STUFF (LET'S GET BIZZY)

GE Solar laying off employees in CO. Couldn't find any more on it.

$5B NG pipe Azerbaijan to Turkey. Couldn't find any more on that either.

East region power losses reduced demand 5-6GW just for PJM (all or part of 13 states, D.C.) Did you just read that and think the same thing I did? 13 original states and DC. Huh. Of ~133GW peak expected, got 120. Huh. 13GW less. You seeing anything here? God celebrating the USA on the 4th? Still ~14M homes, bizzes in 7 states, DC w/out el. Course, today, could be 13M. That was a dam storm.

Largest aquifer decline in 25 years across large swath of TX panhandle. Um, we could pump filtered ocean water to arid areas and gardens ....

Cysg Energy investing $100M to build 10MW geothermal plant in NM. Online Jan '14. Is geothermal the ugly stepchild of clean E? Or is it just not economically - ever?

GE to supply 2.75MW wind turbines for 27.5MW wind farm in Sweden. I'm sorry. Sveden. Online 2Q13.

Global solar industry grew to $91.6B last year. Up from $71.2B in '10. $130B expected in '21. Installs up from 15.6GW in '10 to >26GW last year. This year solar elgen 11 cents/KWh on avg. Global avg installs $2.70/w. By '15, expect 8-14 cents, $2.02/w. '20: 6-10 cents, $1.37. In '07 it was 28-47 cents, $7.20. We've come a long way up, kids.

Virgin Islands going solar. Imagine that. VI Public Services Commission approved 6 solar projects. $65M for 18MW of solar. Still expensive. Toshiba, SunEd and a local comp. Will supply ~14% of territory's peak load demand. Cost to buy the power 14-24 cents/KWh over 20 years.

Fed Pipeline, Hazardous Materials Safety Admin - part of DOT - loading $3.7M fine (record civil penalty?) on Enbridge for oil spill in Kalamazoo River in Mich 2 yrs ago. At least 800K gal of diluted bitumen spilled. Diluted with benzene. Pretty foul stuff.

Duke and Progress completed $32B merge. Now largest US utility.

Poll: Americans believe in climate change, but care less.

USAF tested GEVO's isobutanol-based jet fuel in A10. 50/50 blend. Isobutanol alcohol-based. Not oil-based. Breakthrough.

Research group at Clark U and DOE's Joint Genome Institute compared genomes of 31 fungi to determine how white rot fungi breaks down lignin. Could be major breakthrough in cellulosic eth tech.

Australia to use ~$10M of $126M Emerging Renewables Fund to help fund 2 Aus-developed wave tech systems. $5.6M to $15M 250KW plant by BioPower Systems. $4M to Oceanlinx for 1MW demo.

DOE collab with China on molten salt thorium reactor. China has ample thor supply. Occurs in monazite. China developing at least 2 thorium reactors. 1 with molten salt. 1 using particle accel to trigger reaction. Molten salt tech tested over 40 years ago by US. Also liquid fluoride cooled thorium tech. India planning thorium plant. India also has good thorium supply. Over next decades, kids, thorium reactors could get very small, low cost, very safe.

National Shipping to merge with Aramco tanker fleet in $1.3B deal to make National 4th largest oil tanker fleet, sole transporter of Aramco oil.