STUFF

There's estimated to be double the amount of oil in TX-NM Permian Basin than in Bakken. Some reports Permian production could reach almost 2Mb/d by '16. OXY, APA, PSE drilling there.

Regulators approved Public Service Co of NM tacking $1.38 to $1.47 per customer onto bills as clean/renewable charge to cover their costs of adding clean/ren E. Before, PNM had to wait until next rate case to try to recover costs. They say the "pay as we go" charge will save customers ~$2.7M.

Mississippi Power building lignite-fired power plant. Online in 20 months. Gasification process. Byproducts - CO2, sulfuric acid and anhydrous ammonia (NH3) - will all be captured and sold. Roughly 4B tons of lignite reserves in Miss easily mineable. Plant will use 4M tons/y. Lignite a brown-black coal that can still show parts of the wood it comes from. More carbon than peat.

TVA will need to invest at least $11.8B to update their 4 coal-fired plants still operating. Their plants are older, dirtier polluters than other utilities'. Sierra Club says shut them down and invest in energy efficiency.

CPS Energy added 10MW more solar PV to portfolio, completing 30MW project with Sun Ed. Single-axis tracking. CPS now has 44.8MW of solar. Also leads TX with 1.06GW of wind power. Also 12.6MW landfill gas. US's largest muni-owned (San Antonio) utility. Offers lowest rates of top 10 largest US cities.

Shale formation in Canada's NW Territories - Canol - the newest to begin heating up. Husky, Shell on it. ~3B bls recoverable oil. Hard problem is how to get it to market. No pipeline. No train. Rough ice roads. Possible summer shipping. China's richest man has billions invested in Husky.