STUFF

Most oil comps used to just pull 10-20% of posted oil reserves out of the ground. The rest was too difficult or too expensive. But the new tech has changed all that.

Progress Energy Carolinas announced accelerated coal plant closings.

Brit and Australia research team: wind, eddies, currents together create CO2-sucking funnels that carry carbon down into southern ocean and hold it there. But process may be threatened by climate change. ~1/4 of earth's CO2 stored in oceans, some 40% of that in southern ocean around Antarctica. 5 1K km-wide funnels found in southern ocean. Another carbon-capture process. CO2-producing micro organisms living near surface sink to sea floor and stay there when they die.

Suntech may have been victim of $686M fraud from solar project partner. German govt bonds collateral may never have existed.

Fuel tanks not pulled out before NY reservoir was filled in '55. Oil residue in water. Supplies ~25% of drinking water for 9M folks.

BP reported $1.4B loss for Q2. Writedowns on refineries, shale gas US assets and long-delayed AK project.

Fed judge struck down enviros claim against admin coal leasing Powder River Basin program.

Solar power projected to make up avg. 11% of power sold by 3 top Calif utilities by '20.

Walmart installed 100th rooftop solar array on San Diego store. 150 total solar projects to date. Beating Ikea and Apple. >90MW installed by yearend. Expected to have 1K solar installs out of 4.5K stores by '20 in US.

Last Friday leak of 50K gallons of light crude in Wisc keeping Enbridge on hot seat. They export more crude into US than Sauds or Mexico. Comes on heels of NTSB report blasting Mich spill of '10 - the most expensive US onshore oil disaster. Ever.

Av biofuels a $100B+ biz opportunity.

Researchers at U of Wisc-Madison awarded $7M grant (with partners) to make ethanol from manure byproduct at 4K-cow dairy farm. Manure broken down to bedding, fertilizer pellets and biofuels.

Argentine biodiesel exports to Germany on the rise. Analysts expecting German comps to later supply Spain with the biodiesel to override Spanish policy against Argentina for the grab of YPF.?

Pakistan comp - partnering with regional govt - developing $3B, 100MW (by '16) underground coal gasification project. Produces CO, CO2, H and methane. 1.4B tons of low-grade coal reserves. Overall area reserves 175B tons. Pakistan has 50% less elgen capacity than demand. 5GW shortfall. And they want to spend $3B for 100MW. Really. How's the wind in Pakistan?

NREL: US has near 153K GW of rural utility-scale solar PV potential. TX has 14% of that. Also 38K GW of concentrated solar potential, 4.2K GW of offshore wind potential and 4K GW of geothermal potential. PV panels in urban locations have 1.2K GW potential, rooftop solar 664GW. Total near 200K GW solar potential. And that's just the United States.

Researchers at U of Southampton (England) have developed virtual power plant to efficiently combine power generated in small-scale clean/renewable E projects to create simple, stable power source. Intelligent, multi-agent software controls variable power stabilized for grid.

Senator Inofe (R-OK): 9x cost for biofuels too much, but 29x OK for NG-based synth fuels (SYNM). When does this shit stop? Inofe an investor in BlackRock, largest shareholder in SYNM.

GreenShift (GERS) new corn oil extraction system a 62% improvement. .8lbs of oil/bushel of corn now up to 1.3lbs. But GERS at end of March reported <$1M cash. And they need $.5M /Q.

"A lot of confusion right now" over new GHG regs on coal mines. Some mines release more methane than large conventional emitters.

Report showed emissions decrease as power sector shifted to NG elgen.

Melting of Greenland ice clears way for natural resources boom. Check that out.

Ecologists hope to thwart growth of cheatgrass. Check that too. Need a spray pilot?

Appeals court ruled for EPA over TX power plant pollution.

MD to fund mapping of seafloor under proposed fed lease of their ocean floor.

San Onofre (Calif) nuke plant could restart by yearend.

Reid pushing NV utility to buy into solar project.

EPA assessing 30 alternatives to toxic flame retardant.

Research: "probable link" between C8 and diseases.

Fokushima owner -TEP - to get $12.8B bailout.

India town above coal fires has been burning for decades.

Will the US PTC for clean E expire?