 acres PV.

A 6.7MW PV solar plant to be built this year in S. Israel.

Perryman power plant in MD operates 4 oil-fired turbines.

Last week, Gamesa and Northrup Grumman launched the Offshore Wind Tech Center in Chesapeake. On track to test 2 5MW turbs in the Atlantic off the Outer Banks in Q4 '12. Last Oct., to recall, Google said it would invest in a 6GW transmission backbone for E. coast offshore wind. Just like ethanol and biodiesel I guess. It's goinna happen.

Pakistan plans 10 new nuke plants by '30.

American Muni Power (Columbus, OH non-profit) dropped the plan for a 600MW NG power plant on the Ohio River to buy a 707MW NG plant being built by First Energy (remember the blackout on the East coast in early '00's?). "Saves $350M over 30 yrs" says AMP. NG pipe to the plant a dollar question. And a 1st E subsid to buy 1/3 of an Iberdrola wind farm output going up in Nwest OH to come online Oct '12.

France's Alstom signed 500M Euro contract to equip N. Brazil's Xingu River dam. Planned capac >11GW. 8-year buildout.

Hawaii Electric Light to buy el from Ormat's geotherm plant on the big island. Ormat adding 8MW to 30.

That early Feb TX power outage: "frozen instrumentation or controls" forced 4 coal-fired units into failure at Luminant's central TX plant (subsid of Energy Future Holdings).

Brazil's elgen capac grew 5.7% in '10. 112GW.

And the 1st coalbed-methane to energy project is started in Russia.

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Market up 70/23/9 it's said on M&A activity and earnings. Volume light. Demonstrations in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya at least.

EVCA bounced back 42. I guess they're for real. EMKR up 11. ALTI up 8 on news they have sold a 51% share in the comp. TSLA up 5 on Q report saying revs doubled and they're looking for 50% gains going forward.

AFPW down 14. FDEI down 7 again (every morning lately). I'm going to say it again. $1B revs in the pipeline and valuation under $3M. (I just bought some more at .0066.)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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Market down 41/12/4. Volume light. Bahrain may be a problem. Sunni rulers over majority Shiites. US naval base. Yemen demonstrations.

CBWP up 71. RVBF up 27. More than doubled in 3-day rally. Hit up against 200-day lines and fell back. AFPW up 20. SNRY up 10. CCTC up 9.

EVCA down 50, though a market maker jump up at the close. Back on their 200-days. RNNM down 47. TRKP down 21. GSPI down 16. WNEA down 11. ECOS, NPWZ, WWPW down 10. ESLR down to $2. LSCG back to $4. Back on their 50's again.

STUFF

ENOC was pummelled late last week (and Monday morn) because of concerns over possible double-counting of some power savings. Their COO resigned Thursday. They're up from yesterday's bottom, but I would think they have another down leg to go.

A "strike" over the weekend on a NG pipeline in S. Pakistan disrupted supply of ~500MW equivalent E. One of the areas hardest hit by last year's flood.

The '12 budget: $29.5B for DOE. A slight increase. Includes $8B for solar, wind, batts. $853M for new nuke techs (like small modular). Also $36B loan guarantees for nuke plants. $3.6B fossil subsidy cuts. $600M cut to HQ staff, fossil research budget cut 45% to $418M.

US gasoline inventories last week - 240M bls - was highest level since March '90. (I guess that's why the Shell station on the corner just reduced gas to $2.98 from last week's $3.14). Global crude production was up .5mbpd in Jan to 88.5m. OPEC now at 2-year high - 29.85mbpd, a 200kbpd increase from Iraq plus increase of NGL production in Qatar, UAE. Non-OPEC production flat @ 53mbpd. Bigger demand on heating oil this winter took stockpiles to 2-yr low. OPEC sees global consumption for '11 @ 87.7mbpd, 1.6m below IEA's estimate. IEA also said last week that the world's oil bill will rise this year from last year's 4.1% of GDP to 4.7%, a level which has brought "slowdowns" in the past.

China, by the by, considers their oil stockpile a state secret. And are "clamping down" on vehicle registrations in cities.

Other bits of tid: Anadarko made their 4th major deepwater discovery off Mozambique. Iran's oil output up 100kbpd to 3.7mbpd. ENI has begun oil production offshore Alaska's North Slope. Algerian 280bcf/yr NG flow to Spain "imminent" (besides an Algerian revolution a la Egypt). Venezuela to receive 1st Japanese oil tankers in 30 years starting in March. A southern Columbian oil pipeline was bombed in 2 sections last week. 48kbpd capac. The US could increase its oil production by 40% to 10mbpd within a decade, a former Shell exec told Congress. 3M jobs. Proof be in the pudding I guess.

BLDP got contract to supply fuel cell modules for 5 buses in Oslo Norway. Why not here?

Origin Oil (OOIL) to participate in a pilot-scale algae project in Baja funded by Mexican gov. Mexico wants to develop algae jetfuel industry.

US exported 279M liters of ethanol to EU in December, 1.5B liters in '10, up from 480M liters in '09.

Shell and Brazil's Cosan signed onto a $12B joint venture to double Cosan's sugarcane production in next 5 years to 100M metric tons, and doubling ethanol production to 1.3B gal/yr, plus developing sugarcane leftovers (bagasse) for energy production.

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Market down 53/13/5. Volume up from yesterday. Consumer sales disappointed, they say.

CBWP up 71. A jump off their bottom. AEGY up 18. OOIL up 17. PVRE up 14.

PWSV down 26. TRKP down 12. EVCA may have reached the end of the ride, down 4.

Monday, February 14, 2011

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Mixed mart. Volume very light. Balls in the air I guess.

EVCA up 82. Gotta love this story. Check it out. GSPI up 47. GAZU up 42. MGLT up 32 on 400 shares. PVRE up 30. CPWY up 25. I'm just a reporter. EQST up 20. ECOS up 19. There was some volume. ECNG up 14. LMCO, RVBF up 11. ACPW up another 9.

CBWP down 36. SESI down 33 on that same 1k shares from the morning. AFPW down 28. SLRE down 21. RGUS down 18. AEGY down 17. SLTZ, TRKP down 12. PSPW down 11. BLQN down 9. Buy buy buy. ENOC ended down only 6. After hitting into $16.

And I guess that's the come and the go on valentines day. If it seems a little crazy to you well then you see what I see.

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Mixed mart. Naz up. Volume light. Budget budget budget. Heartbreaking that we had budget surpluses real time and projected in '00. Then, of course, Republicans came to power. And now we'll never get back to surplus. Or we can't see when possibly. And forget about paying off the debt.

So. Clean E. EVCA up another 29. Up what, 20X (?) from its bottom at the beginning of this month. Unreal. O, now up 38. ECOS up 21. Above 50-day lines again. EQST up 20. ECNG up 14. EMKR up another 7.

TRKP down 23. ENOC down another 14. BLQN down 1.

And the roundup of usual suspects: RNNM up 13, TSPG up 12. RVBF up 11. WNDT up 10. SESI down 33. SLRE down 21. WNEA down 11.

Friday, February 11, 2011

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I'le be joining ye forthwith in Miller time. But shall report on.

Market up 43/18/7 on rather strong volume for a Friday. Egypt is free from essentially a dictator. Though he was our dictator. I hope it's all for the betterment of Egypt and our world.

First the big dogs. FSLR up 5, a new high. SPIR up 14, a thrust off the last 200-day line to over the 50's. I did not see any news. EMKR up 20 on somebody heavy into fiber optics today. Go figure. ENOC down 14. No news. A careful buy consideration.

Okeydokey, the little barkers. EVCA up 96. Boys, if we only saw this coming. RNNM up 84. OOGI up 75. I guess we just have to learn how to love this crapola. Pretty impressive triple on no volume. TRKP up 56. Respect the volume there. A fling off the bottom. HYPF up 52 on a $(4?)M deal. 4-day rally with the news announced today (?) up 10X. Come on Wall St. Play nice. SESI up 47. Over their 50's. GAZU up 40. GWSC up 25. Punch over the 50's. Don't even know a thing about 'm. Yet. CLTH up 33. Over the 200's. WTWO up 20. SLRE up 18. NACF, GCHT, AEBF up 16. EVSI up 15. GCEH up 13. PWSV, SLTZ up 12. ACPW up 7. You get the picture.

ECOS, PSRU down 17. IFXY down 16. GSPI down 12. WNDT, WPNV down 11. CCTC, SOPW down 10. BLQN down 9. And FDEI down 6. Why does the market hate on this stock? It's a buy again.

STUFF

Hosni's gone. The people of Egypt have won one for the world. Let's hope it goes up day by day from here.

Petrochina to pay $5.4B for 50% stake in Canada's biggest NG provider - Encana's - shale gas project in Brit Columbia. Cutbank Ridge produces >500mcfd with reserves of 2tcf on >1.2M acres.

Solar Acquisition Corp and Global Natural Energy Cyprus are forming a joint venture - GNE USA - to make algae biodiesel. After 10 yrs of research, GNE has commercially viable systems. We hope. And wouldn't mind a stock to buy if true.

GE buying Wind Tower Systems. New wind tower goes higher, has its own crane at the top to hoist the turbine and blades and is less costly to haul to site, cutting 36 trucks to 6. Available in '12.

Solazyme collaborating with Qantas to pursue commercial production of microbial-derived avfuel. Qantas also working with Solena to determine feas of using MSW (muni solid waste). Watch for biojet fuel specs being approved this year. Will spark a flood. USAF announced the C-17 now certified for 50% renewable fuel mix with JP-8.

Unusually dry wx in Brazil contributed to a reported 21% drop in cane sugar production in '10.

Finland: Neste Oil's new biodiesel reduces particulates 30%. NOx down 10%. Talk of using it in buses. How 'bout trux? >50% redux in GHG's. Currently made from palm, rapeseed oils and waste fat from food processing.

Canada going forward with requiring 2% renewable content in diesel, heating oils. GHG redux = 1M cars off the roads. May be law by July.

And on Feb 6, NASA started beaming back images of our Sun - front and back - from the 2 STEREO probes.

Is it amazing or what, pards.

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Unstoppable. Market started down, now up 10/3/2. Volume light.

EVCA up 89 more. How long is this ride? TRKP up 36. SLTZ up 12. SESI up 11.

SOPV down 13. SOPW down 10. BLQN down another 7. Time to buy, I think. ENOC down 6. New low.

Market now up 31/7/4.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

STUFF

Hay stuffers. How ye all dewing?

Somethin stickin in my craw is today Yahoo is not putting up valuations in the spreadsheet. At least on the Naz, bulletin boards and pink sheet stocks that I cover. You know, it always seems to be something we can't count on. I guess that's the way it goes. And Lord knows they won't say anything about it. O, just a glitch of the day, I s'pose.

Okeydokey. Onward and hopefully upward.

In '10 US crude production grew 150kbpd to an average of 5.5mbpd. EIA predicts US production to fall by 50kbpd in '11 and another 190kbpd in '12. That doesn't look good, does it. Course, that's EIA. EIA-I-O. I'm an ole cowhand... Yea, a little loose on the reins this aft I guess. If you can't have fun find something else you can have. OK OK. Back on tracks. Alaskan production expected to decline 60kbpd in '11, 20kbpd more in '12. Production in fed Gulf waters to fall 250kbpd each year for the next 2.

China lending Congo $367M for 150MW hydro plant. Sinohydro to build. They brought 3 Gorges (gorgeous) Dam to our world. 3-yr build. I guess just keeping Sinohydro busy? Or going for Congo natural resources? Me thinks the latter.

House Appropriations wants to cut clean E funding $900M - 38% - in FY11 out of $2.36B (1.6% above last Bush budget). Obama budget has $55M increase in solar spending to $302M (5.5% less than last Bush request). Wind E spending a $42M increase to $122M (39% over W's last ask). But wind had a hard year.

USDA making a $204M loan guarantee (why not just $200M? why $204M? what is it with numbers?) for 60% of a SD 151MW wind farm. Basin El Pwr Co-op will have >700MW of wind in portfolio after completion. $16.8M raised from investors, 32 landowners providing lease easements. $340M cost.

Hertz to install solar @ 16 rental locations by fall. Over 2.3MW PV. They have 8400 locations around the world. 1st already in at Denver airport. Rental comps going with EVs and hybrids too.

Global PV materials market - over a dozen materials, excluding polysilicon - forecast to hit $12.8B by '14. 50% growth over '10. Cumulative costs forecast to drop 15%. Tellurium (FSLR) and indium (CIGS developers) prices forecast to rise.

INEOS Bio and New Planet Energy joint venture broke ground yesterday on $130M project in Vero Beach to convert yard, veg, house waste into cellulosic eth and el. 8M gal/6MW per year capacity. 2MW to grid. 50 jobs (175 in construction). Online in '12. 1st plant to use bacteria microorganisms to ferment syngas directly to eth instead of enzymes. Novozymes says enzyme tech 3-4 years out for economic commercialization.

ADM going palm production in Brazil. 12k hectares and processing plant in 3-4 years.

Stockholm bus fleet going with eth, biodiesel.

O, there's always more. But there's always a point that it's Miller time too. You know me pards. Happy trailers and finding new trailers.

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Market down 37/7/3. Volume up from yesterday. Mubarak may be out tonight.

XDSL up 19 on yesterday's news of 3-year R&D contract with army for their nano batt. Just under their 50-day lines. CCTC up 15. Above 50's. SOPV up 14. EVCA started down, now up 4 more. NPWZ sold off, now up 3.

BFRE down 10. BYDDF down another 4, another new low. DSTI down 4 more. ESLR down 3, another new low.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

STUFF

Campbell Soup to lease 60 acres to BNB to build 9.8MW PV solar farm at Campbell's Napoleon OH plant for 15% of the plant's el demand to save $4M (I assume over the life of the PV plant). BNB will own the PV farm and First Energy Solutions will purchase credits (sounds like double dip to me). Ohio Enterprise Bond Fund financing $10.5M of the project. SPWRA supplying materials and construction. Convoluted enough, you ask? Where's DOE money?

First Energy Solutions to buy 100MW of 304MW Blue Creek wind farm Iberdrola is building in Nwestern OH. 20yr PPA begins late '12. $1.1M/yr lease payments to landowners, $2.7M/y local taxes, 15-20 permanent jobs, >300 construction jobs, 152 PA-built 2MW turbines.

Wisconsin Power and Light just got $460M Bent Tree wind farm online in MN a week ahead of sked. Wisconsin now in comply with renewable portfolio standard of 10% clean by '15. But the farm is in MN. Just saying.

Nordex got order for 45MW wind project in southeast ID from a US subsidiary of an Indian (India) company. Their 1st project in US, but have done grid connects for near 25% of all wind power installs in US. CG Power Solutions. Going with 2.5MW turbines. Sept. completion. Nordex (German comp) has built over 6GW of turbines over the last 25 years.

Nextronix Energy Systems, OH maker of inverter systems for utility-scale solar, expects sales to quadruple to $4M this year. Advanced tech fills a niche for large installs. Too bad they're not in play in the market. Good, probably, for them.

BP Solar and MetLife going in together on 32MW Long Island solar farm being built at DOE's Brookhaven Lab. 20yr PPA from Long Island Power Authority. Online late this year.

TLVT partnering with Wind Logic to offer most accurate wind power forecasts to utilities worldwide.

EV stocks jumped yesterday on news that Senator Stabenow (MI) wants to replace the $7500 tax credit for EVs with instant $7500 rebate.

Solar-grade polysilicon increased from ~$24/kg in '03 to >$500/kg early in '08. ~$70 today. Demand was ~42k met tons in '08. Expected to increase to ~100k by '14. Polysi makers increased from 7 in '08 to 70 in '10, tho ~90% still made by those 1st 7. Oversupply til '13 the prog. Polysi ~45% manufacturing costs.

3 leading Congressional Republicans filed amicus brief with Supreme Court to overturn AEP v. CT. Coming up in April (on Earth Day?). "Keep courts out of climate policy." Um. We have had 3 branches of gov since we started this experiment. Each has a say.

Waste Management teaming with Genomatica to produce industrial chemicals from the waste/syngas. In Livermore, CA the WM trucks fill up on the methane from their own dumps. Goal to triple recyclables by '20.

Rural, co-op utilities serve >42M people (17M meters) in 47 US states. 10% total elgen sales in US. And not subject to same regs as investor-owned or municipal utilites. So. Free-er to move faster on what the customers want in terms of smart grid et al. They average 20 substations and 25k meters.

Rumors Saudi Arabia crude production may peak in '20. And reserves overstated by near 40%. We've sort of known that and they're not the only OPECer either.

GEVO IPO. ~$40-45M to convert ethanol plants to biobutanol. $373M valuation. And can double EBITDA in so doing. I'm sorry, is this confusing? By God they don't mean to be.

BP-DuPont joint venture in biobutanol - Butamax - may build 1st commercial plant in Brazil.

China going to WTO over US's dried distiller grains. 3rd largest buyer. Maybe retaliation for US complaints on wind turbine subsidies? Now now. Can't we just get along and play fair? O. Rules.

Farmers could run their farms with biodiesel from 5-7% of their acreage (talking at least 1k acres). Just on canola. Camelina, safflower come in higher.

FSLR said a unit of Edison International intends to buy almost 3/4 of the E from their planned 340MW solar plant in NV over 20 yrs. "Silver State South". Online by '14, maxed up by '17. Silver State North, all of 60MW, to sell to NV Energy for 25 yrs.

Well, that seems to be the come and the go pards. Happy motoring.

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Mixed mart with Dow up. Volume came back from extra light to regular light. Not a lot of news to change direction. Direction is up. We like good news. What the hay. Enjoy.

NPWZ up 33. Well. They might have business sometime. Fuel cells. Hay. CABN finished up 20. FEWP up 15. CCTC, PSPW up 13. WWPW up 11. BLQN was up 5. QTWW(D) came in at $7.40, val ~$1.4B.

SLRE down 33. SLTZ down 16. TRKP down 11. SESI down 10. EVCA down 8. WPRT down 7. ENER down 6 after their Q. TSLA down 5. PWER down another 2.

And that's what I saw.

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Market mixed. Volume very light. Bernanke: jobs, inflation too low. Thanks Ben. That's what we want. More inflation. Food and gas isn't high enough.

BIOF up 29. I called the bottom 2 days ago, but figured it for a real selloff that didn't happen yesterday. CABN up 27 on their news release last night that they're going to go faster on developing their tech. It is extremely hot tech to be sure. CO2 to fuels. Over their 200-day lines.

SLRE down 33. EVCA got stopped. Up at first, now down 18. Went up almost 10X from its bottom in late Jan. 50-day lines under a penny. TRKP down 16. On a real downkick. HRTE down 15. They don't even tell us the size of their wind project. DSTI down 9, a new downturn picking up speed. BYDDF a new low, down another 4. The bottom is somewhere. But they are valuated at $5B. BLQN holding at a buck.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

STUFF

AONE signed deal with AES to supply 20MW lithium batt storage for 500MW Chili power plant. 2nd such, I think.

DOE & DOI announced a $50M effort over next 5 yrs to try to make offshore wind economically viable. ~78% of US el demand in 28 coastal states. Establishing 4 areas off coast from NJ to VA. $7.5M for dev of new designs for drive trains, a major source of maintenance probs. Up to $25M to help dev turbine designs, tools and hardware. $18M to removing market barriers.

CalTech has shifted focus from solar cells' active materials (reaching efficiency limits) to coatings, theoretically increasing by 12-15% the light delivered to thin-film amorphous-silicon cells by using nano resonant spheres (like the whisper effect in large domes).

LS9 announced 2nd phase of P&G partnership. LS9 oils, etc. can be used in P&G products.

US corn stocks expected to fall to 40% of normal to 736M bushels, almost 1B below normal. Exports expected to drop with higher prices.

Review: China has 10.8GW installed nuke capacity. '20 goal 80GW. They have 44GW of wind in, '20 goal 248. 625MW of solar goes to 17GW by '20. 214GW of hydro to 450. That's a lot of new lakes. Overall, they are to spend ~$1.7T on el infrastructure next decade. And $600B more on high speed rail next 4 yrs.

UN shifting climate focus from Carbon reductions to expansion of clean E (to sort of go along with what's going to happen anyway). No follow on to Kyoto (expires in '12). Their data shows global C emissions increased 25% since '00. China doubled. India up 50%. Cough cough.

European biz, organizations, government leaders signed declaration calling for 100% clean E by '50. And last weekend agreed to set up new E market and dev new infra. NG and el should be free flowing between borders by '14.

Consumer-installed solar systems on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii >doubled in '10 over '09. 4k systems added increased state's elgen by 13MW. Also, 17 "large-scale" PV farms to produce another 3.2MW. But regs limiting installs with $2,500 "reliability studies" for homes, costing up to tens of thousands for commercial installs.

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Market up 71/13/5. Volume still light, maybe the new normal. Cruise control.

EVCA up 92. Big mo. SLRE up 40. Peak over 200-day lines. 2-day double. WBRE up another 16. PSRU up 15. Looks like its starting something. NTCXF up 15. 200-day line held it all day. SLTZ up 14. Holding the bottom. CSOL up 12. AMLM up 11 on update news this morn. ASYS up 5 on their Q report after close. Straight up since July. I remember buying them around $7.

ECOS, SESI, PSUD down 20. RNNM, PWSV, CPWY down 16. WWEI, TMEN down 12. QTWW down 10. BLQN down 5 more. WPRT down 3 after hours on Q report.

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Market mixed. Volume a little light. China raising interest rates. Oil (WTI) back down to $86.

NTCXF up 13. Jump to SMA 200-day line. EVCA up 12.

PVRE down 29. WWEI down 13. XWES down 11. QTWW down 10, back to its bottom on news they are going to do a reverse stock split which almost always takes a stock down, especially after the split. Preemptive selling here. Been going down the last 12 months. NPWZ down 8. PSPW down 7.

Monday, February 7, 2011

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Market up 70/14/8. Volume light.

WBRE up 172. Yep. Nuts. PSRU up 65. Who knows. SLRE up 60. Always up and down, down over last 12 months, but not much. And miniscule volume. So why the heck am I bothering you with it? Dunno. Just the overalls on what we're all dealing with from Wall Street. LSCG back to $4.50. Just like that. Jump off 50-day lines. EVCA up 31. Possibilities. PSUD, SESI up 25. SOPV up 18. XWES up 15. Don't know anything there. WPNV up 12. AXPW, BSRC up 11. BSRC punch through 200-days. Up 50% since new year. Maybe their year. AXPW dealing with last 200-day. ZOLT up another 5.

SSHO down 40. Back under 50's. CPWY down 33. Another no reported biz, no revenue comp valuated 4X or more as much as FDEI who has $1B in the pipe and revs coming in. When. Just when. CSOL down 16. Sure knocked off of their 200-days. SNRY down 15. They keep a going a down. And a down. BIOF, WNEA down 12. Watch BIOF tomorrow for crash bottom. WNEA on their 50's. FEWP down 11. PWER down 5. Big volume. VECO down 1 after hours after stellar Q/Y report.

Out, pards. Really out.

STUFF

DOE's "sunshot" initiative aims to lower solar PV costs by 75% by '20. Chu's target $1/w without subsidies. ~6 cents/kwh. 9 projects splitting $27M as first step:
1366 Tech (mentioned in a recent "Stuff").
3M gets $4.4M to dev/comm flexible, highly transparent topsheet for more flexible modules.
PPG gets $3.1M to develop new glass for CdTe module manufacturing.
Varian Semi $4.8M to reduce cost of making back contact cells, the most efficient silicon cells on market now.
Veeco (VECO) gets $4.8M to accel R&D of thin-film CIGS PV production of cost-efficient cells.
Other awardees are Solexant, Stion, Crystal Solar and Caelux.
NREL also investing $7M to fund latest round of PV incubator program to shorten commercialization timeline for emerging solar tech.
DOE's existing solar E investments ~$200M/y.

US VC investment in clean E increased 8% to $3.98B in '10. Electricity segment raised $1.32B, largely solar follow-on deals and 2nd gen of solar comps. Investments in solar up 77% to $1.58B.

San Diego G&E announced 20-yr PPA for Pattern Energy's 315MW wind farm in Imperial Valley, CA.

NETL process for CO2 capture won National Tech Transfer award. CO2 separated from plant emmissions and stored at lower cost than conventional scrubbing. Uses regenerable solid CO2 sorbents. Companies ready to invest.

EPA to defer GHG permitting requirements for biomass-fired power plants for 3 years.

GE signed 10-yr contract with Spain's Cobra Energia to provide advanced services for 178 turbines. Covers the fleet coming off warranty up to '12.

Western Wind Energy selected Gamesa to provide 2MW turbines for 120MW at Tehachapi and 10MW near Kingman, AZ. Online by year end.

Since '90, Ohio EPA gave Dayton Power & Light permission to ignore Ohio and US water quality standards at Stuart Plant on Little Three Mile Creek in Adams County, allowing 600M gallons/day into the stream that raises nearby Ohio River temps to 108 degrees. Dead fish. Coal plant. EPA filed objections in Sept. Either more cooling towers or reduce power production. May set industry precedent.

India paying Iran the old crude bill through a German bank, Iran having to pledge not to use the money for sanctioned goods. O come on. Iran also shipping fuel again to Afghanistan. Tankers had been stopped by Iran at the borders since Dec. Iran saying further shipments will be endangered if Afghan lets NATO forces use the fuel.

The explosion in Egypt over the weekend at a natgas pipeline metering station has halted flow to Israel and Jordan for up to 2 weeks. Israel's southern gas field probably will be depleted by end of '13 and their new offshore field probably won't be available until '13 or '14. Jordan has already switched to diesel, heavy oil for elgen.

Iraq set to expand crude exports to 5.8mbpd by early '13 from 2.2 now.

China accounted for $17B of Brazil's foreign investment inflow of $48B in '10. Was <$300M in '09.

Chinese imports of corn may reach 9M met tons in '11-'12. USDA has estimated 1M. Record was 4.3M in '94-'95. Severe drought in N. China.

Pakistan facing NG shortfall of 50% (2bcf). Production declines daily. Moving to coal and imported LNG. Pipelines from Iran, Turkmenistan in the planning.

Uganda partnering with neighboring states, foreign investors (G, could that be China?) to build a $2B oil refinery.

BP selling 2 US refineries, 740kbpd total, for $3.7B.

Oil pipe from Canada tarsands to Texas Gulf could carry .5mbpd. $7B project.

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Market up 80/20/10. Volume normal.

WBRE up 263. Back to their 50-day lines. Go figure. SOPV up 27. HRTE up 20. BSRC up 14. Break through 200-days. AXPW up 12. Up to last 200-day. EMKR up 5 more. SPWRA up 4 more, above last 200-day.

SSHO down 33. CPWY down 25. CSOL down 13.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

STUFF

Codexis (CDXS) has teamed up with Shell to rollout techs this year to make biofuels from wheat straw and sugar cane waste. CDXS up 16% Friday, jumping over all its day lines.

EMKR was up 15% Friday on fiscal 1Q report. Revs up 23% v. last year, still net loss, but improvement. Backlog down. But breakout above all 5-year lines and a 2-year flatline bottom.

ITRI jumped up 9 Friday, busting through 200-day lines. Announces 4Q, yr at market close on the 16th.

POWI up 15 Friday after reporting night before top and bottom lines exceeding analysts', guidance above consensus. Power controllers for LED lighting a major product. And they got the court decision against Fairchild Semi for patent infringement which gives them more leverage to get license payments from competitors. Revs grew 39%, profits doubled. Jump over 200-days.

Demand/supply coal shortage in India expected to hit 142M tons next year. Record coal imports last year. Their imports up 10X last decade. Another 20% next year.

World food prices hit a record in Jan. Records began in 1990 - UN World Food Price Index.

OPEC to spend $155B on projects now to '14. But most just to maintain current output. Except Iraq.

Friday, February 4, 2011

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Market ended up. Nearing 12,100 Dow. Can't fight the Fed.

AEBF down 10. AXTG up 37. BLQN down 15. Buy. BSRC up 11. CCWIF up 20. EMKR up 15. EVCA down 20. EVSO up 13. GAZU down 33. HRTE up 14. ICPR up 50. POWI up 16. PSRU up 27. PSUD down 20. PWER down 21. SLPO down 17. SNRY down 10. SSHO up 57. UBRG up 15. URRE up 10. WNEA up 20. WPNV down 11. WWPW up 16. ZOLT up 22.

Wonders never cease.

STUFF

Sempra Energy (SRE) has $15B cap spending progrom to roll out next 5 yrs.

Weather (Wx) records only started w/ accuracy in 18th century. Widespread, high accuracy temp readings started mid 19th century. Global coverage in 20th century. Still not perfect. Too few wx stations in Africa, e.g. And that's just temps. Tree rings, water body and glacier sediments help to cover gaps. NOAA, U of CO leading effort to compile atmos variability 1871 to 2008. Using DOE puters. 6-hour readouts. Arctic warming in (19)20's and 30's included. Seafaring logbooks going back millenia to enter into the puters.

DOE backing KiOR, a TX comp, to the tune of $1B loan guarantee for 4 small plants to turn wood chips into oil. "Re-crude". Can be blended into gas/diesel. Chips heated w/ controlled amount of O w/ catalysts. If we recall, $571M loan guarantees recently to Coskata, Enerkem, Diamond Green Diesel to produce fuel from waste.

Shell postponing drilling off AK, citing uncertain fed permits. Not one exploratory well drilled. $3B invested in acreage, tech, etc. Even fed scientists believe it could be 2nd largest oil/gas reserves after Gulf of Mexico. Beaufort Sea. AK pipeline nearing point of econ losses if not more oil forthcoming. Are they ready to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic?

China could be giving the US a "back in your face" with projections of their world-leading coal emissions by '35.

China R&D investment to eclipse Japan this year. Well, their GDP did last year. US @ $400B. 2.4% median global rate. China's been increasing 10%/yr for the last 10. They did invent paper, right? Fireworks? Walls? They'll be ~$154B in '11. Japan $144B. US 6th in % GDP. Who is 1 through 5? Barrack wants 33% increase of energy RD&D to $8B/y. I bet Republicans oppose that. To me it's the question of wanting to lead or, at least, compete with the rest of the world. Or not. The deficit didn't matter to Republicans when they were in power. Why does it now? Course, Obama plan is to take some of the fossil subsidies to add to E RD&D.

Obama's plan yesterday was to increase buildings' E efficiency 20% over next 10 yrs. Tax breaks, grants, loan guarantees. $40B/yr savings potential. Getting after 20% of E use.

Global bioplastics market to surpass $11B by '15. $2.7B in '10. 32% growth/yr.

DOE awarded contracts to Morgan Stanley, Shell Trading and George Warren Corp for 984k bls of heating oil from NE Home Heating Oil Reserve. 1st such sale as part of initiative to convert current 2M bls heating oil reserve to cleaner ultralow sulfur distillate. Delivery from Hess terminal in Perth Amboy. DOE gets ~$113M in the deal. Next sale notice on the 7th.

UN International Year of Forests. Last year was biodiversity. Happy New Year China. Year of rabbits. Red eyes, big ears and plenty of predators.

Happy trails friends.

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Market down, volume light. Unemployment rate drop with only 36k jobs added. A little obvious, A?

WWPW up 16. A leap off their bottom. ZOLT up 15 on year report. Their numbers weren't great, but outlook was upbeat. New high. Almost now a double in last 12 months. WNEA up 12. Dead on 50-day lines. NCEN up 10. 50-days.

EVCA down 25. PWER down 21 on their year report that looked great except for outlook for next Q. Back to their lowest 200-day line. Also affecting SATC. SLPO down 20. RGUS down 19. AEBF down 10. And FSLR back below $160 on downgrade.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

EXTRA

Texas out of El Paso ordered rolling brownouts?!

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Mart ended up. Volume about normal, maybe picked up later. Didn't see significant ecomonic news. :) Ecomonic: out of togetherness, one. Coined it, I did in '79? Question mark is what year. I think it was '79. There was another word I can't remember right now but it's not Alzheimers. Unimony. That was it. See. I still dont have Al Z Heimers. Unimony. Use it in a sentence. Unimony is a new word for Peace around our world. And this was the 70's for good golly wally sakes. O wells. Unimonic ecomonics. Hm. Use in sentence. We all have to learn how to get along on our planet and unimonic ecomonics is a way.

Okeyokey. Back to reality.

I got PWSV up 28. Trying to get over their 50-day lines. RNNM up 20. Trying to get out of the ratzkeller. AFPW up 18. Ditto. GWSC up 16. SLTZ, CSOL up 15. Yea. EVCA up 15. Breaking out of 50-days. With volume. WPNV, GCHK up 12. RGUS up 10. PLUG up 8. IFXY up 7. ALTI up 2.

NPWZ flat.

WBRE down 56. PWER now down 20 after market after their Q/yr report. Very strange. Sure have to be careful. Would be buying it now if I had funds. SLRE also down 20 on the day. TRKP down 16. PSPW, NCEN down 11. FDEI down 10 on 5k shares at end of day after being up 1. SSOL down 6. NENE down 5. ENOC under $25 again. And LSCG still under $4.

STUFF

Um, let's have a feel out for our fellow human beings in Egypt going through troubling times. A moment of silent prayer.

Egypt has large NG reserves. Exported 646bcf in '09. 70% as LNG, rest piped to Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria. Egypt a very slight net importer of oil. Egypt and Jordan exchange el via cable under the Red Sea (Moses' route?). 60% Jordan's elgen mostly from Egypt NG. Now concerns, besides Yemen change of gov, about Algeria and Libya, who together supply 15% of EU's NG and produce 2.8mbpd crude. Let's all give another moment of prayer for all our fellow souls in the region shall we?

Back to more normal stuff, Europe installed >9GW windpower in '10, down 10% from '09, 17% of new power gen in '10. In '09 it was 39%. About the same - $18B(US) - spent. Offshore installs up 51% to 833MW. Spain, Germ installed ~1.5GW each, France 1GW. Overall clean E power capac increased 31% to >27GW. But they also installed more coal capac than was closed (1st time since '98). And 28GW of NG gen was added. Wind now provides ~5% of EU el.

In late '09, our fed gov gave $151M in grants to advance 37 clean E ideas that couldn't get private funding. Since, 6 projects have attracted $108M in VC funds.

Envia Systems got $4M from US. Raised $17M more. Using Argonne Lab tech for better batt cathode. GM signed them up to get double the power out of Volt batts by '14.

24M, spinoff from MIT and A123 (AONE), got $2.5M grant and took in $10M privately. Also working on higher-power Li-ion batt.

1366 Tech got $4M from ARPA-E and raised another $33M. Cutting price of solar cells ~40%.

Sun Catalytix has catalyst for electrolysis to pomp up the H extracted for ICEs (infernal combustion engines) or conversion back to el. $9.5M from VC funding after $4M grant.

General Compression developing demo plant for el storage got $750k grant and $12M private funds. They didn't tell us the tech.

Flo Design working on more efficient wind turbs based on jet engines. $8.3M grant. $27M raised.
Now ARPA-E funding in question. Should gov take equity stakes, as in "bailouts" for GM, the banks, et al? Or cut the spending? O Congress, do you want a boom or not?

In the last 3 months, Staples >doubled clean power purchases, now 52% clean. Intel now at 88%. 51% in October. Kohl's 100%. Dell dropped to 28%.

Sempra awarded 150MW AZ 1st-phase solar project to Suntech (STP) (Chinese comp, Senator from New York Schumer). 700MW planned.

Italy investigating 4MW jump in solar requests for incentives at year-end for possible frauds. 1 8MW project turned up to be a 40kw install. Everything has to be connected to grid by end of June to qualify.

Home automation systems (HAN?) going for $300-600, not including the $250 smart meter. Utilities and demand response providers want to pay part of it with rate increases. Huh. Huh is like the new duh. 2-3% savings (w/out new meter). But cost of 3-4 cents/kwh. They're working on prepaid el, time-of-use, etc.

Volt may qualify for Calif's $5k rebate in '12. GM just has to tweak it some. To qualify, comps have to warranty batts for 10yrs/150k miles. Leaf going for $33k, Mitsubishi $30k, Volt still $41k. All qual for $7.5k fed tax credit. GM shipped 1,200 Volts, ~ 600 dealers. End of this year they go national, Europe, Far East. Volt uses 10kwh of the 16 to give batt longer life.

1st-ever EU summit on energy this weekend. Push to create single el market by '15. 5% now traded across borders, making for inefficient competition.

Ormat commissioned another 15MW geothermal plant in NV. Ever been to NV? Hot water making hot tubs in the ground. Course, nothing like Yellowstone. The only geoplant at this scale in the US in '10. We can do better than that. 20-yr PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) from Nevada Energy. Partly funded by your friendly DOE with fed incentives added.

Calif Pub Utilities approved 20-yr PPA with Greengate Power for 450MW of wind gen from several farms in Canada. '13 completion.

Brent crude is used to price 2/3 of world's oil. Hit $102 yesterday while OK's (US) price was ~$91.

And apparantly I am out of stuff. Happy trailers, pards.

OPEN

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Market down, but comeback in last few minutes. Volume normal to a little low.

EVCA up 34 more. CSOL up 23. Bound to happen with their Price/Book and P/Sales ratios, at least according to Yahoo Finance. LMCO up 13. Above 50-day lines. HRTE up 12. PLUG up 10. Rally mode since Jan 3. CBWP up 9 more.

SLRE, PVRE down 20. GCEH down 16. SESI down 12. ZAAP down 5. LSCG under $4. Getting down to 50-days.

And averages back down to lower levels.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

ANOTHER CLOSE

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If that weren't a flat mart I don't know one. Wow. What they hay, hay? Tunisia. Eqypt. Jordan. Who's next?

FRBE up 203 on 2k shares. Okeydokey. EVCA up 51. Talked about earlier. BLDP up 27. Big. MDTL up 24. Who knows. CCGI up 16. CSKH up 13 on good volume. May be ripe. FDEI up 11. Did I mention them earlier? Why yes I did. SPWRA up 9. Big dog move. ZAAP up 7. JASO too. VLNC up 4.

AXTG down 55. LEOM down 24. BLQN down 17. Watch them for a buy in. CYBL down 18. Not sure where to buy them. SOPV down 14. SSHO, CSOL down 13. VVIT down 12. NPWZ down 7. ENOC down 3. ENOC down 3. Did I say that?

Thats all I got pals. Forward and upward on good trails.

STUFF

"The best thing a person can be in the world is a saint. If you can't be a prophet." Who said that?

Onward and upward, pards. 20% of southern US forest biomass wasted. 30% in NEast, AK. Yields 4X corn. In world, >1B acres of ag abandoned from poor farming. Another B wasted grassland, savanna, shrubland. Low-hanging fruit for biofuels.

Kent Bioenergy got algae to behave and settle in their ponds and have conveyor belts to pull the algae out. Possibly the lowest cost method for commercial scale.

NG (natgas for you newcomers) provides 21% of US el these days. 40% by '35: Black & Veatch.

Enphase E, Petra Solar the only microinverter firms of 12+ known shipping products in commercial volume. Enphase @ .5M, Petra @ 72k units. Enphase just signed into Siemens family.

Smartgrid soiree in San Diego: HAN (Home Access Networks?) and home E mgmt markets to hit $750M by '15. Utilities need to come up with consumer svcs with $16B rollout of smart meters in next 5 yrs. Well, if they could just lower the bills for golly sakes. GTM Research. Market $400M in '11. Began with Wi-Fi routers. Tendril, COMV among the playas. Focus on TX and UK (not a US state) cuz their utilities sell their el through retailers (can you say Enron?). ENOC, GE pushing into UK. I hope she's ready.

Schneider El intro'd home E monitor system including load control. Only $675. For potential 30% redux in bills. Founded in 1840's, Schneider trusted by utils. ABB has been buying up the landscape lately, going thru a $7B warchest. Siemens, GE, Schneider and ABB the big barkers. Next step volt mgmt. Optical tech.

WindFuels, a SC start'm up, proposing off-peak wind can produce trans fuels. Check this out, pards. Doty Windfuels also working on same thing. Off-peak wind used to electrolyze water and convert CO2 in a conventional process to fuel. Can compete with $50 crude. Interesting process you might want to check out.

O, by the way, ~25Twh (Terawatt hours) of wind E was idled in the US last year to keep the off-grid E price from frequently going negative. Are you reading this? Now do we see why wind installs were down last year? That equaled about 700M gallons of gas going down the drain. Looks to exceed 40Twh in '11. Well, that looks to be getting worse. Economical (ecocomical?) wind E potential in US exceeds the E needed to synthesize 2X our current transfuel needs. From off-peak wind. I'm blown. You? Can this really be true? Can windfuels truly provide the potential to get us off imported oil and exporting transfuels? Best scale-up so far at 250MW farm-plants. Doty has 30 patents.

Outward and forward pals.

1:38P

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Just have to give you a look at this. The wild west. Or land of the lost. No exclusions for volume.

XPGH up 66. Another break over 200-days with volume. SLTZ up 33. EVCA, PSRU up 28. Both peaking out over their 50-days. MDTL up 29. WNEA up 26. 50's. PVRE, WBRE up 25. PVRE over 3 lines. SOPW up 21. Jump to 200's. CCGI up 20. BLDP up 19. RNNM up 16. CSKH up 15. 50's. HRTE, NGBF, PWSV, LMCO up 10.

LEOM down 24. Fell through 50's. MVTG down 22. Forget aboud'm. ICPR down 20. Wouldn't give them too much thought. AWNE down 17. 50's. PSPW down 16. BLQN, SSHO, CYBL and CSOL down 13. WWEI, VVIT, NCEN down 12.

And I wouldn't presume to say which to buy or sell. Except FDEI, down 6.

And that took 21 minutes out of my life to tell you all this. I hope it helps. 22 minutes.

OPEN

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Market flat, volume light.

CCGI bounced back, up 65. EVCA up 59. Break through 50-day lines. MDTL up 29. BLDP up 11 on year report. Break through 200-days. FSLR up another 5, new high. Goldman wins.

CYBL down 18. They do have business in LEDs. BLQN down 13. Oddly, they hit 80 cents at the open, going through all their lines, before going back to $1.25. Nice little deal for someone.

ZAAP now up 9 and the market mixed.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

CLOSE

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Well, a great day for America. Dow up 148. Strong volume. All about the big dogs on the surface. Yep always gotta be about them. Hay. Fine.

Look n see at clean E. EVCA up 37, close on the downbeat. AWNE up 34. NENE is pretty dam good at getting their press releases out at the right time. Up 20. Bottomed at $1.15 in the morn. Did I mention it yesterday? AEBF up 15. Whatever. ADES up 11.

CCGI down 44. Looks like a closing whack. Cuz now at 4:15 it's only down 11. Heck, SLTZ was down 20. MDTL 16. SNRY 13. NPWZ 12. BCON 8. BLQN 7. FDEI 4. Go work the numbers tonight on this market.

Happy trails pards.

YEP. MORE STUFF

US solar PV manufacturing capacity <1GW/yr in '08 forecast to be near 4GW in '12. EIA estimates overall US clean E gen cap to reach 155GW by '15.

Lawrence Berkeley Lab found way to make 50% efficient, low cost multi-junction solar cells from single semicon material instead of multi materials. Cell can capture whole solar spectrum. Already working with Rose Street Labs Energy and unit of Sumitomo.

Georgia Power signed up 2nd 1MW solar PV project in 2 months. United Renewable Energy will build, GP will own, sell the E wholesale.

Phillips believes LED light source market to expand to >$15B and LED lighting device market to >$40B by '15, half the global lighting market. They see LED lighting at 75% of global market by '20.

House probe found fracking comps injected 32M gal of diesel underground. EPA had assumed the practice stopped 7 yrs ago. Yeah and your momma stopped wearing combat boots. Halliburton, Schlumberger, BJ the biggest frackers. I know. BJ Fracker. Good band name. 10M gal straight diesel, 22M at least 30% concentration.

China's Cnooc to pay $570M cash for 1/3 stake in Chesapeake E's CO, WY Niobrara shale project. Also will pay up to $697M, or 2/3 costs to drill, complete wells there. Cnooc also has rights to 1/3 share in Chessy's future acquisitions there. $1B buy of Chessy's south TX project last year. 5 yrs after political opposition derailed Cnooc $18B bid for Unocal. Niobrara might contain >100M bls oil.

Citi announced a new fund to finance $40M for residential solar projects in '11. Wo, don't go overboard or anything. Team up with Solar City.

OPEN

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Well, here we are again, 15 points shy of 12k Dow. Volume back to normal. US factory sector expanded in Jan at fastest pace in 7 years. 18 straight months of expansion. Jordan now with protesters in streets.

Not much hopping in clean E this morn. RNNM up 15. PSPW up 10. ADES up 7, back off a new high earlier. Jumped up yesterday. AMSC up 6 on Q report good news. EFOI up 5. PWER up 4. Bouncing off 50-day lines. NENE went down to $1.15 this morn, now $1.42.

WPNV down 10. ZAAP down 5.

STUFF

Uruguay to develop 500MW of wind power by '15.

World may have 250 yrs of NG @ current demand, a recent doubling thanks to "unconventional gas".

Saud King Abdullah "convalescing" in Casablanca. And today, Jordan now facing street demonstration.

France's Areva to sign agreement with Bin Laden Group for nuke and solar E. Yes, nuke.

Iran might halt crude sales to India in 2 weeks unless payments resolved.

China importing 460kbpd from Iran. Beijing's car population quadrupled to 4.8M '97 to '10.

In '09, TX produced 1/5 of total domestic crude. 403M bls. And had largest proven reserves increase of 529M. Proven NG reserves grew 80% '00 to '08. State produced 30% of US total NG in '08. And they use twice as much coal as any other state.

Bakken Oil (ND) production growing faster than new pipeline can be built. Switching to trains. Jumped 83% in last 2 years to 329kbpd.