STUFF

China's M2 money supply up >16% yr on yr.

A bill to speed offshore drilling cleared a House panel.

TVA agreed to shut down 18 of oldest coal boilers and spend $3-5B more on air pollution controls at remaining coal plants. 10-yr plan.

India, Taiwan rethinking nuclear plants, especially seaside.

Grid limitations could force wind power in NW US to shut down. Gotta fix that grid thing now, folks.

Germany warming up to pumping CO2 underground.

Budget compromise cuts fed E innovation investments by 10% ($325M) from '10's level. And across-the-board cuts to all major non-defense research >$1B. To be even more severe with end of ARRA funding. How shortsighted do legislators have to get before they can see common sense? Obama '11 request was to increase non-defense research $2B. If you can't do research, what can you develop? Oy.

Solar Junction set record 43.5% efficiency for commercial-ready concentrated PV (CPV) cell. NREL verified. On short list for DOE loan guarantee to support build of 250MW manufacturing plant in CA. Also hired an investment bank. VC's have put in $20M and they got $3M from DOE's sunshot. But yea, let's cut back research. Annual CPV installs 2MW in '09 should grow to 750MW by '15.

Zipcar IPO up 60% day one. $174M raised. Lost $65M since they've started, but revs $186M in last yr. Building fleet of short-term, on-demand clean E rental cars.

Ultracapacitor maker Ioxus raised $21M in 2nd round. Plan to expand manufacturing capacity from 20k caps/mo to 200k in a yr. ETV, a joint venture with GE, Conoco-Philips, NRG E, an investor. Also Astom- Schneider team. Ultracaps charge/discharge far quicker than batts, endure millions of cycles v. batts' hundreds of thou. But don't hold as much power. Last 5 yrs, prices down 90%.

Hybrid lightbulbs from GE to combine CFL, halogen features. Immediately bright, then halo turns off. 8x life of incandescents. Lower level of Merc. $6-10.

Light Sail E shifting from compressed-air car to machine for E storage. SustainX working on it too. And Isentropic E uses air pressure, hot and cold gravel and a heat engine. State laws, fed regs will mandate investment in E storage by utilities, power providers. Geo compressed air storage (CAES) the cheapest E storage, ~$1.50/W to build. 2 CAES plants exist. PG&E has DOE grants to build one near Tehachapi wind. But 8-10 yrs to build.

In '70, we had a chance to go with molten salt nukes (MSR). But the gov wanted civilian nukes able to supply military with bomb material and the light water nukes of today already had large infrastructure investment. MSR can't melt down, resists weapon proliferation, has little hazardous waste and can run on thorium (400x more abundant than U-235). O well.

US gasoline supplies fell 7M bls, largest 1-week drop in last 12 yrs. But oil supplies at Cushing, OK 41.9M bls, highest ever since records began in '04. Oil tankers bound for Japan up 59% since quakenami.

S. Korea will intro 2% biodiesel mandate in '12. Spain set a 6.2% target for '11, 6.5% for '12, '13.

USDA announced funding for bioenergy projects in 25 states.

And WESTD announced their 1 for 4 reverse split today.

Happy trails, me pards.