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.