STUFF

Lutz: by '20-'25, 10% of world car production will be EVs. And all cars will be driverless. Really?

Mango Materials, Cal startup, captures methane at waste treatment plant, feeds it to bacteria that produces biopolymer that's sold in powder or pellet form to plastic comps to make wide range of products which end up in waste treatment plant.

NGLPF may transfer ownership of NV geothermal plant to a lender after projecting plant will produce less power than expected. To fall below 34Mw this year, decline to ~15Mw by '20. '10 DOE loan guarantee involved.

Drax Group (Brit) to spend $1.1B through '17 to convert half of UK's biggest coal power plant to biomass. 1st of 6 units to burn wood pellets by June. 2 more units later. 3 units will burn a forest 4x size of Rhode Island per year. ~2.3M tons/y needing ~1M acres per unit. Where the hell are we going? Tech deemed carbon neutral. Trees absorb as much C as they emit when burned. Takes minutes to burn, decades to grow. C emissions from wood 70% less than coal, they say. Or is that with the absorption figured in? ~1/2 of Brit coal plants scheduled to close by '16, all nukes by '35. Coal elgen now < 50% of their total.

Vanderbilt U researchers added photosynthetic protein in spinach to silicon to create solar cells with 2.5x more power output than previous designs. Not competitive with today's solar cells.

Alston Renewable Power buying control of Rolls-Royce subsid Tidal Generation Limited. TGL has 500Kw tidal turbine prototype installed offshore Scotland.

Europe installed 2/3 of global solar PV capacity in '11. 18.5Gw, increasing their total to 52Gw.

Cargill filed suit claiming swindle in purchase of fraudulent renewable energy credits - 1.2M biodiesel creds in '10 - from NY broker. Later learned ID #'s invalid. Not regulated by EPA.

BIOF to idle MN ethanol plant due to corn prices. 115M gal/y. To keep similar size NB plant open.

Scot whiskey maker to become 1st distiller to use byproducts for biobutanol. To use draff, a sugar-rich ground barley, and pot ale, a yeasty liquid.

Biodico, Lambda Gen Corp in R&D partnership to integrate nano-based meta-catalytic surface tech with biomass-based diesel, combined heat and power and biochems production. US Navy research involvement.

Airbus, Sinopec partnered up to develop bioavfuels. Production close to airports, factories, local distribution networks.

Another explosion on 1 of Yemen's LNG pipelines.

SE OH coal mine owner closed mine for the day and forced their miners to attend on-site rally for Romney without pay in violation of federal election law.

Last 5 years, China built 20K miles of expressway, finishing 12 national highways 13 years ahead of schedule. 4x faster than US built interstate system. By '25, they will need to pave est. 5B square meters of road just to keep pace with population growth.

DOI to lease 4.5M acres in AK reserve for fossil fuel development.

PCB's found in 2 Connecticut schools.

Happy motoring, pards.