STUFF

Exergy Dev Grp ended work on Idaho 116MW package of wind farms this year. Behind on bills. And Bonneville cuts out wind power from grid when water's high and dams produce. And they couldn't get the wind in place before end of year when tax creds could run out.

NY Gov signed bills to extend tax cred, exempt equipment sales taxes and offer tax abatements for solar. Calls for '12 customer-sited installs to double '11 capacity, '13 to quadruple '11. State now has goal of 45% clean/ren elgen by '15. ~121MW solar now installed in ~7,500 systems.

USAF contracted Sun Ed to build, finance, op 14.5MW solar array on AZ base. Online by end of year. Will save base $400-500K/y, provide 35% of el. AF now has 131 solar, wind, waste-to-E and landfill gas projects running. Plans to build 30 more by end of '13.

SDE (Israel) to sell $1.2M of sea wave power plants to China. Final stages of building 2nd plant of 3 in China; 1st 2 150KW, 3rd 500KW. Their systems 10% on water, 90% on land. Prod costs ~$20/MWh.

Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline project kaput. Was to be 275-mile, 765KV line to supply MD substation from WV substation. No reason given. Maybe not needed.

US oil and gas and mining comps (all comps?) now must disclose all payments to all govts. SEC vote fulfills section of Dodd-Frank aimed at curbing corruption.

Antarctic peninsula warming faster than almost any other place on Earth. Temps up near 5F over last 50 yrs.

Chinese solar industry wants Beijing to weigh in over EU trade dispute.

BLM released plan to better manage increased drilling activity in Colo basin.

Stanford, Penn State scientists process converts el to methane (NG) using microbes. C comes from atmos, so C neutral. El from unused clean E, like out in Idaho and such, can be used. Some way to go before a stable, scalable process. But WAY TO GO SCIENTISTS!

Romney would give states control over E prod on fed lands within their borders and allow drilling off east coast US. And opposes clean E tax breaks. And just picked up $6M at Houston big oil lunch. "E independence by '20". O, the dream. And also for coal miners. Hay, the campaign politicking. 2 sides. Why do we have to have 2 parties? Especially so disagreeable with each other? We live here together. Do we really disagree that much on what's best for our world?

Germany minister offered 10-point energy plan - more a checklist. Most import to raise '20 EU emissions reduction target to 30% from now 20% ('90 base).

Lucid Energy partnering with San Antonio Water System to build demo site for Pipe Power System. Vertical-axis turbines in pipes to produce el. Project 60KW, online early '13. Lucid awarded $1M DOE SBIR grant in '09. Pilot tests already with Riverside Public Util over last 2 yrs.

POET, Agrivida 4-yr tech collab on cell eth to significantly reduce capital and operating costs.

Chemtex (NC site, Italy owners) got $99M conditional loan guarantee from USDA for engineering, construction of "Project Alpha" - 20M gal/y cell eth facility. Projected online in '14. Non-food feedstock grown on marginal land. Same tech as world's 1st comm-scale plant in Italy online this fall and plants to be built in Brazil. More USDA assist to help farmers' start-up costs for the crops. Again, fed money to foreign comps for US jobs.

Ohio State researcher, colleagues say ecology experts should be included in algae research to ensure no unintended consequences to enviro if GM algae escapes from controlled enviros.

East Africa Energy Forum cited Kenya and 4 intl oil comps for selling offshore oil blocks that belong to Somalia. Pirates v. pirates?

Is it time for wind power blade vortice wingtips? Like wingtips on jets? Or vertical axis wind? I think vertical axis wind. I don't see any blade tips turned up on plane propellers. Maybe that's too hard to do. Not too hard for jet wings.

Near half of mortgage borrowers (US) under 40 years of age underwater. The mess is still with us. Besides the middle class being broke. But God speed you rich pards. May your camels get through the eye of the needle.

DOE scientists unveiled uranium recovery from oceans tech.

China to start stockpiling rare earths.

KY cows weathering drought with candy snacks. We did that back in late '80's in Colo. Molasses-covered wheat and oats.

China scooping up US scrap metal.

New plan in Alberta limits oil development, conserves land. Where's Alberta? Um, maybe no oil there.

Cracks in Belgium nuke reactor 1st detected in '79. In the early '80's, I think I remember correctly the time, we bermed up the cracked nuke containers of Belgian-Congo uranium from the '50's out at the Fernald OH plant. I was a laborer then. We put rocks and then concrete into the tops. So if I die from cancer, that may be why.

40% of the food Americans have available to them goes to waste. We have to solve this, pards. Children and other folks are starving and malnutritioned around the world. $166B worth of food wasted in '08, the last year studied. A national sin. Let's work on that, A? Let's start something new on that.

4 weeks in row US crude oil stocks down. Why pump prices going up? Or is it the 1Mb/d redux in world prod lately? US gasoline consumption also rose from down 4% on year to down 2% lately. What, the vacation driving? Who's on vacation? Late Aug prices highest ever for yeartime.

Happy trails, pards.