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.