STUFF

DOE announced new competition to make solar competitive with fossil fuels. Details to come I'm pretty sure.

Honeywell launched smart grid unit.

Poland continues to oppose future EU C cuts.

Japan: mayor OK's nuke restart and Tokyo plans to urge halt to inefficient light bulb sales.

Afghan warlord threatening Chinese oil explorers.

IEA calling for extra $36T to be invested in clean E by '50.

OPEC chief sees $110 oil (Brent?) as "fair". Now $97.

China hoarding oil at fastest rate since '08. Surplus of 90M bls this year thru May. Constructing 200M bls of storage in 2nd (of 3) stage of strategic reserves plan for 100 days storage. Want 600M bls storage by '20. 6mb/d imports in May, up 10% from April. The lower price. GDP forecast 8.2% growth this year. Down from 9.2% in '11.

Ford to cut E used to make cars 25%.

Shell's Beaufort Sea find est. @ 27B bls. Venezuela plans to double oil output. Canada oil sands. Falklands have ~450M bls. Exxon N Slope dev hundreds of millions of bls. Bakken holds up to 200B bls. Petrobras 100B bls. 1.5T bls of recoverable oil uncovered in last few years. Huh. Could it be because the price came up?

BP: world oil reserves up 8.3% in '11. Exploration rose, record prices made marginal projects viable. Yet supplies will struggle to meet demand from political factors. Reserves 1.65T bls @ end of '11. Up from 1.53T end of '10. World has sufficient reserves to meet CURRENT demand for 54 years. Venezuela now has largest reserves in world: 296B bls.

Enbridge, RES Canada completed 99MW wind farm in Ontario.

Maine town voters voted no to wind farms inside town limits.

SOPW acquired rights to co-dev 68 solar projects in Hawaii. 29MW total. 10MW more optional. Construction on 1st project starts 3Q12. Hawaii RPS 40% clean E by '30. Most aggressive of all states.

93% of biz leaders ID'd sustainability important to comp's future success. They're just looking for ways to make it happen.

Austin to spend up to $15M to install LED lighting on ~1/2 of city's streetlights. Several central TX towns taking similar steps.

New study: ocean acidification could threaten ability of sea creatures off US west coast to protect their shells over next few decades.

EPA soot ruling would reduce soot in atmos ~17%. 12-13 micrograms/cu ft of air. Final rule mid-Dec.

3 groups of investors managing >$20T in assets in NAm, Europe, Australia calling on oil/NG industry to reduce methane emissions.

USGS: wastewater from extracting NG from coal seams may contain a salt at concentrations toxic to aquatic life.

Finalnd, France and Sweden have started on world's 1st permanent nuke waste storage site far underground in Finland.

Interagency disputes holding up China offshore windpower dev.

Fights over intl tech transfer and clean E dev funds coming up at Rio+20 next week.

EC to set tougher CO2 stds for van trucks.

Singapore announced national climate change strategy.

NRC: earthquakes can be caused by injection of drilling waste, C capture/storage and geothermal projects. Fracking hazard is lower.

Admin to review Keystone XL pipeline's route around Sandhills.

Colo judge scrapped license for planned U mill.

BP sued by 50K over chem release into air @ TX refinery.

Coal 30% of global E market - highest level in >40 yrs. China, India use up 9%, Europe up 4%. 3% increase in world C emissions from elgen in '11, lower than '10's.

US ethanol prod up 2%. 39M gal/d. Stocks at 20.7M bls. Daily demand 10% at pumps.

Enterprise, National and Alamo car rentals expanding B20 use in Missouri.

UK energy security envoy called for closer co-op with US on military biofuels while Action Aid urged EU leaders to back down on biofuels targets citing food prices.

Center for jatropha promotion touting castor bean.

Argentina to challenge Spain June 22 at WTO over biodiesel law.

Russia's muke industry a disaster in waiting: no source. Um, Chernobyl.

Total working in Myanmar.

Offshore windpower could make UK a net E exporter by '50. Somebody is saying.

IARC places diesel fumes in same cancer risk as asbestos and arsenic.

Seadrill to add 6 new ships in 2 years to current 4.

1M seconds is 11.6 days. 1B seconds is 31.7 years. Our hearts beat once a second. So. We get 2B to maybe 3B beats in a long-lived life. But what matters is what we do with each one.

Happy fathers day weekend pards.