1:31P

A farnky day. Farnky. Use in sentence. It's a farnky day.

HEV up 41. Heave that. UBRG up 15. Um, UBRG that. I did mention a few days ago they were building momentum. BWEN up 10. CCTC up 4. Ole clean coal. ASYS up 2.

ENOC down 17. Buy it. NGLPF down another 12. Buy it. AMSC down 9. Obviously bottoming. Who isn't. DSTI down 9. Are they in biz? ITRI down 7. Buy it or don't buy it. Smart meters or not smart meters. APWR down 7. They , uh, may be bankrupt? SPWRA down 6. Jeeze Leweeze, such a vampire zombie company. CSIQ down 5. JASO down 4. O those Chinese solars. ENER down 3. FSLR, GTAT down 2.

Farnky.

OPEN

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Market down 54/21/9. Volume extremely light. Oil down around $81.

HEV bounced back, up 36. UBRG up 12. BWEN bounce, up 11. SPIR up 6.

MMMW down 20. AXPW down 14. GRHU down 13. CSGH down 12. APWR down 9. ITRI down 8. Take a good luck at them for a buy. CSIQ down 5, new low. SPWRA down 4, new low. JASO, ENER down 3, new lows. I would buy JASO here. GTAT down 1. ASYS, FSLR flat.

STUFF

Dudes. This is starting to be work.

National Solar Power to build $1.5B/400MW solar farms in FL. To be SE's largest solar effort. Company that re-built Pentagon after 9/11 to design, build, operate the farm. 5-yr buildout. NSP has PPA's for >3GW of solar in SE.

NIST researchers using "molecular-scale 'veins' of iron permeating grains of magnesium" in new way to store H.

Invenergy, DTE Energy broke ground on 212MW wind farm in MI. Online 1Q12. 133 GE turbines.

Agilyx - OR start-up - has system to convert plastic waste into crude oil. Hopes to sell commercial units in 9 months. $5M unit can turn 40k lb of plastic into 130bls of oil. ~7-10lb of plastic for 1 gal of gas (oil produced at ~$52/bl). Muni solid waste in US ~243M tons/y. Waste Management, Total, Kleiner investing in it. Est. 2T tons of plastic in US landfills. And you can't generate methane from trash piles without taking out the plastic.

Obama appointed major campaign contibutors to DOE loan program. Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again. All our political campaigns should be publicly financed. And the TV time given free for debates.

Louisiana wants an LNG export terminal.

TVA constructed dikes with weaker materials: expert testified in spill case. Watch out on those new nuke plants they want.

USDA: most farmers improperly apply nitrogen fertilizer.

A judge halted construction plans for Amazon dam ... plants more powerful C eaters than previously thought ... microbe-based biofuel being developed as diesel alternative ... costs of shutting down German nuke plants continues to rise - economically and environmentally ... Israel could be next fossil fuel giant ... my guess is West Bank, Qulf of Aqaba and Meditteranean ... Tullow Oil made new oil find offshore Ghana.

BG Group got 20-yr agreement to supply ~2.5M tons LNG/y to Indian energy comp. Deliveries as early as '14.

DOE self-assessed that they should be spending more on transportation energy R/D, not electric power.

Fed govt got $31.7B from fuel taxes in '09. States got $37.9B in '08. Both going down from econ, mileage gains.

Hubbert predicted US oil peak right, but US now producing 4x more than he predicted for '10.

OPEC won't interfere with falling oil prices. Yet.

Chesapeake Energy had "strong initial production success" in Utica shale region of OH/PA. Plan to increase net liquids production 50% to ~150kb/d by end of '12, 250k by end of '15.

BP studying quadrupling production @ Indonesian LNG plant. And says India should end gas price controls to attract investment.

Fire at Shell's Singapore refinery.

Turkey preparing sanctions against Syria, and Hungary's MOL reducing Syrian crude production 1.5kb/d.

EU antitrust regulators raided Bulgarian NG firms as part of wider look at violations in 10 EU member nations.

DOE predicts in less than 4 years the amount of coal mined in WV, VA, TN will be half what it was in '08. Um, maybe we should stay with developing clean power energy. And they awarded $450M to clean coal project in W. TX.

Stirling Energy Systems filed for Chapter 7.

Car efficiency in next decade could save >2mb/d.

Racing the FY clock, DOE looking at loan quarantees of $2.5B for FSLR projects, $1.4B for Prologis, $1.2B for SPWRA and a few others.

Latest Brent seen - $104.

Trans-Sinai NG pipe from Egypt to Israel/Jordan blown up Tuesday for 5th time since Egypt's revolution.

8B gallon cellulosic biofuels capacity mandated for '16-'19. AgriVida may be a look see.

USDA announced $80M in advanced biofuel producer payments to 163 comps.

Aeromexico started using 25% biofuel mix in fuel for flights to Costa Rica.

Drug raid in PA Boeing plant.

Bernanke: "joblessness a 'national crisis'".

Happy trails, pards.

CLOSE

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Dow up 143. Naz down 10. S&P up 9. Volume turned heavy. Oil closed under $83. Citigroup - 1 of our faves - cut global GDP forecast to 3% this year, 2.9 in '12. Their 2nd cut this month.

SPOW up 25. AMSC up 15. APWR up 10. KIOR up 7. UBRG up 1.

VNDB down 53. Glad you didn't own that? HEV down 34. Really a new low. BWEN down 20. Look at this please. NGLPF down 17. Wall Street trying to destroy anything green? Geothermal. SATC down 12, I think a new low. EFOI down 10, new low. NEXS down 9, new low? ENER down 8. JASO down 7. Really. FCEL down 6, new low. CSIQ, ASYS down 4. GTAT down 3.

Good old Wall Street.

Onward and upward, pards.

1:25P

Well, seems I was just a day early on AMSC. Today it's up 16%. And was higher. They re-released yesterday's news. And I wonder if Zacks' super-sell rating yesterday morning was just to give them - and followers - the bottom. Wall St. is a very sneaky place.

JASO down 7 now. I just can't see how they go any lower. Maybe wait one more day. Solar's getting screwed again. FSLR flat, ASYS down 4. GTAT down 5. CSIQ down 2.

OPEN

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Dow up 125. Naz down 9. S&P up 6. Volume very light but picking up. Oil back up to $83. 2Q GDP revised up to 1.3%. German parliament backing the Euro rescue fund. I guess the bailout is in.

APWR up 16. ENER up 13. DSTI, NANX up 12. CPWY up 11. KIOR up 5, hit new high. UBRG up 2. Gaining traction.

AMEL down 15. ASOE down 13, new low. NENE down 3. ALTI down 2. ITRI down 1. News they may have inside track for France deploying smart meters countrywide - over 35M between '13 and '18. ITRI on its bottom with extremely low P/B, P/S and low P/E. I believe they are one to watch and get on board when they start up. COMV down 1, new low. Doesn't seem right.

Tally ho, pards.

STUFF

Shiller values stocks on past 10 years of earnings. Market "still high" by historic standards. P/E of 20 now. Historically 15.

Greece debt $580B. 182% of GDP. Ireland's $2.38T 1,382% of GDP. How can they not default?! Who the hell lent them over $2T?! UK owes $9T, 413% of GDP. Japan $11T, 225%. And we're at 101% @ $14.8T. Half of our debt is held by our government and the Fed. 31% held by foreign govts/institutions/persons. ECB holds 83% of Ireland's, 65% of Greeks and 63% of Portugal's $552B (223% of GDP). Governments schmuverants.

Most solar modules installed in US are imported (~$1.2B in '10). But we had $1.9B in solar exports, mostly in capital equipment and polysilicon.

Progress Energy shutting down 62-yr-old 172MW coal power plant in NC this week. Had been planned for '13-'17 in plan to idle 30% of NC coal plants. A 600MW NG combined-cycle plant went online in June. NG will replace the coal power.

China to invest $313B (2T Yuan) in green econ/low-C development in next 5 yrs to cut 16% of per-unit GDP energy consumption v. '10 levels. We're in their 12th 5-yr plan ('11-'15). In 11th, per-unit E use decreased 19%, CO2 emissions cut ~1.5B tons.

Simbol Materials - CA startup - hopes to extract lithium from geothermal power plants.

Satellite images show some Candian Arctic ice shelves thinned by half in last 6 years.

NG treated as "waste" in ND Bakken shale oil fields. >100Mcf/d - 30% of the NG - flared off. That would heat 500k homes. And it spews 2M tons CO2/yr (a mid-size coal plant or 384k cars). More like Russia, Nigeria and Iran than US. Same with Eagle Ford shale field in TX. Companies "can't afford"  to pay for pipelines and processing plants to capture/sell the NG. And leases are for 5 years. "Grab the oil and go".

Coal industry, states blasting proposed new rules to protect waterways from mountain-top removal mining. Fed judge already stopped earlier effort to change Bush-era rules.

ConocoPhillips to shutter a PA refinery.

TX "does not and will not have" enough water for the booming population.

Solyndra to auction assets in Oct.

Recent poll said 71% of Americans support requiring reductions in C emissions, including 55% of Republicans. Consistent with > a dozen polls in last 2 years.

Oklahoma G&E going to pay for at least 40k smart thermostats from Energate to get 70MW peak load reduction from residential, small biz customers.

Ethylene the most produced organic compound in world. Global production >107M tons in '05. Makes plastics/chemicals. Created now with energy-intesnsive process from oil. So now cometh Siluria. Raised another $20M. Uses NG as feedstock. Yet to be done economically. Using genetically-modified organisms.

Elevance Renewable Sciences - spin-off from Cargill and Materia - working on $100M IPO. They make complex petrochems from plant-based oils. Symbol will be ERSI. A $176B global market. Palm and coconut oils important feedstocks. Indonesia plant to begin ops 2Q12. $21M revs in '10, $27M loss.

USDA announced 5 major ag research projects to develop regional, renewable energy markets. 5-yr program to deliver >$136M in grants.

Up to 200 anti-aircraft missiles stolen in Libya. Way to go NATO, Obama. Feel like flying, anyone?

Solar Reserve's 110MW NV solar plant got $737M DOE loan guarantee. Molten salt storage. And Sempra's 150MW AZ solar plant got $337M guaranteed. Transformer-less and liquid-cooled inverter tech. But Chinese solar modules, though some to be built in AZ. 6 aps awaiting decision by end of month.

States appealing to Supreme Court on health law.

O happy trails.

CLOSE

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Market down 179/55/24. Volume light. Oil down to under $81. Obama: Europe's debt response "not enough".

Today I made the cutoff at least 10k shs traded. Some of this (or most?) is just carryover - froth - from the market's recent upswing. SPOW up 46. Tell me about it. ALTI up 33. You never know when or why. NPWZ up 27. MMMW up 26 on that news. CSKH up 24. AMEL up 18. They had a report. CLNO up 10. HSOL, XSNX up 6. LSCG up 5. SPWRA up 1 after being up over 10.

CBWP down 26. HEV down 19, new low. GSPI down 18. PPRW down 16 on news. PALAF down 14, new low. ENER down 13. EMKR, OOIL down 12. FSLR, BWEN down 10. I would think FSLR is bottoming. GTAT, AMSC, FCEL down 8. ASYS down 7, new low.

Really sad, pards.

OPEN

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Market down 23/9/4 after opening up 100 on Dow. Volume very light. Oil down to around $83. Durable goods orders down .1% in Aug.

NPWZ up 27. ALTI up 19. No news. Above 50-day lines. MMMW, SPOW up 16. MMMW on news. HSOL up 13. No news.

OOIL down 10. GEVO down 9 on news, new low. BWEN down 7. AMSC down 6 on news. Zacks gave it a strong sell rating. I sold. Can't fight Wall St. ASYS, GTAT down 5. CSIQ down 3, new low.

HISTORY

I hope you will check out the history part of "A LITTLE HISTORY AND STUFF" (Saturday) if you haven't yet. It's a look back through the last 50 years.

STUFF II

Half of multinationals to choose supplier based on CO2 emissions.

Our power grid is undergoing the same kind of transition with clean E input that we experienced in communication systems with the internet.

Foreign oil comps returning to Libya.

Canadian energy minister said they need the proposed oilpipe to the west coast to diversify their demand. You think China may be financing that decision?

Exxon pipe that spilled into Yellowstone River to restart on fed approval.

Iderdrola, Gdf-Suez recommitted to NuGen - new 3.6GW nuke plant in Scotland.

House Repubs crying about DOE loan guarantees w/ $11.8B gone to their districts. Wah.

US military's clean E investments jumped 300% '06-'09. Will eclipse $10B in '30. 2030's a way off. I didn't find a current number.

USGS: estimated 71B barrels of oil reserves in east Africa. Most in Kenya. Hm. 71B x $85.

Carlos Slim on US problems: Raise capital gain taxes to personal tax rate. Lower other taxes. (OK, we can cover cutting corporate tax for manufacturing plants by raising capital gain tax.) Universal health care and other entitlements "unsustainable" as is. Focus on small and mid-size biz for jobs. Slim, in case you don't know yet, is the richest man in the world.

Renmatix came out of stealth. Water-based process to extract sugar from wood, ag, and other biomass waste. Competitive with Brazil sugarcane (~$600/ton). Renmatix planning to relocate from Georgia demo plant to full-scale plant in PA next year to make 100k lbs of cellulosic sugar/yr.

DOE "Sunshot" awarded $3M to Clean Power Finance to develop software to reduce solar permitting costs.

St. Louis Housing Authority now powering admin bldg, 4 complexes with solar.

Tucson El ran out of money for home solar incentives.

Oroville, CA family growing food for veterans' shelters to get free solar from SunRun after presenting highest residential el bill in CA - $2,400/mo.

CLOSE

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Market up 146/32/12. Dow was up over 300 at a point in afternoon but I figured things can't be that good. 700 off the bottom?! That quick?! So I sold. Volume was heavy. And oil stayed right where it was in the morning.

VNDB up 50. Volume schmolume. CGYV, CCGI up 23. Who cares about volume? SPIR up 21. QTWW, PSPW up 15. OK, QTWW actually has volume. BYDDF up 14. KIOR up 13. SPOW up 11. URRE, OOIL up 10. URRE had volume. GTAT, EFOI up 8. CWET up 5.

CBWP down 37. 10k shs. MDTL down 30. Again, 10k shs. WNEA down 29. 9k shs. WTWO down 20. Shares, but check the price. NGBF down 18. Speculationville (this whole paragraph). BHWX, PPRW down 17. NPWZ down 16. JUHL down 15. VVIT down 13. XSNX, CSOL down 12. PTOS, DLYT down 10. HSOL down 9. Chinese solars went nowhere. AMSC down 8. Bought it. CSIQ down 5. A Chinese solar. HEV, ASTI, COMV down 4. DSTI, JASO down 2. BWEN, UBRG flat. WEST up 1.

Tally ho dudes.

STUFF

Lawrence Berkeley: avg. installed cost of solar PV systems fell ~19% in '10 v '09 and 11% more in 1H11. Current bench $3.80-4.40/w for large scale, $6.30-8.40 for small.

Wells Fargo to finance $200M toward 53MW multi-site solar project for SunEd (WFR) in NM. Online end of yr.

EIA projects global clean/renewable E to be 5% more of E mix by '35. But demand to rise >50% by then. Um. EIA-OO. They're historically always behind the ball, the word. We'll see if they're right. Well, I probably won't.

Boom in Canada hydropower buildout. Utilities plan >$48B on new projects next 10-15 yrs, adding 14GW to more than double present capacity. Geez Leweeze, even hydro is >$3/w. "Unreasonable environmental rules" in the way. Species At Risk Act. Permits expire in 3-5 yrs. Projects take longer than that to finish. Canadian act not as flexible as US' Endangered Species Act.

Global PV solar installs could dub in 2H11 over 1H. >22GW 1 estimate for the yr.

Solar City's $275M program to put up solar on 160k military homes won't get DOE loan guarantee. DOE blames Congress' investigation paperwork. They have $9B of guarantees to finalize by Sept 30. POET got $105M for cellulosic eth plant to be built in Iowa. Ormat got up to $350M for 3 geotherm plants. Granite Reliable Power got <$170M for 99MW NH wind farm. Vestas turbines. Huh. GE makes turbines.

European study confirms biofuels may be even more GHG intensive than fossil, given full envelopes. Biofuels supply ~4% of transport fuels in Europe, sales ~$17B/y.

DOI to consider listings for 374 aquatic species in SE under Endangered Species Act. An environmental coalition petitioned for 404 18 months ago. Not just EPA, huh?

Calif coal plant will try running on sorghum .... Cal may opt out on smart meter plans ... 17 states call for delinking Miss. River and Great Lakes ... Ford pondering adding EV's to China lineup ... EPA: NJ's sewers fix could cost $8B ... Chongging - China's largest city - trying to go green ... a day of global climate action saw demonstrators in 175 countries ... EU says C markets will survive even if Kyoto doesn't ... surge in renewable E to lower Germany's projected '13 power prices ... "creating 1M E-efficiency jobs a no-brainer": Bill Clinton. Remember the '90's?

OPEN

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Market up 250/53/25. "Europe gets it". Yahoo isn't giving volume yet. I think it's probably a little heavy. Oil up 3 to almost $84. Home prices fell 4.1% in year ended July.

PSPW up 21 on 1k shs. CSKH up 15 on low volume. CABN up 13 on 900 shs. BYDDF up 12 (Buffett's Chinese EV maker). URRE up 12. SPOW, DSTI up 11. WWPW up 9. QTWW, PANL, EFOI, BIOF up 8. GTAT, NEXS up 6. ENER, ASYS, SPWRA up 5. AVAV up 3 on contract news. ENOC up 1 on contract. COMV, SATC flat on news. APWR was up to 45 cents, now 33, up 2 cents.

BHWX down 22. BLQN, NGBF down 18. XSNX down 11. SOPW, XDSL down 9. HEV down 6 on news. BWEN down 2.

MONDAY

Dow flew up 272. Volume ended up heavy. Oil back up, over $82. Remember the old axiom - oil over $80 is recessionary. Unless there's now a new number for recession. And I assume the market was up on news of a Greek solution in Europe. Or hope of. And I understand there was some kind of short-term solution in Congress so we won't have a shutdown on Saturday. It will be operational through mid-November now. Oy. Russia, China, India, Japan, Brazil, the Sauds, Taliban, al kada (I won't give them the respect of correct spelling) and all the rest must all be falling out of their chairs laughing.

Well, at 3:22AM EST Yahoo has erased all the stock numbers from yesterday's market. So. This will be a little different.

For those of you who caught it, I recommended GTAT at $7.25 around 1:30PM. It closed at $7.66. And they announced a new order late in the day.

I'm not trying to be cagey. I just wanted "A Little History" to stick around another day.

APWR is back. It's now APWR.PK. 31 cents. That should be interesting for a week or so.

ASYS is still a bargain. Of course, It's a solar. And the market is still hating on solar. And who knows where the market's headed. Though that August low held. So far.

BWEN back up to 42 cents. Off of 34 cent bottom in past week.

FSLR ended up a few percent. They got 2 buy ratings. If the solar hating is over, I do recommend GTAT, ASYS and JASO. And NENE as the Beave. (Sorry, a 60's TV junkie I was).

MXWL hit a new high and came back off it.

SPWRA hit a new low. I mean, you look at the price to book and price to sales ratios and you just shake your head. Even price to earnings. They even have earnings. But they may lose a DOE loan guarantee or 2. Who knows. And then there's Chinese solars. And there are a lot of stocks with mind-boggling low P/B's, P/S's and P/E's. I shall make up a list soon.

UBRG went down on their news. P/S of .08. I'm a buyer here.

WEST was back to 80 cents on their news. Solar kits.

Well, tomorrow I promise to be back to usual reports.

Happy trails, pards.

A LITTLE HISTORY AND STUFF

In the '60's and '70's, 1,200 on the Dow was it. The wall we couldn't get beyond. The politics were Cold War, Cuban missile crisis, THE assassination (and Kruschev deposed), Vietnam, Great Society, space race, race riots, more assassinations, revolution in the streets, drugs, women's rights, "Law and Order", Israeli-Arab War, Watergate/impeachment, OPEC - oil embargo and price quadruplings, inflation, stagflation, Communist gains, China's awakening, "malaise", Iran's revolution and American hostages. It's a wonder we made it through it.

The Reagan '80's did turn things around - after a gut-wrenching recession with 20%+ interest rates. It was supply-side economics with tax cuts and rebuild the military to stop the Communists. We watched Iraq and Iran duke it out and quietly helped the Muslims kick Soviet arse in Afghanistan. Reagan's plan to get Sauds to buy in to low cost oil to seriously cut the Soviet's oil income worked. Of course, there were a few more proxy wars - Central America and Africa - to further prick the Communists. And Walesa and the Pope in Poland started the Soviet downfall from inside, besides the arrival of Gorby. Don't forget Grenada, Lebanon, terrorist attacks and our bombings in return. We got the Gip through Iran-Contra and the savings and loan debacle. But the Dow broke that 1k barrier for good and reached over 2k.

We rocketed to 10k in the '90's after the Soviet dissolution and end of the Cold War. We pushed Iraq out of Kuwait and had another mild recession. We stopped the genocide and war against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia and tried to bring peace and stability to Somalia. Oil stayed around $25 and the internet was born. Incredible. One heck of a lot of fortunes were made. There was that impeachment thing and the Asian financial crisis. But by '00 US debt was $5T and we were paying it down.

Of course we know what happened next. Yet still the Dow pushed to 14k after the internet bubble burst and 9/11. Tax cuts, again, and borrowing. It even hit almost 13k after the real estate debacle, $150 oil and the financial crisis. Of course, that looks ominously now like the double top of the market for who knows how long.

So. Here we are. Maintaining the 10X growth in Dow valuations - and all the rest - in 20, now 30 years. I think we've done relatively well considering the headwinds of terrorism gone wild and the bubbles on steroids. Let alone the "hate you and won't say yes to nuthin you say" politics we now are dealing with. But what's next?

We do know that people work for less money  - a LOT less in a lot of places around the world - than we're accustomed to here. But. I think we have to lower corporate tax rates for manufacturing, especially, and lower all corporate tax rates to match what countries all around the world are doing. Otherwise, our corporations will continue to take business where it's cheaper. And we will lose even more jobs. I think we must get that done. Now. And I would bet with the return of manufacturing - and constructing the plants and infrastructure - that permanent jobs return and economy grows and the loss of corporate tax comes back in increased revenues from the growth. THAT's the old Reagan philosophy. It's time for corporate tax cuts. The higher wages here may still be a block to work through. Maybe with substantially lower corporate tax rates here than abroad. And then maybe with cutting the "red tape" of uber regulation. It can be done. Again, I believe we HAVE to do it. And I'm an old democrat turned independent.


Well, on to stuff. Thanks for bearing with me.

EPA to enforce '08 smog rules. Asked to wait until '13 on the stricter standards Obama recently cancelled.

Investigations into DOE loan guarantees may evolve into nuke guarantees. Fine. Bring it on. Cut cut cut. Go tea party. Actually, really, nukes are clean energy too. But we can do much better.

Proposed Portland, Oregon LNG import terminal now seeking to export instead. Hay, that's good.

NY residents looking for way out of NG drilling leases. Oops. Maybe that cancels out exporting NG from at least East coast.

Auto, engine groups challenging EPA's E15 biofuel.

KY regulators proposed record fine for coal comps' water pollution.

Ukraine, Russia gearing up for another NG brawl. And India and China are sparring over exploration in S. China Sea. Um, India doesn't have S. China Sea off their coast.

Former AMSC employee (Serb engineer) convicted by Austrian court for selling commercial secrets to Sinovel for $20T and job promise. AMSC put the estimated damage @ 7.5M Euros. (Their stock went down one heck of a lot more than that). Court awarded 200k Euros. After leaving ASMC, the employee kept his computer account which gave him access to blueprints and software codes. Huh. AMSC says Sinovel owes them $250M. (Their stock went down a heck of a lot more than that). Motorola and Ford allegedly also recently on the raw end of intellectual property theft in China.

BP plans full return to Gulf drilling this year.

China will use 80% as much paper made in world today in '35. Buy forests? 70% of grain. Buy farms? They'll have 1.1B cars by then - world total now. Buy energy or gasmasks. US now uses 19mb/d of oil, Europe 14m, Japan 4.5, India and Russia 3 each. By '35, India will have more folks than China. And next month our world will welcome our 7 billionth citizen.

Happy trails, pards.

CLOSE

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Market up 37/27/6. Volume ended up very heavy. Oil stayed under $80. Yes, Virginia, there is good news sometimes. Commodities at 9-month low. Gold down >$100. And the stock averages back to where they were 12 months ago. As are many stocks.

G20 financial poobahs reiterated pledge to stabilize global econ. Echoed statement from G7 earlier this month. What the hell else would they say? Annual soiree of World Bank, IMF in DC. G20 leaders meet Oct 14. 17 nations use the Euro. Stuff.

ESRG up 426. Yup. WBRE up 100. I know. WPNV up 70. CWET up 66. HRTE up 48. What the heck, it was Friday. On to a little more bonafide. ADES up 31. Back to the wild. SPOW, VVIT up 20. Back to more serious contenders. ALTI up 18. Coming out of double bottom. Wall Street likes ALTI, I think. BWEN up 17. Eye on this one. VSPC up 16. SPIR up 15. MKTY up 14. AMSC, EVCA up 13. RNNM up 12. HSOL, GSPI, INTK up 11. POWR, PEIX, ECOS up 10. CCTC up 8. With volume. Maybe German contracts coming? CSIQ, AONE up 7. FSLR ended up 5. JASO up 4. GTAT, ASYS up 2. Maybe the most disappointed: SPWRA. Flat.

WTWO down 45. ENER, BIOF down 20. Watch them both. BIOF new low. CGYV down 19. CPWY, SCEY down 16. PTOS down 13. DSTI down 7. COMV down 5.

The come. The go. Miller time, dudes.

STUFF

LNG prices surging to 3-year high. Higher demand from Japan, China, India. 27% jump from China in 1H. Prices may be up 71% yoy by winter. $16/Mbtu a recent price. May hit $20 in winter.

Solyndra CEO taking the 5th today in Congress. One report said they blame DOE for their demise.

Venezuela now considered to have bigger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia.

>20 new coal plants being planned or already under construction in Germany.

Texas joined Kansas in sueing EPA over interstate emission rules.

Japan's PM hinting at restarting reactors next year. Russia to extend life of their aging reactors.

A top Repub senator blasted Dem leaders for not following through on promise of energy policy debate.

Brazil sees climate change impacts on crops.

World Bank wants end to fuel subsidies.

Greek Cypriots started drilling for NG, raising tensions on the island.

Clinton (Bill) blasted GOP for denying climate science. "US looks like a joke".

Happy trails, pards.

OPEN

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Market mixed and flat. Volume light. Oil under $80. The August bottom held. So far. $80 oil is thought to be where anything higher causes recession. Rail shipments, excluding grain and coal, at their highest in almost 3 years. And manufacturing output (75% of all US factory production) was up .5% in Aug, 4th consecutive increase.

VNDB up 80 on 2k shs. ADES up 25. HEV up 20. AMSC up 17. They reported fiscal year and Q1 and the numbers were really bad, but they announced near $100M in new contracts. BWEN up 13. HSOL up 5. NENE up 4. GTAT, ASYS, SPIR up 3.

ENER finally broke, down 18. CPWY down 16. MKTY down 14. FSLR was down another 7, but now going positive.

CLOSE

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Market down 391/82/37. Owee Howee. Almost double volume. Come on folks. Believe or don't believe in AMERICA. I believe.

ALTI down 10. AMEL down 13. AMSC down 5. Yea, superconductivity screwed by China. AONE down 3. O yea, APWR still not online. What the hell is that? ASPW down 15. Yup. Percent. BFRE held. BWEN down 10 more. If you didn't buy it well, where's the bottom? O. BYDDF down 10 too.

CLNE new low. CREE down 8. CSGH up 9. Huh. DSTI up 5. Hm. EFOI back to low.

ENER up 8. FCEL down 9. So was FSLR. GEVO down 12. HEV up 9. HSOL down 5. ITRI down 4, new low. LEXG down 11. LSCG doing allright. MXWL up 5 more. NENE down 6 on volume. PALAF down 10. PEIX ended up 3. PLUG down 8. PWER down 4, new low. I would buy that if I had any money left. QTMM up 14. QTWW down 7. RBCN down 7, new low. SATC down 10. SOPW down 13. SPIR down 11, new low. SPWRA down 5, new low. SZYM down 14, new low. URRE down 10, new low. VECO trying to make a stand. WBRE down 28. WPNV down 41. WTWO up 20.

2:17P

We're there, guys. Retesting the lows of August. Volume torrid. I would be buying for short term - tomorrow - gain. Recommending GTAT or ASYS or BWEN. Even FSLR. I would be buying if I weren't all in already.

And the President just landed in the hometown here.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

I'm sure you already know. Market down 326/55/30. About 200 Dow above last month's bottom. Volume heavy. Oil under $82. US leading indicators up .3% in August, more than forecast. Were up .6% in July.

PEIX up 22. Zacks gave it a boost yesterday. ENER up 10 more. AEBF up 6. UBRG, ECOS up 4. POWR, HEV up 3.

Just about everyone else down. More new lows. AMLM down 13. CABN, PALAF down 11. AXPW, XSNX down 10. BWEN down 7. Unbelievable. JASO down 6. GTAT, HSOL down 5. SPWRA, PWER down 4. ASYS down 3. FSLR down 2.

Good luck, pards.

CLOSE

(Stock #'s in %)

Market down 283/52/35. The Fed didn't do too well, A? Volume ended up heavy. Oil down near $85.

WPNV up 30. Kid not. 1k shares. ENER up 20 more. Why them? A poke out above 50-day lines. EVCA up 16. AMLM up 15. JASO up 14. PTOS up 10. AMBT up 8. MHTX, BCON up 6. UBRG up 4.

LMCO down 19. NGBF down 16. HEV, QTWW, URRE down 13. QTMM, PPRW, ECOS down 12. CSUN down 11. GSPI, NGLPF, DLYT down 10. BWEN, HSOL, SPIR down 9. GEVO, BIOF down 8, new lows. FSLR, ZIP down 7, new lows. FSLR will not be getting DOE loan guarantee for 1 of their 3 large projects because they won't break ground on it by end of the month. How stupid is that? Also, Chu has to report Monday to Congress on 14 other loan guarantees. PWER, SYNM down 6, new lows. ASYS, SPWRA, CDXS, MEOH down 4, new lows. VECO down 3, new low. GTAT down 3, but up after hours.

Happy trails, pards.

STUFF

Just trying to figure this out with you too.

Valero to add corn oil extraction at 3 Iowa plants.

US, Australia signed aviation biofuels accord.

Alberta Black Shale Project has a polymetal formation the size of Rhode Island with hundreds of billions worth of moly, nickel, uranium, copper, cobalt, silver, gold, rare earths, you name it. And it's literally sitting on the surface. I'll be looking for the companies involved.

CSIQ expanding US ops with 2nd warehouse in NJ.

Duke to build 5th TX wind farm. South of Corpus, 20 miles inland. 202MW. 25-yr PPA with Austin Energy. Online end of '12. 2nd phase of 402MW project announced 8/8. Since '07, Duke invested $1.75B into 10 wind farms.

Trade Wind Energy to build $400M wind farm in OK. 20-yr PPA with Alabama Power. Online end of '12. Their 2nd OK wind project.

GE got $800M more in commitments from Brazil for wind and NG turbines. 1.4GW. 378MW wind.

Carbon Disclosure Project reports a majority of US comps (who responded) now integrate climate change into core business strategy. Apple, Amazon, DirecTV among non-responders.

LMCO was rejected for $288M DOE loan guarantee then won $2.5M Progressive Insurance Auto X prize. Then they reneged on promise to share the prize, got slapped by Canadian securites regulator but continued to tout plans for 600-jobs NC plant contingent on (no forthcoming) fed assist. Yea, they're off my watch list.

Gulf spill study finds oil not breaking down.

Advocates launching a campaign after study finds BPA in children's canned food. Hello.

New Japanese premier pushing to restart nuke power.

Testing started on device that sucks CO2 out of air.

Tampa power plant to bury CO2 @ 4,200 ft. Does Florida have 4,200 feet to bury anything?

Ukraine, Azerbaijan signed LNG deal. Starting as early as '14 @ 70bcf. Helps Ukraine hawk Black Sea terminal.

Apache to buy Exxon North Sea fields for $1.75B cash. Apache spent $11B on acquisitions last year. N. Sea fields produce 19kb/d and 58mcf/d.

The see, pards. The see. And at 3:30P and the look at the averages it looks like the Fed came up with nothing. And lately all I seem to be calling are short term gainers. Like, in an hour. But if GTAT isn't a good buy well, then, what is? BWEN? FSLR? I guess the problem is the economy. Huh.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 61/5/8. Volume extremely light, but it's Fed wait. Oil under $87. Greece default seeming more inevitable.

AMLM up 20. EVCA up 16. PPRW up 12 on 200 shs. JASO, UBRG up 9. PLUG up 3, slowly penetrating 50-day lines. CSIQ up 2. GTAT up 1, was up 5 early.

PBOF down 39. LMCO down 19. NGBF down 16. GRHU down 10. HEV down 9, another new low. FSLR down 5, another new low. Where's the solar bottom? Republicans wanting to pull the plug on loans and subsidies dragging the US comps lower.

STUFF

FSLR to add new tech into manufacturing process next Q. Developed a thin-film cell that converts @ 17.3%. They think they can get 15.3% in production. They've been averaging 11.7%. ~ a dozen changes. Possible competition with fossil fuels without subsidies in 5 years.

VRNM thinks their enzymes can replace corrosive fracking acids.

Businesses planning to use new tax arrangement to provide financing for E efficiency upgrades in old buildings with no upfront costs.

Free admission Saturday at all national parks. Volunteers invited to join sprucing up projects. Seen CCC documentary on PBS?

Senator Mitch Mac - Repub senate leader - sought to steer fed money to EV factory in KY in contradiction to his anti-Obama rhetoric. Huh.

DOE: China, India to consume 31% of world energy supply by '35. Up from 21% in '08. Unfortunately, most will be from coal and other fossil.

Big news. Shell won final EPA permit for offshore Arctic drilling. Starts next summer. $4B paid for leases.

Kansas sueing EPA over orders to cut interstate emissions.

Survey: Most S&P500 comps now disclose GHG emissions.

TVA engineer says he altered reports at Kingston.

Ohio govt crafting new energy/enviro policy for probable release in Spring.

UN wants $357M for Pakistan flood victims.

$44M settled '07 oil spill in SanFran Bay.

Boston Power - lithion batt startup - raised $125M from VC's and China.

STUFF II

S. American corn farmers should help offset expected low US harvest. Russia, Ukraine also getting back into corn. US ethanol subsidies expire yearend. US tariffs on foreign eth to be lifted, opening door for Brazil's cane eth. US govt continues to subsidize cellulosic eth. Pressure in DC from cattlemen to get corn price down. DOA expects farm incomes to increase >30% this year. Ethanol comps should get better margins near future. PEIX comes to mind.

Brent last seen: $112. Goldman still sees $130 next 12 months on BRIC 7.7% growth even with lower US, EU demand.

ENI signed accord with Gazprom to sell 50% stake in Libyan field.

Rosneft and Exxon will begin surveying Russia's Arctic shelf in 2 years.

BP may have to put up another $10B to settle GOM spill claims.

Iraq, BP fight over costs of water injection system for S. Iraq fields.

BP getting good initial results from North Slope drilling.

Great Wall Drilling, with Chinese ExIm Bank funding, working with Kenya govt to drill 80 geothermal wells.

EU going for trans-Caspian NG pipeline.

69% more solar capacity added in US 2Q11 v. '10. 314MW. Treasury grant program that covers 30% of costs expires yearend.

China's 2nd largest wind turbine maker planning a $200M wind farm in IL.

OPEN

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Market up 89/23/11. Volume extremely light on Fed wait. Oil under $87. Nasdaq back near lowest 200-day line, above 50-days. S&P getting back to lowest 50-day, like Dow. S&P cut Italy's rating a notch. And ongoing talks over Greece, of course.

WTWO up 60. A froth regular. OOIL up 26 . Announced they're working with DOE's Idaho Lab to develop standards for converting biomass, including algae, into biofuels and issued a company update. AMBT, WWPW up 17. WPRT up 3, another new high. NENE up 3. BWEN up 2.

PSPW down 15. UBRG down 7. Buyville. CSIQ down 4, new low. GTAT down 3.

CLOSE

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Market came back on volume. Down 108/9/11. Volume ended up normal. Oil ended up under $87.

WPNV up 133. Stayed there. CPWY up 50. Whatever. MKTY up 48. Just spread. WNEA up 45. It can drive you nuts if you let it. CLNO up 25. LMCO, VNDB up 20. DSTI up 7. CSUN up 6. WEST, LSCG up 4. WPRT up 2, I think a new high.

SPOW down 26. NGBF down 21. HEV down 17, new low. PEIX down 15, new low. VSPC, BCON, AEBF, GNPG, AMPD down 12. WWPW down 10. NEXS down 9, I believe new low. GTAT down 8. XSNX, PALAF down 7. PALAF new low I think. JASO, CSIQ, BWEN down 6.

And that's the way it is, pards.

STUFF

Dec '06 16.6M Americans were self-employed. 14.5M now.

'85-'09 Greenland crevasses increased 13%. (More of iceshelf's interior exposed to warming.)

"Missing heat" may be getting stored in deep ocean (1k feet+). Explains global warming "hiatus". Up to a decade at a time. Explains '98 warmest year on record and more GHG's going into atmos until '10 even warmer. Deep ocean warmed 18-19% faster during the hiatus. La Nina explained too.

China suspended production at Jinko Solar (NYSE listing) factory after resident protests of foul air and water. Fluoride 10x above acceptable in water after heavy rain. Unusual amount of cancer deaths.

Evangelicals pressing Republicans to drop EPA mercury air pollution fight. Huh.

DOE has tightened loan guarantee parameters after Solyndra.

Tax credits and mandates are bringing back biodiesel plants.

NY has halted Lake Erie offshore wind project.

Faulty cement a problem at PA NG wells.

State Dept creating bureau for energy issues.

Siemens exiting nuke power biz. Siemens exiting nuke power biz. Did I mention Siemens?

Denmarks' Dong Energy in negotiations to buy Shell's industrial/commercial NG retail biz.

EPA providing $1.5M for clean diesel upgrades in MA. Reduces early death, asthma.

India's Suzlon targeting China offshore wind.

Former CIA director Woolsey: health costs of our oil habit (benzene) starts at $64B and goes to $250B. Cancer, heart disease. But also saying switch to ethanol only requires cheap mods to fuel lines. Huh.

Heiovolt got $50M from Korean refiner (10% of Korean GDP). CIGS solar.

The look see, pards.

OPEN

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Market down 220/45/23. Volume very light. Oil down $3, under $85. Dow back down off 50-day line. They still say it's Greece today, but it's just everything, probably. But it's being predictable. We're not through this correction yet and a rebuff at 50-day line makes perfect sense.

~$75B has been pulled from US equity funds since end of April (sell in May and go away). More than withdrawn in 5 months after Lehman.

WPNV up 133. Got to love froth. LMCO up 20 on a few shares. QTMM up 17. LSCG up 1. WNDEF began ops at AZ 10.5MW wind/solar farm. Up 1 on 100 shs.

SPOW down 23. NGBF down 22. PEIX down 13, new low. BCON down 10, new low. GTAT down 10. JASO down 8, new low. HEV down 8, new low. BWEN down 8. CSIQ down 7, new low. FSLR down 4, new low. They announced they're cutting costs to compete with Chinese solars.

STUFF

Rhode Island feed-in-tariff (FIT) law, signed by Repub governor in June, will set tariffs by October and launch mid-Oct. It calls for state to offer contracts for wind, solar and anaerobic digestion biogas. 5MW to be offered in '11, 15MW in '12, 10MW each in '13 and '14. The state now has only 2.4MW of windpower installed, .6MW of solar.

Obama signed 1st major patent law change since '52. Will speed up process.

Govt-backed student loans have risen from <$100B in '08 to >$400B now. Folks marking time in school because of lack of jobs. Hopefully the increased eduction will be fruitful.

China closed lead/acid batt plants after finding poisoning in children.

One problem with Social Security: US birth rates were an average 20-25% lower than baby boomer or present rates (in actual birth numbers) from the mid-'60's to mid-'80's.

Renewable Energy Group to re-open Monday a MN biodiesel plant shut down 3 years. MN has required 5% biodiesel blend. REG largest US biodiesel producer at >210M gal/yr.

Cross-state air pollution rule requires cap and trade on power plant emissions to start in Jan. Should cost utilities $130B by '15 for equipment. We'll have cleaner, healthier air but I bet utilities will be allowed to pass through the costs.

Happy game day, pards.

FRIDAY CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 75/15/6. Volume ended heavy (options Friday). Oil under $88.

US household net worth declined $149B in Q2 to $58.5T. Rose 7.4% rate in Q1.

Europe ruled out stimulus, ignoring Geithner.

AMPD up 55. Convert vehicles to electric. A local (Cincinnati) firm. I saw they are moving operations to a larger facility. Took them above all their lines. Not much revenue. Yet.

PSPW up 29. Back above all their lines. Near double in last 4 days. Most of gain came just before close. $.5M revs last Q, $79M evaluation. And they're a solar, the sector has been getting killed. Baffling.

KIOR up 27, new high. Deutsche initiated coverage with a buy. Non-food based biofuels. Now $2B evaluation. I can't find any revenue, though.

VNDB up 25. LIME up 20. No news. A push off the bottom. WTWO, WWPW up 18. SNRY up 17. ENER up 8. SATC up 7, at 50-day lines. PLUG up 6, also working through 50-day lines. CSUN up 4, the only Chinese (Nasdaq) solar doing relatively well.

WPNV down 66. WNEA down 31. MKTY down 28. CLNO down 27. CPWY, LMCO down 25. AMLM down 20. BWEN down 16 on that shelf. PPRW down 15. INTK down 13. AMSC down 11 more. EVSI, GRHU, HOKU down 11. PEIX down 9. Back on the bottom. Ditto BIOF. HEV down 8, new low. SPWRA down 6, new low. JASO down 4, new low. CSIQ down 3, made a new low.

That's all I found. Trails, pards.

THE STUFF

China closing or nationalizing dozens of rare earth metal producers that supply LED market. Business is war. So is politics. So is war. Hay, it's life. But we'll have to see how this affects our LED makers.

The day Obama stopped EPA ozone ruling he also delayed release of EPA assessment of health risks from TCE - trichlorothylene. That doesn't sound healthy.

A Virginia court ruled insurance doesn't cover global warming claims. How about duck and cover?

More people in recent poll believe in climate change, but fewer think it's man-made. Huh.

A Spanish company got $1.2B DOE loan guarantee. O, I bet we see more on this.

FERC approved 2 more Marcellus pipeline projects. Scientists also reported that fracking threatens drinking water in letter to NY gov. My understanding is the aquifers are above where the fracking happens. But there's some concern of the piping delivering the fracking liquid may leak while passing through the aquifer.

Leaking pipeline in Louisiana was sealed.

US '11 floods cost an estimated $2B. So said that report.

Our parties - yep, our 2 wonderful political parties - clashed this week over disaster funding. Republicans want clean tech cuts. They want to stop a $1.5B program advancing EV's and hybrids to provide $1B in emergency aid to states reeling from natural catastrophes.

Continuing drought  threatens more wildfires and the winter wheat crop in TX. 97% of the state is in extreme drought.

1st Chinese-built car now for sale in America.

And walruses are stuck on shore because of melted ice. Polar bears too, probably, huh.

Happy trails, pards. 

O, by the by, you could have made 10% today on BWEN if you had bought it when I mentioned it this morning and sold it already.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 32/6/1. Volume normal (very light for options Friday). Oil down under $89. Greece bailout decision postponed. They waiting for the weekend? Mortgage debacle cost banks $66B. So far. And the Dow is at one 50-day line. I think it's a top. Bailing out Greece starts Europe down a long rough road. We shall see. Euro decision could push it through 50-days, but what's going well for the economy?

Clean energy stocks a minefield lately. Latest is BWEN. Their shelf offering at 40 cents began today. I didn't see it coming. If this isn't their bottom what is. Down 24.

WTWO up 81. Good to know froth is still alive. BHWX up 28. CRGE up 15. PLUG up 8. GTAT up 2. ASYS up 1.

WNEA down 31. DLYT down 16. At least I called that double top. Now almost back to all their day lines. PPRW down 15 after yesterday's big gain. UBRG down 9. JASO down 6 more, new low. Where's the bottom?  CSIQ down 3.

CLOSE

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Market up 186/34/20. Weighted to Dow to be sure. Volume very light, which said sell. NYMEX still under $90. Dow 11,433. Back to 1st 50-day line.

PPRW up 143. Yep. True story. Nice gain, A? CLNO up 37. Not nearly the volume. NPWZ up 33. Pretty good volume. And the product is...? NGBF up 32. ZAAP up 21. AEBF up 12 on 200 shares. UBRG up 6.

MGLT stayed down 62 on that 8k shares. Let's discuss insane market spreads. WWPW down 27. At least some volume. MDTL down 23. G, I remember when they were in the 20 dollars. AMSC down 15. Well, if they couldn't see reality before committing, well, that's why they now have to sue. CABN, QTWW down 10. Tough to see the lessons there.

After hours, BWEN, GTAT and LTBR down 8. WEST hit 81 cents and now back to 89. PSPW down 5. JASO down 4. I would buy them for long term. Course, there are a lot I would buy for long term. BWEN one. ECTY down 3. ASYS down 1.

And after hours BWEN now down 10. If you don't buy that ...

3:57P

A little late with the warning, but with the volume so low I would sell everything. And now it's already 3:58p

STUFF

TVA revamping customer solar program after 12 cents/kwh premium was so popular that TVA was going ~$5M in hole/yr.

EPA finalized cross-state air pollution rule in July, requiring coal plants to hold allowances for their emissions starting Jan 1. Problems arising, especially in TX. But the agency let the GHG deadline slip (I think Obama's decision), though promises a new schedule. It IS confusing.

USGS: rare earth minerals/metals deposits found in Afghanistan.

DOE approved Solyndra loan Sept '09. Their tech depended on expensive polysilicon. What a polysilly tenet. Polysil prices began a steep decline in Feb '08 and flattened out in May '09 way below the peak. Well, what didn't. So. Was it all that campaign contribution? Not that I would wanta to be going up to Congress to explain it. The point is the government should get it's money back. With interest. Good ruck.

Arctic sea ice at or near new record low.

Boehner's funding from coal up 2,400%.

Japan planning floating wind farm off Fukushima coast.

Pirates took a tanker off the WEST coast of Africa near Nigeria. Um, that's new.

Libya's Sirte Oil has restarted NG production from country's largest fields. Libya has also started pumping ~160kb/d to coastal storage. World is expecting 3-400kb/d pretty easy to resume, the rest 18 months or longer.

Oil prices haven't changed much in last 50 years relative to Swiss Francs or gold. 2.5 grams of gold bought a barrel of oil in 1950. Today it's 2 grams. Conventional wisdom assumption: capital, not geology, creates oil.

Brent oil above $112.

Chevron shut down 2 oil pipelines in GOM. 1, at least, because of leak. Is this rap?

Bolivia's state energy company (YPFB) to supply Brazil's Petrobras w/ 2.2MCM of NG/d for a power plant.

Kuwait (who remembers the Gulf War?) exceeds the US now in power use per person. It's usually included in rent. I assume that's electricity and HVAC plus transportation. It is hotter there.

Japan plans to start importing LNG from US as early as '15. They can't now without US approval. Huh.

Bloom Energy raised another $150M from VC's. SOFC tech. Check that out. Kleiner et al in for $650M.

Wind generation may come down to neodynium ($100/kilo) v. dysprosium ($1-2k/kilo). O yea, and Molycorp ramping up at Mountain Pass CA.

Happy trails, dudes and dudettes. Happy trails.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 78/8/6. Volume very light. Oil back up near $90.

ECB offering loans to Euro banks. France, Germany saying they will rescue Greece. US industrial production up .2% in Aug, more than forecast; factories up .5%.

PPRW up 41. NPWZ up 31. AEBF up 12 on 200 shs. EFOI up 7. DLYT up 6 in turn back up.

MGLT down 62. Just their trading range. Go figure. AMSC filed criminal, civil charges against Sinovel for theft of intellectual property, breach of contracts. Down 13. ENZR down 11. BWEN, UBRG down 4. JASO, GTAT, ASYS, HEV down 3. HEV new low.

CCGI partnering with USA Parking Systems for nationwide rollout of EV charging stations. Stock flat, 100 shs traded. Another report says EV batt production will surge to double demand. And, finally, Aixtron cut guidance on LED stocks on weak demand. Tough slogging for anything clean lately except wind and NG transportation speculation.

BWEN down 6 now after opening up again. Bottoming, I do believe.

CLOSE

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Market turned around late morning, went up 260, ended up 140/40/15 on more probable European solution. Or so they say. Volume, once again, turned from light to heavy. Oil, surprisingly, down under $89 in an up market.

PTOS up 29. AMLM up 22. WEST, QTMM up 14. Remember a couple days ago I noted WEST was back at the bottom? LMCO, LTBR up 13. VSPC, TRKP up 10. HSOL, AMSC, MXWL up 7. RBCN, SATC up 6. UBRG ended up 4. BWEN hit 60 cents, got dumped down to 51 cents and came back, up 1.

NGBF down 24. NPWZ down 23. GRHU down 18. DLYT, AEBF down 11. BSRC down 10. HEV down 6, new low. JASO came back, ended down 2. CSIQ down 1.

Another fun day, pards. Lots of funds.

STUFF

According to one report, the US Fed handed out $16T to US AND foreign financial institutions between Dec '07 and July '10: 1st-ever, 1-time-only GAO audit of our central bank ordered by Dodd-Frank bill. O so liitle we know. Aug. 22 this year, the elite got another $1.2T. $107B to Morgan Stanley, $99B to Citigroup...and on it goes. Even Countrywide got $12.5B. And the blame for the crisis is coming down on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Maybe we'll know all the truth in 10 years. And from where does the Fed get $16T. And how much do they have left?

Solar Bridge Tech got a $2.3M DOE grant through SunShot to accelerate development of ultra low-cost microinverter for solar. Working with SPWRA to develop AC module. Excuse me, DOE, but WEST already has it.

Solyndra investigation: Bush administration did "due diligence" on initiating the loan.

Runoff from Tropical Storm Lee may cause another GOM dead zone besides washing up more tarballs on the beaches which, to their honor, BP is starting effort to clean up.

USDA bans E. coli in meat. Yay. EU aims to sustain Black Sea fisheries. Yay too. UN wants better forest management. Yay 3. And Canada's geothermal resources are >1M x present el use. Really?

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 67/0/5 after opening higher. Volume a little light. Oil down to $89.

QTMM up 14. LMCO up 13. ECOS up 12. NEXS, TRKP up 10. UBRG up 10 on news their '11 target is 100% increase in revs and profit growth. WEST up 8. NTCXF up 4 on another patent for their carbon nanotube solar cell tech. BWEN up 2 more.

EVSI down 10. JASO down 8 for new low. Jefferies downgrade cited lower than anticipated demand and pricing. HSOL down 2, new low.

CLOSE

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Market up 44/37/10. Volume a little heavy. Oil up just under $90. Can or will Europe settle the debt thingy? Good ruck.

NGBF up 34. PSPW up 27. EVSI up 25. NEXS up 21. Off the bottom. SNRY up 17. APNT, CPWY up 13. PANL, LEOM, SATC, WPRT up 11. PANL and WPRT, of course, the big boys in this group. SATC not too small time neither. VRNM, BDCO up 10. ASYS, CSKH up 9. BWEN up 8. WEST up 6. FSLR up 5, 10 percent off the recent bottom.

VSPC down 17. PTOS, CCTC, AMLM down 15. TRKP down 13. UBRG down 12. DLYT, BHWX down 11. EFIR, ASPW, WPNV down 10. Course, WPNV nearly doubled off today's low. Gotta love the froth. CREG down 9. LSCG down 4. HSOL down 2. JASO down 1.

Crazy hazy. Trails, pards.

STUFF

Coal industry ramping up money to Boehner.

While Solyndra's CEO assured Congress that finances were improving, the company was preparing documents showing its weakening health. Let's see. What's that? Fraud?

Google opened new energy-efficient data center in Finland. Using the cold air?

AT&T to roll out biopackaging for wireless accessories. Up to 30% plant-based plastic from sugarcane ethanol. Joined Coke, Pepsi, others.

Do you think NG industry could be trying to suck us into new NG infrastructure and dependence and then raise the price? Am i too jaded?

BioSyn planning $100M biodiesel plant in NB (Nebraska) to produce 6.5kb/d from animal fats, veg oils but will switch to switchgrass and other sources.

NTR to sell part of 31% stake in GPRE back to GPRE @ $8/sh for $28M.

Iowa State U: since May, net return on biodiesel production 50 cents/gal, highest in 4 years. Combo of biodies, soybean oil, methanol and NG prices all in the right place.

Shorter trails today, pards.

3:07P

I suggest picking up UBRG at 4 cents. And BWEN seems to be moving up.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 15/18/5. Volume a little light. Optimism on Euro solutions. Oil up near $90.

CGYV up 32 on nominal volume (NV). PSPW up 22. EVSI up 18. PSUD up 13 (NV). DSTI up 12 (NV). BSRC up 10 (NV). WPRT up 9, new high. JASO up 5. ASYS up 4. BWEN up 2.

WPNV down 40. WTWO down 16. VSPC down 13. BLGN, BHWX down 11, both (NV). ASPW down 10. DLYT down 6, no new high made. LSCG down 4 more.

GEVO awarded 2 US patents for bio-isobutanol production, filed lawsuits against Butamax, DuPont for infringement. Stock flat. OPTT to collaborate with Lockheed Martin on utility scale wave power project in OR. Up 3. LEOM to set up manufacturing plant in Korea. Flat.

CLOSE

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Market up 68/27/8. Italy-China talks? Volume heavy. NYMEX up near $89.

NSOL up 62. LTBR up 33 on news. Ever hear of thorium? Here? AMLM up 13. Lithium. DLYT up 11, either they go over the double high or they go down. MXWL up 8. Maxwell's hammer was a cool song. NENE up 7.

NGBF down 28. CPWY down 21. VNDB down 20. SPOW down 18. PTOS down 16. EVSI down 15. ZAAP down 13, new low. EVCA, AMEL down 12. PSPW down 11. PALAF down 8, new low. WEST down 7, WEST down 7. O, did I repeat meself? EFOI down 6. JASO, PEIX down 4. BWEN down 3.

Quite the market.

STUFF

US growth forecasts scaled back by our fabulous - gotta love 'm - economists to 1.7% for this year, 2.3% for next year. OPEC cut their demand forecast too.

DOA cut corn crop forecast 3% because of the excessive heat this summer. Predicting lowest yield in 6 years, but still 3rd largest in history. Corn use for eth also projected down 100M bushels. Corn prices projected up ~30 cents. I buy the $1/lb frozen corn packages myself. And have been indulging in popped corn lately.

EU to negotiate a treaty with Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan to start plans to build NG pipeline. EU members get 80% of their oil, 60% of their NG from imports. And Total announced a major gas discovery in Caspian offshore Azerbaijan. Funny how it works, huh.

Explosion at French nuke waste site killed 1. Furnace blew up. No radiation reported yet.

At height of Fukushima crisis, Japan's PM had to consider evacuating Tokyo (30M folks). That's when they ordered the workers in to contain the leak. Greenpeace: the switch from nuke power will cost Japan $280B.

Entergy facing off VT in court today over the Yankee nuke closure battle. Yankee produces enough el to power almost the whole state. Bite off the nose to spite the face? What's the adage? Though Entergy has been lax there, to say the least. In me umble opine.

Huge loans from China Development Bank have been helping their solar comps to push American solars out of biz. Are we going to give up the fight now?

Iran wants to increase crude output 1mb/d by '13. Pumped 3.6m in Aug.

Big news today. Kurdish semi-autonomous region of Iraq halted all crude exports. 100-150kb/d. Iraq exported 2.19mb/d in Aug. Kurds wrangling with Baghdad. O yea, and last week's deal with "I want my life back" Hayward's comp. Iraq planning Jan auction of licenses and banned Hess for their sharing agreement with Kurds. And who liberated Iraq from Hussein? Iraq says it also needs $30B to build 5 refineries.

Oil tanker headed to Libya as Kadaffy forces killed 15 guards at an oil refinery.

Tropical storm Nate threat to GOM oil/gas rigs over.

China exports up 24% over last year in Aug, up from July's 20% rise. Imports up 30% yoy. Crude imports up 1.8% from July. Industrial production rose 13% yoy. Fixed asset investments up 25% 1st 8 months of '11 over '10. Overall, on track for 9% GDP growth this year.

An energy corsortium reported a large oil discovery off French Guina. Guinea?

Lebanon warned UN that Israel is encroaching on offshore oil/NG finds/reserves. What's that, 15 yard penalty and automatic first down?

Latest assessment of BP's GOM oil spill says well spewed ~57kb/d for total 5m bls. And ~100mcf/d of NG.

Russia can double its oil reserves with Arctic potential: Lukoil.

Sauds and Kuwait boosted oil production in Aug.

UK joined up with US laser nuke fusion project. NIF closer to producing E. Yep, as we were told in early '70's. It's right around the bend.

Keystone Biofuels (PA biodiesel producer) doubling the workforce (14 jobs), quadrupling its space, increasing production 10x. Uses soybean oil, used cooking oil, animal fats and other.

Australian oil comps dropping E10 from Queensland filling stations due to low demand and lack of supply.

And that, pards, is all I got on the trails.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 70/0/5. Volume light. Oil up 50 cents, just under $88. Greece, Greece, Greece. Oy.

MXWL got contract from Chinese bus maker. Up 6. HYGS got $5M contract from customers in Asia, S. Am. Up 1. ENOC got 150MW contract from Canadian el system operator. Up 2. EMKR got contract from Mitsubishi for solar cells for 4 satellites. Up 1. COMV got contract from Duqesne Light. Down 3. QTWW got contract from Daimler. Down 2. CREE downgraded. Down 2.

LMCO up 12. ASTI up 6. NENE up 5. DLYT up 3 more.

WNEA down 31. CGYV down 22. SPOW down 18. WTWO down 16. CSIQ down 5 more, under $5. New low.  BWEN, WEST, PEIX down 3. JASO, ASYS down 2. JASO new low.

10 YEARS AFTER

My generation grew up with the cold war scaring hell out of us. It lasted over 40 years. We had 10 years of peace. We are now 10 years into this war. We can't end it ourselves. They have to give up or die. We have to keep fighting it until it is over. It's unfortunate. It's sad. But it's reality. We can't afford to get war weary.

Whether or not it was right to go into Iraq, we all have our opinions. We should know the whole truth about that eventually, hopefully, with historical analysis. But we lived Vietnam, and Korea before that. When we had the draft. This war makes 1,000% more sense. Even though it was only 19 hijackers and what, maybe $500k spent to make 9/11 happen. Incredibly unfathomable.

But now it's time to start paying for it. It's time for everyone to share some of the sacrifice being made by our heroes fighting the war, and gone, and the sacrifice of the first responders who died or are now fighting off cancers from the dust of that day and the weeks after. Even if that means paying a little more tax or giving up some unneeded or unwarranted government largess to get our house back in order. That's the least we can do.

Finally, it behooves us to increase our efforts to produce alternative fuels, EV's and other resources like strategic/rare earth minerals/metals ourselves. Consider if the world actually does face peak oil production in the near future. I see facts on it everyday which you've been reading here. It won't be happy camping.

And the Goodyear blimp just flew by out my window. Kid you not. (Airshow in town).

Happy trails, pards.

STUFF

Constellation Energy offering solar leasing program to residential customers in MD, NJ, NY, MA, OH and PA. 20-year terms. No upfront costs.

DOE announced $43M over 5 years to speed offshore wind tech/deployment. 41 projects in 20 states. Really. Is that it? $43M over 5 years?! Is that all it's going to take?

Senator Wyden (D-OR): hike tariffs on Chinese solar. We did it to Brazil's ethanol. Why not China? Their $1T of our debt only 1 of 15.

~130M jobs in US in '00. ~130M jobs now. Huh.

The 5% of Americans with the highest income now account for 37% of consumer purchases: Moody's Analytics. Top earner's share of US total income peaked in '28. And now in '07. What does that tell us?

Level 3 Com (LVLT last I knew) to go with clean E to power 3 European data centers.

Green Mountain Power began constructing 63MW wind farm in VT. 21 3MW turbines. Online by end of '12. Qualifies for $47M in federal production tax credit. No news of how much the cost or who's providing the turbines.

E.ON subsid developing 2 wind farm projects in IL for 300MW. Will plant 188 GE 1.6MW turbines. Sites near existing high-volt power lines.

Puget Sound Energy erected last of 149 wind turbines for 343MW project in SE WA. Crews finishing 2 large substations and 8 miles of transmission lines to Bonneville substation. Should go online next spring. One of largest wind farms in NW. Construction started May '10. 25 permanent employees.

Arctic ice cover hit historic low in the past week since start of satellite observing in '72.

The come and the go, pards.

FRIDAY'S CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market down hard 303/61/31, back under 11k Dow. Very heavy volume. Oil a little over $87.

CBWP up 170. They do that. 1,200 shares. WPNV up 66. Them too (1k shares). MMMW up 57. And they love to do it when the market is tanking. All 3 small wind comps. NGBF up 40. AMPD up 25. SPOW, NACF up 22. PBOF up 15. AVNA, CSOL up 14. ENZR, DLYT up 12. APNT, EFIR up 10. AMLM up 8. CSUN up 4, the only solar to go up.

SCEY down 32. WBRE down 16. BSRC, CREG down 12. GNPG down 10. HSOL down 9, new low. GEVO down 8, new low. CSIQ down 7, hit new low and came back some. JASO down 6, new low. BWEN down 5, new low. Bought it. ADGE down 5, new low. LSCG back 4, backed off 50-day lines. PALAF, SYZM, VECO, CDXS, GPRE, ELON all down 4, all new lows. WPRT down 1 after hitting new high.

STUFF

US had 2nd hottest summer on record. 2.4F above avg. 1st was during Dust Bowl.

FBI raided Solyndra - the solar firm that filed for bankruptcy with a $500M DOE loan guarantee outstanding. Republicans widening the probe in Congress and may subpoena the White House. Hell no they won't let that go all the way to next November.

DOE announced $8.5M to 16 projects to promote - promote - EV adoption in major cities.

Switching from coal to NG for elgen will reduce global warming much less than hoped: National Center for Atmos Research. Particulate emissions from coal and NG methane leaks major factors. The only answer: clean E. And I say what about common sense nuclear. Thorium, no building on fault lines or in tsunami zones, and standardization. Besides wind, solar, hydro (including wave and tidal), geothermal, EV's, magnetics, superconductivity and the rest.

A $90.6M DOE loan guarantee - what, 1 a day? - to Cogentrix for a 30MW hi-concentration PV solar project in south CO near Alamosa. Will be world's largest CPV plant in world at mid-'12 completion. Cogentrix a subsid of Goldman. 80% US components. 100 construction jobs, 10 permanent jobs. 1st loan guarantee for CPV. But a 150MW CA project in the works.

Happy 9/11 weekend, pards.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 146/17/12. Volume a little light, though Friday normal. Oil down under $87. Pundits say market's down because of Greece and doubts about Obama's new plan.

CCGI up 17. ASYS up 2. Canceled their $60M shelf. NENE up 1.

BSRC down 14. WNEA down 13. AMEL down 10. PEIX down 6 more. JASO down 1 more. Under $3. New low. FSLR also new low. LSCG, UBRG down 1.

EXTRA

Love that drunk moose hung up in the apple tree.

The quake shook the nuke plant near Mineral VA 2x design.

US crude supplies down 4M bls this week.

Americans - are you an American or an American't? -  borrowed more money in July - consumer borrowing up 10th straight month - than any month in over 3 yrs. But cut back in credit card debt. So. It must be mortage refinancing?

Bernanke: Fed seeks to restore strong growth. But offered no new stimulus. Wuddado. More wuddado. Bluh.

CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 119/19/12. Volume normal. Oil down under $89. Maybe with recent GOM finds.

CLNO up 25. VNDB up 23. IFXY, BHWX up 20. What is the subtitle? The froth. The stealth. GRHU up 16. NGLPF up 14. PSUD up 13. UBRG up 7. Rubber hitting the road. AMEL up 6. LSCG up 5. WPRT up another 4.

LMCO down 17. ENZR down 16. CSOL down 13. CPWY down 12. BLQN, EVSI down 11. PEIX down 8. SPWRA down 7. Might think about buying them. CSIQ down 6. Like JASO. JASO, POWR down 5. FSLR, ASYS, BWEN down 4.

3:42P

Will JASO go below $3? I would buy them here. But they may go below $3. You could also follow momentum with UBRG or LSCG.

STUFF

4 decades before Drake (a former railroad conductor) drilled the 1st oil well in Titusville PA (hit at 69 feet), 80 miles north Bill Hart had dug the 1st well for NG. Using only shovels, he hit NG at 27 feet. The pipeline used to ship it was made from hollowed-out logs slapped together with tar and cloth. Today we have 7.2M miles of pipelines and sit on ~2,100TCF of NG. Cool little story, A?

Google data centers use ~260MW/h.

Dominion found only cosmetic damage at nuke plant near Mineral, VA (post quake). Hopes to convince NRC that the 2 reactors are safe to restart.

DOE making 2 more loan guarantees. $150M to 1366 Tech. They have a new way to make silicon wafers for solar by working from molten silicon. Well on way to commercial application. Cuts costs in half. The other guarantee of $344M goes to Solar City to install rooftop solar on military bases. They install and own and sell the el. Plans for 160k roofs (equaling the total installed in US to date) for ~371MW. Overall plan to cost >$1B. BofA working with Solar City, I think Buffett likes clean E. Their 2nd major solar rooftop project. Project Amp a $2.6B plan to put ~733MW on 3k acres of rooftop owned by real estate giant Prologis. 1st stage of Solar City project underway at Hickam in Hawaii.

BP announced their estimated reserves in deepwater GOM Mad Dog field just doubled to 4B bls. Rivals Thunder Horse field now. A day after Chevron's announcement. And POTUS speaks tonight to joint session about what?

Tropical depression to be storm Nate may be shutting down GOM oil/gas production in the next week.

Brent oil ~ $115.

Beijing announced their GDP grew by 10.4% last year. Manufacturing/construction growth was 12.2%. Car sales to be up 5% this year v. 33% in '10.

Washakie Renewable Energy started ops at their new 10M gal/y biodiesel facility in Utah. Feedstocks of yellow grease, brown grease and tallow. Plans to expand feedstock to include camelina and safflower.

Brasil Ecodiesel acquired Vanguarda do Brasil for $1B. Ecodiesel operates 6 refineries. Vanguarda has >500k acres in soy, corn and cotton.

And those are the trails, pards. Happy goings on 'm.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 17/10/0. Volume light. Oil up a few dimes more over $89. Unemployment claims were up unexpectedly. Greek default over 90% probability.

DLYT back up 22. IFXY up 20. EVCA up 12. UBRG up 8. LSCG up 2, up against 50-day lines.

CSOL down 20. CPWY down 8. CSIQ down 4. NENE, WEST, JASO down 3.

CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 275/75/33. Volume slightly above normal. Oil up to $89 and a half. O well. Watch pump prices go up huh. And the good news was ... Germany may help out the PIIGS. Well, fry up the bacon.

SCEY up 55. Volume doesn't matter, does it? Or fundamentals? O hell no. AVNA up 40. AEBF up 37. Guess they got turned around. INTK up another 32. Pretty strong volume, I must say. Almost dub in 2 days. A must look see. FCEL up 28. Over 50-day lines. Pretty strong volume there too. NTCXF up 26 on that news. PSPW up 24. They're baacckk. LMCO up 20 on their news. 911 shares. Kid not. WPRT up 19 on some news somewhere about vehicles powered by NG. A punch up to their tops. They don't show up often. But when they do .... BHWX up 17. GNPG, MDTL up 15. CLNE up 14 on that NGV news. AONE up 14 because someone on Wall street likes them a lot. Or they are EV battery leaders. Fair enough. DSTI up 13. Just because they are solar mystery makers. FSYS up 11. The NG boost. CSKH, AMEL up 10. LSCG up 1. Making the turn.

NGBF down 32. MKTY down 28. DLYT down 19. That's a surprise. AMLM down 18. Can't figure these guys out. They are potential lithium miners too like AMEL and BHWX and LEXG. As far as I know. WWPW down 12. UBRG down 5. NG supplier. Go figure on big NG day.

Well, at least it was headed the right direction. Happy trailers, pards.

STUFF

Solar World to shut down CA plant  and several aging German lines. Solon (GM) also closing US manufacturing ops. Solar World, tho, still has OR plant. Opened in '07 with $400M and 500MW/y of capacity.

EU Commission wants to block their members from making bilateral deals that cede too much power to oil/gas exporters. Russia, of course, completing their gas pipeline to Europe across the Baltic to bypass Ukraine.

Sunoco pulling out of refinery biz.

Under a new plan, DOE to delegate to FERC authority under '05 Energy Policy Act (yes, Virginia, we do have an energy policy) to designate corridors where powerline congestion most severe.

DOE, DOI to invest $17M next 3 yrs into 16 projects to develop better hydropower tech.

"I want my life back" Hayward's Vallares to merge with Turkey's Genel Energy in $2.1B deal to gain oil fields in Iraq's Kurd region. Remember the kurds and weigh? Or is it way? Remember the USA getting rid of Hussein and giving blood and treasure for the present Iraq? And who gets the oil deals. Huh. Well, London was in on the war too. That's true. Genel produces 41kb/d now, projections are 90k by '13. Proven reserves of 356M bls should rise quickly. Cost of finding, developing N. Iraq oil $2-4/bl. Once more. $2-4/bl.

Greece proposing an aggressive expansion of solar power gen from present 206MW to 2.2GW by '20. Hope to attract $28B in investment. Want to export the power. 300 sunny days/yr - 50% more than in Germany, whose solar power gen is 80x Greece's. Sounds reasonable.

Grain waste at world's biggest malt whiskey distiller in Scotland - Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, etc. - to be converted into energy with $9.7M project, latest of several renewable E projects including a $105M plant. Dad liked Scotch, God bless 'm.

Chevron announced a new discovery at the deepwater GOM prospect that was left idled after BP's spill. Ops resumed this March (despite Republican candidates' assertions that Obama has shut down the US oil industry). About 1,700 feet deeper than BP's spill well.

And so we go, pards. Onward, upward and wiser. Happier trails.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 157/43/19. Volume light. Oil back up over $88.

Almost everything up several percent. CSKH up 33 on news. FCEL up 23 on revenues report, other news. NTCXF up 21 on news. EFOI up 9 on contract news.

NENE down 1.

CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 100/6/8. Odd. Volume got very heavy. WTI oil ended flat.

NGBF up 38. INTK up 33. SPOW up 17. AXPW up 13. Recent new analysis. WWPW, BSRC up 11. BSRC on news. CPWY up 9 on news. ECTY up 5.

GNPG down 22. CCTC down 15 possibly on the striking down of ozone rules. DSTI down 12. CLNO down 11. PEIX down 8. JASO down 7, new low. What about all this bullcrap that Chinese solar has won the solar wars. NENE down 4. UBRG down 3 after news of their revenues.

The come and the go, pards. Happy motoring.

STUFF

Pump prices not coming down with redux in WTI crude (NYMEX) prices may be because 2/3 of world goes by Brent price, still ~$25 more than WTI. Yea, all of sudden there's a new reason for prices to go up.

Bio Process Algae has teamed up with GPRE for world's 1st algae-ethanol plant. CO2 emissions from eth production pumped into algae bioreactors. Dried algae now used to feed livestock but in larger scale converting into biofuels will be profitable.

DOE last week announced up to $12M in grants for 3 biofuel R/D projects. 1 to develop biomass-derived eth into jet fuel using catalysts. Research Triangle Institute to get another $4M to develop a process to upgrade biomass-derived crude into biofuels. And another to convert biomass into biofuels and high-value chems.

Iran now offering inspectors "supervision" of nuke program. 1st counter proposal in 2 yrs. They want sanctions lifted. Huh. Their nuke plant now online. And IAEA says they've begun operating a new gen of centrifuges for much faster weapons grade U enrichment.

USDA: US farm income to exceed $100B this year.

Beijing seeking to reduce domestic car sales. Huh. Maybe all that ozone pollution. Or too much freedom?

19 US refineries were in the path of Lee. And TX got no rain. But fire with the high winds.

Exxon-Rosneft deal gives Russians access to deepwater, fracking techs besides partial ownership in GOM oil and TX shale.

US now consumes ~25TCF of NG a year. Marcellus estimates now ~84TCF. Do that math. Beware politicians promising cheap gas at the pumps.

Mauritania's offshore oil field expected to double its production by year-end to 8kb/d. The world uses ~89mb/d.

China ordered Conoco-Phillips to suspend production offshore for "negligence" in handling underwater leaks.

ND, SD, MN, IA experiencing fuel supply shortages.

More news on why China cut back oil/gas investment in Iran. The US threatened sanctions on China's big energy firms. And now we see Iran "capitulating" on nuke inspections. Huh.

Iraq implemented a rule last week that prohibits armored convoys to the airport for big oil execs. They have to take a taxi now.

Surveys in Panama say they are sitting on $15B worth of oil/NG. They are dependent on imported oil.

FTC: supply and demand driving oil market. Not speculation.

NRG Solar announced their 20MW solar facility near NM/TX border now operating at full cap.

ENI set Oct 15 target for resumption of NG flow from Libya to Italy via the pipeline.

EU-wide ban on making/importing 60W incandescents came into force Sept 1. Buy LEDs.

Global production of biofuels up 17% in '10 to 28B gals.

Shell to control most S. Iraq NG and Iran to privatize 7 of 9 refineries by March.

Blue Angels performed recently using 50-50 blend of fossil and biofuel.

U of York researchers, working with other US/Euro researchers, found key enzyme to break down plant cell walls.

$180M sugarcane eth project planned in Kenya.

TN politicians touting switchgrass for eth. DuPont venture readying to begin production next yr.

Happy trails, pards.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 296/63/32. Volume slightly heavy. WTI under $85. We're probably headed back to test early August lows - only 300 more points down. If we go through there, look for 10k Dow.

No clean E stocks down too hard. So far. Very few in the green. Several more new lows.

BWEN up 3. POWR up 1. Mentioned both Saturday.

EFOI down 7. PEIX, CSUN, NENE down 6. JASO, GTAT down 5. WEST, UBRG down 4. ASYS down 3.

LABOR DAY

S&P's price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) is back to 15, based on '11 earnings estimates. It hit ~7 in '80 and peaked at ~28 in '00. 15 is an old standard for fair price.

QE3 coming Sept 21: Roubini.

US govt social benefits now exceed personal income/social insurance taxes. The line crossed over in '09. Gap now ~$100B/y.

Deutsche Bank: dramatic oil production declines in 2Q11 @ 20 major oil companies were "startling", even accounting for Libya's 1.3M bls/day. Do you think the oil companies could be colluding to keep prices high and higher? Or is it the truth that we are running out of cheap oil and oil itself? 15 of top 20 showed 11-26% decline in 2Q production. CEO of Total (Europe's 3rd largest energy comp): "the world will never be able to produce more than 89mb/d... partly from political restrictions in Iraq and Iran". (Iran now in control of Iraq, by the way - that's democracy biting us in the arse). IEA agrees and predicts global demand to hit 92mb/d by end of '12. So how will that work?

DHL opened distribution center for Chinese solar panels in Netherlands.

40% of Europeans suffer mental illness. I wonder how many Americans do these days. At least the Europeans are admitting it. Maybe they're aging too.

China offered Kadaffy weapons in last few months. What the hell is that about China?! Is it true?!

Pike Research forecasts 7.7M EV charging stations globally in next 5 years or so. CCGI, ECTY among charger makers. Q2 ECTY installed 1,892 chargers and still fulfilling it's 11k charger order from DOE. ABB has a stake in them. A stock to keep an eye on.

Catch this. "Providing clean/renewable energy to the 1.4B people on Earth without electricity is the #1 priority of the UN:" SecGen of UN. Really?! Ending war on Earth is not still the first priority of the UN?! My guess is even the SecGen of the UN panders. He was visiting NREL at the time. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he meant #1 energy priority of UN.

And, finally, pards, the ozone rule that Obama axed could have cost biz - utilities and other companies operating boilers and such - $90B. Well, yea, but most of that would have gone to other businesses - pollution equipment makers and others - and the inherent jobs, I have to presume.

Well, happy laboring.

FRIDAY CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 253/65/30. Volume heavy. WTI $86 and a half and the station across the street went up 20 cents a gallon. For the holiday? What a dam screw. If the President cared he could at least jawbone it some.

DLYT up 95. Gotta love the froth. Or stealth. Actually pulled in >$1M revs last Q. And had news: received a patent and has energy storage capabilities. Near the top of their recent price range. Nano/polymer tech. Somebody to keep an eye on. AQNM up 73. No revs. Looks scammy. PSRU up 66. A possibility. CPWY up 37. No news. Biodiesel coming. AMLM up 21. EVSI up 20. CCTC, EVCA, PTOS up 16. No news. Nor revenue. Go figure. WBRE up 14. I think the same as PTOS. PEIX up 9. Watch it. Or buy it. Hay, we can't stop corn ethanol now. Good story, tho, they are moving to cellulosic. GPRE another story to watch. And BIOF. QTWW up 8. Worthy of an eye. LSCG up 3. NENE up 1. Came back 10%.

CYBL down 50. Last I saw they have business in LEDs. CRGE down 29. BSRC down 22 after their reverse split. BWEN down 18. I think that was a buy at the end of the day. No news. NGBF down 15. SOPW down 13. VRNM down 11. AEBF, CLNO, ENER down 10. Can ENER rise from their ashes? POWR down 9. Hit a new low. A sleeper. Their revs coming back. And they come up with profits. CDXS down 9. New low. HSOL down 8. New low. Seems pretty dang cheap to me. But they are Chinese. JASO down 4. They may be even cheaper. SZYM down 8. New low. UBRG down 7. Going through the bottom I think. If you can catch them anywhere around 4 cents, punch the buy button.

And that was the come and the go, pards. Happy Labor Day Saturday.

STUFF

Obama halted EPA regs for smog. I think I said that a month (?) ago. Let's slow the train down. The economy has enough problems right now. FTEK may be affected. Other pollution equipment makers. But a lot of coal plant closings have already been announced. A lot might be reversed. We shall see. EPA also considering mandating upgrades of cooling water intake systems to spare fish and organisms. O that darn EPA.

Our government is finally going to sue the big banks over the mortgage fiasco that created the financial brinkmanship of  '08. Went right up to the filing deadline. So this will last 7 years? and cost how much? Ut oh, and Warren the Buffet just bought into Bank of America. Will he cancel the fundraiser for Obama?

FLSR got a $456M loan guarantee from the US Export-Import Bank for 2 projects in Canada. 90MW total.

World Wind Energy Assoc: In 1H11 all nations added 18.4GW of wind power. 43.9GW expected to be added by yearend. World total installed wind mid-year 215GW. 37GW was added in '10. China installed 8GW thru June '11. US 2.25. India 1.48. China has 52.8 installed (grid connects still a question). US has 42.4. Germany 28. Spain 21. India 14.5.

Britain has had coolest summer since '93. 126% more rain, tho, than normal.

Russia's oil output hit post-soviet high of 10.28mb/d in Aug. Up from 10.26 in July. Sauds increased to 9.9, up 50k.

Russia wants to partake in the Turkmenistan-Afgahanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipe project. Who was Stan?

Russia likely to increase crude exports via Baltic in '12 by 40% to ~100M tons. 100M tons of oil is.... I got ~300k bls.

EU did agree to ban Syrian oil imports.

World supports the new Libyan leaders. Yea.

An international tribunal ordered Ecuador to pay Chevron $96M. Case goes back to early '90's. Maybe that fed suit against the big banks will go longer than 7 years.

China put brakes on oil/gas investments in Iran. What do you know. Way to go China. Has to be a reason other than going along with the US, tho. And China's not out of money. What, $3T now sovereign wealth fund? And they don't have enough oil or NG. Maybe the deals aren't good enough.

Green E use in Germany passed 20% of total energy mix.

DOE unveiled "Sunshot" PV program winners. We will bring solar energy down to $1/W installed before this decade is out. A little more practical than going to the moon? $145M spread out across 24 states. Wo. Not another $145M?!

Who says holiday Fridays carry no news.

Happy laboring honoring, pards.

1:46P

I think I'm buying HSOL. And FSLR. Both down 7%.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 229/49/26. Volume normal. Jobs report - no net gain. So, once again, ADP comes out with 91k new jobs a couple days ago and on Friday we get something else, almost always bad. Why.

WTI oil down over $2 to north of $86. In all these weeks since oil has fallen off, the pump prices across the street haven't budged. Now the long weekend, so who's going to buy anything?

Well, surprise. WTWO up 28. CCTC up 16. PEIX, EVCA up 11. PEIX actually on news. Faster paydown of their debt. UBRG up 2. KNDI up another 1.

NGBF down 16. SOPW down 13. BWEN down 10 more, another new low. NENE down 7. HSOL down 4, hit a new low. ASYS, LSCG down 1.

STUFF

More on Solyndra bankruptcy. Chinese solar panels are 10-20% less expensive than US-made. But, some estimates that Solyndra panels were 100% more expensive. One bad bet was that silicon would stay expensive. It didn't. And won't be expensive. Solyndra didn't use the most expensive silicon. Then WEST beat them on their presumed flat-rooftop price advantage. The DOE loan agreement was initiated during Bush admin. So talk radio nazis can only get so far on that. China has been providing tens of billions in loans and subsidies to clean E/solar too. So. Solyndra made too many bad assumptions, it looks. But then, they sure dragged financiers into it bigtime. All that glitter may not be gold I guess.

Vycon Energy working on flywheel/regen braking tech to capture kinetic E from subways/light rail. NYC subway train requires ~3-4MW for 30 seconds to get back up to speed. Vycon says they could recover up to 90% of that in braking energy converted to a station flywheel thru 3rd rail and back to a departing train. They already sell flywheels for seaport cranes, using gravity. Running price ~$1/W for equipment. Obviously competitive with coal/NG/wind elgen. And the train commutes are at peak power demand.

Australia's grid-connected market grew from 73MW to 379 in '10. Driven by Solar Homes/Communities program, solar credits, feed-in tariffs, PV price drops and favorable currency exchange rates.  1st utility-scale PV project underway to offset energy need at seawater desalinization plant. 10MW. Using FSLR product. Online mid-'12. GE unit will own half. A 150MW PV plant also to be built. BP Solar in on that. And a 250MW solar-thermal/NG plant to be built by Areva.

UK announced $7.5B of smart grid contracts. Smart meters mandated to be in by '20 (~47M devices). UK govt has established a central data/com corp to oversee the security instead of leaving it to utilities.

EU close to boycotting Syria's 130kb/d oil exports (~1/3 of their income).

World's motor vehicle count now over 1B.

Brazil lowered their ethanol blend to 20% from 25%. But it won't lower pump prices, they say. Eth prices up 27% since June. (On harvest estimates?)

No US troop deaths In Iraq in Aug. A 1st since it began. Shh.

Aug US auto sales better than expected.

New Orleans area expected to be inundated with heavy rain for the next 5 days.

And that's the trails, pards. Vaya con dios.

CLOSE

(stock #'s in %)

Market down 119/33/14. Volume heavy. WTI oil down a few cents. Brent oil ~$114. A figure harder and harder to find.

GNPG up 43. What the hell. I didn't see any news. Could be an actual stock being too oversold that jumps back over the first 200-day line. Nice jump. CRGE up 18. Coming back to 50-day lines. MKTY, WNEA up 16. 2 no volumers. CLNO up 11. Sort of ditto. UBRG up 7 after all. Bottoming, I believe. Buy any dips. KNDI up 4 on a kind of a breakout. Careful, tho. Chinese.

BHWX down 31. Typical move. MMMW down 18 on 500 shares. Give us a break. PTOS down 17. Back to the top of their lines. One to watch. CCTC, CSKH down 15. CSKH another new low. CCTC on their bottom. NENE down 14. Big surprise. Back near 50-day lines. WTWO down 12. PPRW, QTMM down 11, nominal volume. BFRE down 10. BWEN, new low, LSCG, ASYS down 3.

OPEN

(stock #'s in %)

Market up 17/2/0. Volume normal. Oil steady at $89. A manufacturing index fell much less in Aug than expected. The sector is still expansionary. Barely. But overall economy is more expansionary.

GSPI up 11. ASYS, WEST up 1.

MDTL down 18. NENE down 9. Backed way off that 200-day line. Keep an eye on. UBRG down 6. LSCG down 2. BWEN back on bottom. Most clean E stocks down a percent or 2. Not much movement.