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.