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.