STUFF

CSIQ bought up 122MW of utility-scale solar projects in US.

DOE awarded US subsid of Soitec Solar (France) $25M to support new manufacturing plant in San Diego. 200MW/y capac. World's largest concentrated PV modules factory. $150M total investment. Construction started, 1st phase completion 4Q12. Soitec CPV 30% efficient.

Sun Ed completed 20MW solar farm in San Antonio. CPS Energy - largest US muni-owned utility - to buy the power.

$20M, 3MW solar project underway by Las Vegas Sanitary Sewer Enterprise Fund. Online yearend. Will gen ~20% of power for Water Pollution Control Facility. City also replacing street lights with LEDs, 42 of 52K lights by yearend. Also retrofitting bldgs for E effic. Past 4 yrs, they've cut city's E demand 20%. Aiming for net zero in 10 yrs. Other area towns, county doing same.

SDE (Israel) planning sea wave energy plants along Ecuador coast and Galapagos. Ecuador willing to finance 60%. SDE tech brings in power @ 2-6 cents/kwh.

Malaysians protesting Australian-owned rare earths refinery. Plant set to clear final govt hurdle.

Study: alt fuels won't solve military E probs because they're likely to remain more expensive than fossil fuels.

DOE announced new $40M funding availability for military, av biofuels. Lignocellulosic and algal feedstocks desired. New techs. Pilot and demo-scale projects for mil specs JP-5 (Navy), JP-8 (AF) or F-76 (diesel).

Air Canada flew their 1st biofuels-powered flight using recycled cooking oil. 40% lower emissions.

NRC: flawed computer model, generator designs led to San Onofre reactor leak.

GE unveiled new C capture tech.

USDA providing funding for voluntary pollution redux for Mississippi River.

Japan govt sat on data about Fukushima radiation spread.

Global Wind E Council forecasts total global wind power capac to be just under 500GW by end of '16 with annual global mart then ~60GW. Wave of new turbine design, model announcements revealing trend for longer blades, lower wind speed range, plus big offshore coming.

DOD tapped FL's Premier Solar PV School to train - at govt cost - unemployed vets.

1st install of Kingsbury pivoted shoe thrust bearing in 1912 at 108MW hydro facil in PA. Recent inspection showed it could go another 1,300 yrs. Became standard for large rotating equip since intro and designated 23rd Intl Historical Engineering Landmark by ASME.

UK, S Korea teaming on ocean E tech project to focus on wave and tidal E. Follow-on to RenewableUK and Korean Wind E Ass agreement earlier this year.

CLEAN - Clean Local E Accessible Now - programs adopted in 14 states for planned deploy of 1.2GW solar rooftop or comm projects. 17 operational programs.

Brazil topped 26 Latin Am, Carib countries for best clean E opportunities: Multilateral Investment Fund of Inter Am Dev Bank and Bloomberg New E Finance. 30 indicators to measure ability to attract capital.

Butamax added 4 ethanol plants interested in biobutanol prod. Now 7 plants with eth prod capac of ~500M gal/yr. All designed, built by Fagen (6B gal capac built around world). Butamax now collaborating with Fagen for retrofits.

Myriant (Mass) closed on 1st bio-based chems loan under USDA's Biz and Industry Loan Guaranty program. Will finance advanced industrial scale-up. 1Q13 start target. $25M private bond placement to build bio-succinic acid plant in Louisiana. Drop-in replacement for crude-based succinic acid. Non-food feedstock. 30M lbs/y. Planning 140M lb expansion. Global succinic acid mart ~ $7.5B/y.

"End fossil fuel subsidies" emerging as Rio+20 theme. Also "best practices" for biofuels.

Turkey turning to Libya from Iran for oil. Received temp waiver from US sanctions along with India, Malay, S Af, S Kor, Sri Lanka, Taiwan. China, Singapore didn't get waivers. Turk signed 1M ton oil supply deal with Libya. In last decade, Turk imported 93% of the oil and 98% of the NG they used. They're planning 23 nuke plants by '23. But their 1st is being built near major fault line. I can't understand why the industry has to keep doing that. It's really pretty insane.

US shale gas boom will create 2.4M new jobs by '35. 1.5M by '15. 1M were added in '10. $3.2T cumulative investment '10-'35. $332B added to GDP by '35.