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.