STUFF

Bank of America needs $50B for housing losses. Sounds like their problem. O, that's right, their problems are the fed govt's problem.

Food prices up 34% over last year. All items 36%. Like we didn't know.

Gold, silver doing fine.

Petraeus handed Afghanistan over to Marine General Allen. Hoowuh. Marines replacing heavy batts in packs with rolled-up solar sheets. Plan to cut per-soldier E use in half by '25.

China wants to double coalbed methane gas prod by '15. Petro China says country has enough to meet 30% of power needs. Last yr, China wanted to prod 10Bcm, but got 8.6. Goal is 21Bcm/y by '15. In Feb, they made $5.4B deal with Encana for Canadian NG. Encana cancelled the deal in June. Hm. Shell then signed a deal with them. Then one of Australia's biggest comps agreed to buy out an American NG producer (maybe Petrohawk). BHP Billiton made offer for HK.

BP oil pipe broke in AK tundra. Thaw. No reports yet of amount or damage.

Bloomberg (the mayor): if you close Indian Point today, we'd have massive blackouts and E prices could rise 12%. The 2.5GW ~25% of NYC power. Gov Cuomo wants to shut it down. Over time, I'm sure. Tho, is it tsunami risk, earthquake risk? Let's not go bananas because of Fukushima. Nuclear E is clean E.

Louisiana Public Facilities Authority approved up to $70M in bonds to help build US' first sugar-to-eth plant. Local sugarcane farmers in for 20%. Indian comp (like, from India) to build the refinery in India and ship it to LA before start of October cane harvest. $40M invested so far in sugarcane, sweet sorghum contracts.

Sauds pumped 700kb/d more in June than May. But ~ half of that consumed by them for AC and desalinization. Output boost showing up in shipments this month.

Lest we forget ... US and 31 other nations recognized the Libyan rebs as the legitimate govt. $160B Libyan money held in institutions around world. Yea the noose keeps tightening we've herd. How many months now? And Syria? Yemen? Pretty much taken out of news, A?

Last week another Japanese reactor was shut down due to malfunc. Reports that manufacturers may move ops out of JP to more stable E enviros.

Bahamas have rolling blackouts. Mozambique has grounded airline flights due to jetfuel shortage. Uganda can't pay for fuel. And on and on it goes for the little guys.

China's 1H el use was up 12.2% over '10. 12% increase in industrial use (62% of use).

Chavez returning to Cuba for chemo. Election next yr.

Shell Nigeria lifted "force majeure" on ~300kb/d of Bonny Light crude, boosting output to ~2.6mb/d.

Engineers estimate 636M bls recoverable oil in N. Iraq while govt $12B LNG deal being worked out with Shell and Mitsubishi in south.

Kuwait backing off nuclear E.

China to continue to phase out unneeded industrial capacity. 2,255 enterprises closing down.

Malaysian oil imports fell 33% yoy in May to 266kb/d.

Wake up call or internet scrabble? 64 missile warheads stolen from Romanian train. Sounds like a George Clooney movie. O yea, and the Murdoch phone hacker whistle blower was found dead.

Big banks have been writing off millions in taxes by over reporting costs of solar PV projects. Systems that can be installed for $4-5/w have been reported "fair market value" @ almost twice as high. Maybe as much as $36M in '10 loss to govt rev gone to banks. And the news is  ...

Duke anticipates retiring 6 coal-fired units at Beckjord plant outside of Cincinnati by '15 because of new EPA rule. 862MW. 4 oil-fired turbines - 244MW - for peak demand won't be retired. 60-yr-old plant. (I remember our hauling the flyash from the plant up the hill to the dump in the early 80's that helped keep our family biz in business). Duke plans to replace the lost el with purchases on the wholesale market or building or buying NG-fired combined-cycle gen.

SunRun, our nation's residential solar leader, has expanded to MD. They own, maintain. insure the panels and use local installers. Customers' E bills cut in half by some accounts.