STUFF

China may become net importer of rare earth elements w/in 3-5 yrs. Won't be enough in world to go around. Prices will explode. Molycorp one US comp for investment, though they mostly have the the lighter REs. The heavier ones will be most in demand, lowest in supply. And it will affect all of high tech.

PyroPhase was issued patents for method to store wind/solar power as heat in heavy oil formations, including oil sands and oil shale. Stores radio frequency energy as heat, converts oil to refinery quality @ 5x amounts from el E input. Reduces need for backup plants to compensate for variable solar/wind load changes. Plans for $5M pilot plant, $20M to scale up to $75M 10kbpd plant in 4 yrs.

US wind industry up 15% in '10, 26% of all new elgen capacity. >5.1GW added, total now >40GW. Added 35% of new elgen cap since '07. 20k manufacturing jobs now in US. Entered '11 with 5.6GW under construction, double '10's start. On track for 20% of US elgen by '30, as laid out in Bush yrs.

Germany started on 2nd N. Sea wind farm in response to public opposition to nuke power.

Sempra got a 20-yr PPA from Maui El for 21Mw wind farm.

SolFocus and Bechtel completed 1MW high concentrator PV (CPV) solar plant in CA on 6 acres. Uses reflective optics to concentrate sunlight 650X onto hi-efficient cells. Dual-axis tracking. Shortest payback, lowest GHG intensity (in manufacture/install) of any solar tech.

E.ON (Germ.) started install of 150MW wind farm in IL, will be 14th farm they've built in US in last 3 yrs. Also building 1GW farm near London, to be world's largest and 3 farms offshore Germany with >1GW total.

EIA assessment of 48 shale gas basins in 32 countries puts recoverable NG @ 5,760TCF to add to world total ~22,000TCF. US reports 2,552TCF NG resources - 827TCF in shale. Barnett shale now prod. ~5.35bcfd, Haynesville 5.62.

Stocks near or at 12-month lows with great long-term potential: ALTI (new batts), AMSC (superconduction), AONE (new batts), APWR (Chinese alt E), ASTI (thin film solar), BCON (flywheel el storage), BWEN (wind infra), BYDDF (Chinese batts, EV's), COMV (el efficiency), CREE (LEDs), CSUN (Chinese PV sol), CSIQ (Chinese PV sol), DSTI (thin film solar), EFOI (LEDs), ITRI (smart grid), KNDI (Chinese EVs), NENED (solar on windows/kinetic E).