STUFF

(Just trying to make sense of everything.)

Isofoton (Spain), with unnamed US investor, challenging Hanwha's (S Korea) bid for Q-Cells (Germany). Hanwha offering up to $50M for HQ, factories in Germ, Malaysia, sales centers in US, Australia, Japan. If they get Q-Cells, Hanwha would be world's 3rd largest solar manufacturer.

ThinkEco (NYC) invented "Modlet". Plugs into outlet, USB to computer for wireless com. Plug appliance into Modlet and pute shows appliance E use which pute can control.

Layoffs so far this week: Clipper Wind Power (Cedar Rapids) staff down 32% to 376; Vestas cut 30 more in Brighton, CO after 90 layoffs in Pueblo last week; Walker Components (Denver), cable supplier for Vestas, cut to 24 workers from 39. Congress inaction on tax creds for wind. Est. at least 37K folks to lose their jobs in wind power manufacturing with PTC expiration. Equipment suppliers and construction jobs will also be lost. Historical PTC expiration job loss rate 73-93%. That's Congress for us.

Germany's DIW Institute estimates $250B investment in clean/ren E needed over 10 years to compensate for nuke power shutdown.

60 E storage projects selected for 200M Euro in Germany research grants thru '14. Govt also mobilizing state-owned bank - KfW Group - to provide low-interest loans to storage projects. US better keep up. 1 tech uses el, CO2 to turn water into methane (not wine). To store underground for future burn.

2 new hydropower plants bringing 480MW to S Brazil. 350MW for $794M, 135MW for $322M. Construction start in Feb, online in '16.

17% drop in N Sea oil prod next month for maintenance.

Reuters: voters placed high gasoline prices 10th on econ concern list. I bet jobs was #1.

Syrian rebs saying govt forces round up all young men in areas conquered and execute them. I hate reporting on this. But we all must know. Why did US act in Libya and not Syria? Oil? Russia, Iran, China backing Syria? Or because we've had enough of spending lives and fortune on this Shia-Sunni sickening shit?

Next spring probably D-Day on Iranian nuke thing.

7 governers have asked EPA to waive ethanol mandate. EPA can't without evidence of "severe" damage to econ. Eth currently cheaper to produce than gasoline. ~96% of gasoline sold in US now contains eth. Corn would have to go to $10 or oil fall <$70 before refineries would have incentive to stop using eth.

Venezuela refinery (country's largest) explosion damage mostly to storage tanks and outer facilities. Expected return to prod in 2 days. Chavez plans to spend $130B over 6 yrs to dub country's oil prod. He gets reelected Oct 7. Any doubts about that?

TX judge ruled in favor of TransCanada's use of eminent domain to build oil pipe to be part of Keystone XL.

SSE, Britain's 2nd largest E comp, to increase el and gas prices 9% Oct 15.

Qantas cancelled $8.5B order for Boeing Dreamliners, citing 1st full-year net loss since privatization almost 20 years ago.

Bombing of NG pipe feeding S Yemen LNG port.

Record Arctic Sea ice melt probably to be in news next several weeks.

Golden Pass Products - JV of Exxon and Qatar Petrol - asking US for permission to export LNG from existing TX terminal. Golden would spend $10B to convert terminal to export 15.6M tons/y - 2BCF/d of LNG. Question: why do they even have to ask the govt? Answer: so legislators and regulators can get their cut. I sorry. Too jaded?

If you take USGS estimate of 32B bls US oil reserves and add US annual consumption of 6.9B bls - 3.6B from US prod - what do you get? 1 est. that by April or May of '21, US will be out of oil. Is USGS playing the same poker game as OPEC? Or is it craps? Roulette, anyone?

EU proceeding on registration of US ethanol imports, acknowledging damage to EU biofuels industry by significant increase of US eth imports.

Piper Jaffray: "modest downside risk to USDA's most recent corn yield forecast of 123 bushels/acre". (Isaac will soak part of the US most severe drought area this week.) PJ estimates 116-119 bush/ac.

Share of clean/ren E in Netherlands set to rise from 4% in '10 to 7-10% by '20, short of Euro 14% target.

U of GA and BioEnergy Science Center (Oak Ridge) researchers developing DNA transformation tech that can utilize biomass at temps >160F. Working with bacteria that uses biomass for growth and genetics to "teach" them to make eth. Caldicelllulosiruptor bacteria. "Extremophiles."

Cargill to open new $64M biodiesel plant in Brazil this week. Clean E supplying plant's power. Projected 200K tons/y. Plant originally to cost $76M. Good go there, huh? Brazil has B5 mandate.

Genel En (Turkey) buying oil/NG licenses in Malta, Morocco for $11M. 75% stake in Malta for $10M of that.

Israel reaching out to US majors to develop their oil/gas industry. Construction begun on LNG export port link to NG pipes.

Australian mining boom over.

China to invest $373B in E-saving projects and pollution control by '16. 12th 5-yr plan.

Calif carbon price 2x of European. $19.50/met ton in Cal.