SATURDAY

The Derby. Pants on fire. Mucho macho man. Is it Church Hill or Church Ill? Reds on earlier. Drew Stubbs drove in go ahead run then couldn't catch the ball that eventually lost the game. Besides "The Closer" Cordero. Not to point to the goats.

But. On we go.

ADM, Cargill spearheading a push to invest  $560M in new soybean-diesel refineries in Brazil. Betting Brazil will double biodiesel blend to 10% next 3 yrs. Brazil already has 2x needed cap for present demand. Overcap also in Europe, plants op'n @ ~40%. 25% in US. New Brazil biodiesel units cost ~25 cents/liter to build. BR imported 9B liters diesel in '10.

IEA has concluded world oil reserves are being depleted by 6%/y.

Greece, Turkey, Norway, Hong Kong, other countries paying $9/gal for gas.

DOE spending $122M next 5 yrs researching artificial photosynthesis to produce fuels. Led by CIT, Lawrence Berkeley labs.

Shenyang Power Group, 20% owned by APWR, signed LOI to develop 615 MW wind farm in TX.

REpower Systems (GM) signed contracts for 2 Canadian wind farms, total 110MW. WWPW under contract for 30MW.

Vogt Power (Louisville), sub of Babcock, to supply heat recovery steam generators for Caracas power plant.

GE to provide >$500M of gas turbines for 4 Saud power plant expansions. To add 1.68GW to grid. Brings GE's Saud orders to >$2B in last 2 yrs. Sauds plan to add 3GW/y. El demand growing 6%/y. GE also got order from Indonesia for 114MW of gas turbine gen tech. Demand there also growing 6-7%/y.

French cities getting ....

FLASH FLASH FLASH...Animal Kingdom wins the Derby, #16 .. a horse into the ambulance... Velasquez ... Irwin ... mucho macho 3rd ... Arch arch arch in the ambulance ... thin legs with 3/4 ton on 'm ... animal kingdom paying $43 ... jeeze leweeze ... Velasquez' 1st win ...

French cities getting up to 45% E savings from ELON street lighting systems. 40% of city E budgets for street lights.

Hydro Green E developing 1GW hydropower projects @ existing non-powered dams in 15 US states. DOI, DOE, Army Engineers Corps announced MOU to dev hydropower @ existing dams/waterworks. Also, CO Gov's office partnered up with FERC to streamline permitting of small hydro projects in existing conduits. '06 Idaho National Lab found 5400 sites worthy of small hydro dev to increase US hydro 50% (18GW).

Should we raise capital gains tax rate, lower corp tax rate in some way to spur jobs? Just wanderin.

DOI report projects 8-20% decrease in annual flows of Colorado, Rio Grande and San Joquin river basins. Affects hydropower. Climate change expected to reduce snow in mountains tho this year we had plenty.

MIT solar thermoel project produces power w/ efficiency 8x higher than ever reported. Generates/harnesses 200C temp difference. If they can reverse the process, we have more efficient refrig/AC. DOE has program to dev el-therm systems mostly using vehicle engine waste.

China el demand 1Q11 up 12.7% over '10. Power shortages already, summer on the way. Coal for China hit $124/ton.

JUHL bought 12-yr-old 110MW wind farm for $400k! $1m/y revs. Hellro! Love you long time PPA from XCel E.

US wind biz installed 1.1GW in 1Q11 in 12 states. MN, WA. IL led. 5.6GW in dev (twice '09 and '10 at year point). Total US fleet now 41.4GW = 10M homes.

EIA: Jan hydro gen up 16% fm '10, most in WA, CA, OR. Jan windgen up 27% - most in WA, WY, CO. Solar up 343%, led by NV, CA, FL.

BP Wind started 225MW farm NW of Ft. Worth. Clipper Windpower 2.5 turbines. Online 1Q12. 2nd TX farm announced in past month. 4th TX farm. 4-mile grid connect. El to be sold in wholesale market. BP now 13 farms, >1.3GW (360MW in TX).

NC has best offshore wind resource of east coast. DOE goal 54GW by '30. 1st project gittin goin.

3.2GW wind permitted in IL awaiting dev. 2GW already online. NREL: IL's wind could meet 5x state's el demand. But current RPS law makes financing difficult. Legislation coming. Can windpowergen lessen tornadic power? Any research?

Alaska looking to renewables - wind, geo, hydro - as NG dwindles. Importing LNG.

DeWind, sub of Daewoo now, bought 20MW more of TX windfarms near Dumas. Turbines assembled by TECO-Westinghouse in Round Rock. 2MW turbine can be connected directly to grid w/out power conversion equipment. Torque converters.

Climate models of wind patterns suggest US wind E prod next 30-50 yrs will be largely unaffected by global warming. If there is such a thing possible as global warming, that is.

Germany's 1st commercial offshore windfarm now operational in Baltic. >48MW. 21 Siemens 2.3MW turbs. 93-meter rotor diameter. 50k homes equiv. 7 sq. km. 16 km offshore. GM expecting 20-25GW offshore by '30. Siemens soon to intro 6MW gearless turb. Their next offshore project to have 80 3.6MW turbs (120-meter blade) online in '13. 340k homes. Orders for 5 offshore windfarms in GM waters. 3.6GW more additional offshore orders.

Vestas, Abound Solar, oil/gas comps expanding in Weld County, CO. I helped grow hard red winter wheat in Weld County in the late 80's. And aerial sprayed to kill the Russian wheat aphids then threatening the crops. Moved after to my first sailboat at Cocoa FL. Anyway, Weld led state employ growth (1.8%) w/ 7.3k new jobs early this yr. Cap investment >$2.3M since '06, outpacing most. "You guys started clean tech for CO..." Over .1% state job growth in '10 "unherd of in world". "Most congressional policies not doing us any good." "NASA has 14k inventions sitting on shelves in DC, space coast." Aerospace/clean E park planned for Weld. Meanwhile, est. 2.5T bls oil reserves in world, 2T in western US. Huh? CO, UT, WY 1.5T of 'm. Maybe. Maybe not. I do miss CO.

Windfarms could threaten prairie chickens in OK. Tallgrass Prairie Reserve. Osage Nation. 2 farms proposed nearby. Mineral rights underneath too. And bison roundup in falls. But prarie chick not spotted owl (protected). And not to confuse with lesser prairie chick up in western high plains. Hunting seasons stretch into KS, Dakotas. Canary in coal mine possibly. And this is where the wind is. "Dirty green". Diff of 1/100th of meter/sec windspeed is 6 figures over project life. Prairie grouse already gone w/out windpower. Prairie chick population crashed in '90's, No one knows why. End of cold war? Severe wx? "We know they avoid tall vertical strucures." Maybe hunted out? Hawks, owls pech on towers for the chickens. "Now no hawks or owls on the towers." And "you can't reason with a chicken." And I can't make this stuff up.

Have a great Mothers Day, A?