STUFF

Mortenson Renewable Energy Groups (privately owned) building 11 new wind projects in US, total of 1.36GW to go online by year end. 2 more in Canada for 308MW.

BWEN got $1.37M DOE contract to design/construct 5.8MW wind turbine gearbox for National Wind Tech Center at NREL. Spiked yesterday. Near 200-day lines.

Bureau of Ocean E Mgmt will now draw on NOAA's expertise in drilling permit decisions.

DOI to review proposal to tap Gulfstream current for baseload elgen 17 miles offshore FL coast. Goes to NC. As good as tidal.

Siemens exec said bipartisan clean E push could start with efficiency bill. What's this? An adult conversation in Washington?! Bipartisan!? What's that?

A panel tomorrow at Polytech/NYU to examine the value of a negawatt and what the word means to stakeholders (ENOC, COMV, etc.).

UK panel approved shale gas drilling, calling protests "hot air". Yea, until you get cancer or what from the drinking water. Let's be careful. Let's be right. And let's be truthful.

Australia Climate Commission finds climate change evidence "beyond doubt". Well, that's Australians for ya.

National green development bank to open next year in UK. Cheerio. Better late than never.

Pakistan preparing a 1st version of national climate policy in response to their floods. Will the US be the last for any policy? O, that's right, we've been the major carbon exhausters for how many decades? Oops. Does anyone wonder anymore why a lot of the world hates the USA? Besides creating 1 world depression and 1 world financial fraud in less than 100 years? O. Half empty to half full. The USA does a lot of good too. And we sure mean well. And we do get the bad boys when we have to. World War 2 certainly has long standing. Well, waxing pedantic here. Moving on. As the US continues to walk backwards with eyes closed into climate and clean energy policy. Maybe I'm a little off. OK, definitely moving on now.

Sierra Leone to start offshore drilling.

Greenpeacers scaled 450-ft smokestack of 100-yr-old Chicago coal plant. OK, they got our attention. What's the story on that plant?

Mickey Mouse wants to put up a 2.5MW GE wind turbine in Tomorrowland but Goofy is leading a protest that it would spoil his view of the Matterhorn. Well, they're both right. You want highest consistent wind but you don't want to ruin any vistas. The industry learned that at Altamont in the '80's. Anyway, 19 working offshore wind farms in Europe and 1 in China. US doesn't even have 1 ready to build. And you ask why. Me too, pards.

LED lights - especially headlights - will extend EV range, even improve gas mileage. Nissan Leaf LED hedlights use 21w v. halogen's 55w. Gives 9km more per charge or 9 gal of gas per year more. It takes everything.

FMC-Tech, an Irish comp that provides real-time monitoring of power lines, was 1 of 12 GE Ecomagination winners in '10. GE to buy them.

DOE SunShot awarded $25M each to SVTC Tech (spinoff from Cypress Semi, as was SPWRA) and Bay Area PV Consortium (Stanford and UC Berkeley). 16 comps have committed $1M/y toward meeting DOE's cost-share requirement. Shopping list of techs: 1) low cost III-V materials, chalcogenides, and organic solar cells (OSCs); 2) photon mgmt for each type of solarcell; 3) anti-reflective coatings; 4) substrate improvements; 5) transparent conductive electrodes (replacing indium); and 6) solar cell reliability and encapsulation in sun and moisture. Shooting for 50 cents/watt including install for 6 cents/kwh.

Innovalight - silicon ink - also got SunShot $3.4M to accel dev and prod.

And I am out of juice, pards. Prayers for Joplin, A? Man o man. At least we have a week before hurricane season. Life's a trip. Have a good one.