STUFF

Sikh temple gunman was on Fed's radar. Well, feds, tweak up that radar.

Even teens who don't have sex at risk for HPV. Wash your hands, kids.

Iraq Kurds signed 2 deals with Koreans.

TX Eagle Ford shale oil production in '10 was 4M bls. Almost 40M in '11. Through April this year already 27M. Drilling permits issued were 94 in '09, >1K in '10, 2,800 in '11 and 2,300 this year through June.

NRC suspended final decisions on nuke power plant licenses pending court-ordered reassessment of spent fuel storage issue. They will still review aps. But no final decisions had been expected this year anyway.

Army inviting proposals for $7B in contracts to supply military bases with locally generated biomass, geothermal, solar or wind power. Power purchase agreements (PPA's) for up to 30 years. Lands around S Cal bases alone could gen 7GW.

Explosions, fire at N Cal Chevron refinery.

FERC member warning a provision in Cal's cap-and-trade program could threaten western grid reliability.

Electric aircraft breaking records, gaining av industry attention.

Google maps tool reveals Cal's major GHG emitters.

China's low-carbon cities not all that clean/green.

New Zealand volcano blow. 115 years after last time. Is it time to put geothermal energy bigtime around volcanos?

Arctic sea ice melting at record pace, breaking '07 levels: National Snow and Ice Data Center (U of Colo). 1 exception is Chukchi Sea where Shell wants to start drilling. Coast Guard official: Shell's Arctic plans showing "overabundance of caution". Sure hope so.

Marcellus set to be US's top gas field.

Poland moving to FIT. Move away from troubled Tradable Green Certificates. 90% of their el from coal. Renewable Energy Sources Act to take effect in '13. Other former East Bloc countries have had varying degrees of success, consistency with FIT's. Poland details: program expansion to be budget limited; microgenerators to get expedited interconnect; 3-year reviews; wind, solar, geo, hydro, biogas, biomass, wave and tidal all included; 15.5% clean/ren by '20 target; 15-year contracts except for co-firing (coal with biomass - they could use green certificates); excise tax exemption on gen. Currently, 2GW of wind installed.

LA Dept of Water and Power has Solar Incentive Program (an FIT). Solar Feed-in Tariff program still in works to allow large-scale on-grid solar systems to sell back unused power. SIP created to help meet aim of Senate Bill 1. LADWP customers who install solar get upfront lumpsum payment based on system. When system produces excess power, "net meter" calculates credit for bill. SFTP ("CLEAN LA" Program) lets customers who produce 30KW and up can contract to sell 100% of E to LADWP at fixed rate for up to 20 years. GoGreenSolar.com.

United Tech sold Clipper Wind unit (Calif) to Platinum Equity. Price not disclosed. Probably embarassed. UT raising money to buy Goodrich (aerospace parts). Already sold Pratt&Whitney Rocketdyne to Gen Corp for $550M. UT paid $428M for Clipper in '09-'10. Orders now falling off. Wind turbine maker. "We bought into this biz thinking there would be a US clean E mandate and there's not been one. We thought the growth of prior 5 years would accelerate. But it didn't." And who's asking why not?

'12 4th most volatile year for oil prices since '82. Other top years '07, '08, '09. Conventional oil production peaked in '05.

Could US oil imports be replaced by biofuels from CO2, salt water and NG? NG half the cost of petrol. Can make ethanol from fermentation or catalytic conversion. Also can make el. ARPA-E: "photosynthesis an inefficient process". E stored in plants requires significant processing to get biofuels. Electrofuels use microorganisms - typically bacteria - to directly utilize E from el and don't need solar to gen or prod biofuels. Heterotrophic algae: Solazyme. SZYM (down 8% today). Yeast-based microorgs at AMRS (down 3% today) use sugars for feedstock. Magic bugs synth sugars or fuel molecules from CO2 and water: Joule Unlimited, Proterro. Electrofuels program looking for processes up to 10x more E efficient than current biofuel prod. ARPA-E funded 13 projects for it in '10. PETRO project also taking on photosynth prob. Could create biofuels at half current cost. Up to $30M to be made available for it. And the story just goes on and on. I got tired.

Brazil ethanol exports to US surged in July. Volume tripled to 411M liters. $305M.

Iran researchers at U of Kurdistan developed glassy C electrode able to detect minute levels of ethanol in different environments. Modified electrode with nanocomposite of multi-walled C nanotubes. It's great to see Islam science coming back. Even despite their hate of the great satan.

India has reached 1 GW solar mark.

$2.5B India new nuke plant - 6 1.2GW and 2 1GW reactors - 9.2GW - about to come online. How the hell can they get 9.2GW nuke with $2.5B?! Something wrong with this story. But govt asking who pays if mishap. Project signed up in '88 with Soviets for initial 2 reactors. Atomstroieksport net losses doubled since '10 to $469M. They can't cover anything. France, US, S Korea in the wings.

Chinese buying US biz at record pace. At least $8B so far.

US Export-Import Bank investing $2B in S Africa clean E. S Af wants to increase power supply >50GW on $127B overhaul of national grid. Really. $127B. Planning 3.3MW of clean installs. For $2B?! Way off.

Chicago to build $3B coal gasification plant. Synthetic NG from coal and petroleum coke. Touting 85% CO2 capture.

Petrobras has come under tighter control by Brazil.

Automakers electrifying SUVs. Toyota RAV4 EV hits market this month. Ford's C-max Energi 47mpg. Toyota also to unveil fuel cell cars by '15.

China increased '15 solar target to 21GW. Up 40%. Trying to help their solar comps.

Recent extreme weather, fires a "teachable moment"?

26 senators join call to adjust corn-based fuel mandates. Aren't they on vacation?

Canada joined US in fight against Asia carp in Great Lakes. They're almost there.

Study: Cal needs to improve salmon, steelhead hatchery practices.

Fukushima looking at geothermal.