DaSTUFF

Swiss Federal Labs got new record 18.7% efficiency with flexible CIGS solar cells (copper, indium, gallium, deselenide). Beat their 17.6% last year.

NY to sue US for failing to study fracking impacts.

GM canceled plans for plug-in Caddy. Yes, the rich are too rich to help us off oil or clean the air.

3 Gorges Dam could be to blame for Chinese drought. Drought in Yangtze basin worst in 50 yrs. The river sustains 2/3 of China's rice fields. Rainfall 40-60% blw avg. 85% of China elgen from thermal. Coal prod up 11% 1st 4 months this year. But talk of 40GW power shortage this summer. Industrial output slowing from the shortage.

Cairn Energy to spend $600M to drill 4 wells offshore W. Greenland. Up to 3.2B bls in reservoirs.

57% of US Americans say they won't buy an EV no matter the price of gas: USA Today poll. What the hell is up with that?! Yea, most of us are too stupid to get off oil or clean the air?!

GE global research director: solar may be cheaper than fossil, nuke in 3-5 yrs.

MIT working on semi-solid lithium flow cells for E densities an order of magnitude greater than aqueous flow batts.

Pemex discovered 400-600BCF of new NG offshore in Gulf.

Brazil Libra field reserves est. reduced to 5B bls from 15B. And Petrobras must triple the number of ships and deepwater drilling rigs by '20 to double oil/gas prod. 1st grid-connected solar project in Brazil switched on this week.

Drought in Germany expected to hit rapeseed harvest hard, reducing biodiesel production significantly. 4 weeks in on the dry wx.

Australia to plant 30k kulpa plants in Queensland this yr for biodiesel from the seed oil, el from the waste.

Global C output has spiked to a record high. And Canada admitted to leaving oil sands emissions out of UN report.

E85 sales in Iowa - in Iowa - up 27% in 1Q11 over 4Q10, 64% over 1Q10. Cheaper than gas there, but when you figure in mileage ...

Russia restricting oil exploration to protect seriously endangered grey whales. Da.

IEA: intermittent wind, solar not a problem. It can be managed.

Last summer was Japan's hottest ever.

Libya's rebs have used up their stock of crude. The small refinery at Tobruk, near Egypt border, shut down last week. What do we do now.

Canadian utility Fortis buying Central VT Pub Svc for ~$470M.

US has 3 GW of geothermal plants in prod. 38-40GW known reserves. "100MW of geo power is like 300MW of solar." But capital costs of $3.5-6/W before incentives. And if your drill is off by 200', the hot water can be missed. 1 in 10 make it. 300 degrees in west US v. 600 in Iceland. Some wells only 15 yrs of production, tho water injection proving out. Single well can cost $5-8M to drill. And utilites pay them ~1/3 less than solar per kwh. MIT: enhanced geo tech, deep drilling could garner 100GW @ 4 cents/kwh.

And that was May, pards. May June get us to an even better place.