Germany to retire their nuke fleet by '22. 20% of elgen now. Saying wind, solar, etc. will replace it. In '08, coal was 45% elgen. I just don't see the logic. They don't get earthquakes or tsunamis. I think it's a blatant overreaction to Fuku. Nuclear power is clean. No GHG's. Now, in the mix is the age of the plants (how long do we keep our cars running, for gosh sakes?) and the expense of maintaining the nuke plants and building new ones. Maybe wind and solar does beat that. Great. Super duper. But how about those coal plants?
Renewable Energy Corp to scale back PV production 500 workers worth. Weak market demand. To halt production at solar cell plant in Norway. Happened before in 2Q09. ASP's for wafers, modules down 4% 1Q11 from 4Q10. Solar glut coming...
Solazyme IPO Friday. SZYM. Raised >$200M. Gen-mod algae that feeds on sugar. Chevron, Dow, USAF, Unilever among partners/customers. $38M revs in '10, lost $13.7M. Can produce fuel for $3.50/gal. Well, with usual markup, that's $7/gal.
In WI, the Olsens (not sure if the twins or not - a lot of Olsens in WI) have racked up debt of $104M from the family ethanol biz, including bankruptcy at 110M gal eth plant in Jan '09.
Adding NUCL, SZYM to watch list.
UPS began using biodiesel blends at major KY hub. B5 working up to B20. Sunoco launched B2 biodiesel in NJ. Sounds like bingo to me. Biodiesel New Zealand expanding distribution of B20, B100. Malaysia set to launch B5 mandate in June.
Renewable Fuels Assoc: US will save $440M this Memorial Day weekend due to ethanol. At what cost? That's me question. Aw, maybe they have a point. Um. No. No food for fuel. And here we go with soybeans for biodiesel. But we need alternate fuel to oil. I think we need a moonshot program on that.
In France, Thermya announced construction of 3 industrial biocoal production units using their biomass torrefactor process. 1st unit to open this summer in Basque country to produce 20k tons biocoal/y.
Seaweed to eth in India: 5 sqkm farm. Brazil's sugarcane harvest off to a slow start. And Defense Dept to increase biofuels contracts to 15 yrs from 5.
Well, I think we've herd enough taps played for a very long long time. Or ever more. Good ruck with that huh. Happy memorial trails pards.
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