STUFF

Mother's Day, boys and girls. Do it up.

Mexico to do 3% biofuel blend in '12.

NAS says US' ability to monitor Earth from space "at great risk" from budget cuts. Aged satellites, replacements delayed or shelved. But this is a world expense. UN? Why should we incur all the costs?

NYC selects 25mpg Nissans for "green" taxi fleet. Thought we could have gone with EVs.

Sauds will likely harvest their last wheat crop in '12. In the 70's they tapped an aquifer for irrigation. It's tapped out. I think they don't get much rain there in their desert. 30M population. Like Canada's.

Gasoline/fuel shortages showing up in Yemen, Kenya, Vietnam.

Pipeline build started for Russian NG to Germany.

BP Alaska to pay $25M penalty and promise to bolster pipeline network for their recent spill up there.

NC greenlighted mega offshore wind farm. 300MW. "Desert Wind". $600M. Scheduled online next year. Progress-Duke PPA probably coming.

Sun Run gets $200M from US Bank to finance solar arrays.

MGLT demo'd ultra-high transmittance thru nanostructured-coated glass. Importance of quantum well, quantum dot tech. New class of materials of porous silicon dioxide nanorods. Patent pending.

So far in '11, just 2% of green VC money going to smart grid. $3B invested so far. Record pace. Biggest deals in solar, auto, fuel cells. Gridpoint 1 exception. 7 smartgrid deals just $53M.

Smart Grid 2.0 about "distribution automation".

SD G&E has installed ~95% of its 1.4M smart meters.

AMAT buying VSEA for $4.9B @ 55% premium. Ion implantation equipment.

MIT working on exploiting heat that builds up under solar panels.

Do we love this country or what, pards?