STUFF

OSU engineer has way to dramatically increase solar cell efficiency. Invented circuit boards that reduce power loss in cells. 50% more efficiency. Goes in right behind cell. Now board needs to get smaller, cheaper, more durable.

Green Energy Team to begin construction early next year on 6.7Mw Kauai power plant to burn wood chips from local trees. Will provide ~11% of island's el needs and replace ~3.7M gal of diesel per year. $73M loan guarantee from USDA Rural Utilities Service. $90M plant, funded by Deutsche Bank. Completion in '14. Really, no wind or sun there?

DOI green light for 2-3Gw WY  wind farm. Next step BLM enviro analysis for farm, transmission line, rail distribution facility, substations for grid connect, roads. Breaking ground in '13, turbine installs beginning in '14.

Vestas laid off 80 more at Colo wind turbine blade factory.

China has ~52 autos/1K folks. US, Euro ~457.

Switching from coal to combined-cycle NG power plants could save TX 53B gal/y of fresh water besides CO2 emissions. And who knows when the drought will end?

PA gave air quality approval for build of 1st combined-cycle NG plant in state. 936Mw. 2nd plant on drawing boards. Coal state becoming fracking state.

Salt River Project switched on 19Mw solar plant in AZ. Single-axis tracking. Eliminates 21K metric tons CO2/yr, equivalent 4K cars off the road.

Hundreds of miles of high-volt transmission lines set to be placed, powered up next year as part of $7B TX project to transmit west TX clean E to east TX cities. Initiative approved in '05. Eventually 18.5Gw of wind power to be transmitted over 2.4K miles of lines. State now has > 10Gw of wind gen cap.

Wells Fargo financing 11.3Mw NM solar project. Sun Ed development. Bank has financed > $1B of solar since '07. To date, WF provided > $2.8B equity plus > $900M debt finance for clean/ren projects in 28 states. The 11.3Mw project also saves > 4.5M gal of water/yr versus a fossil fuel plant.

Covanta finished expansion of Honolulu waste-to-energy plant. 3rd boiler adding cap by 900 tons/day of waste, total now 3K tons. Comp now processing all of Oahu's post-recycled muni solid waste. Producing 90Mw of power, ~8% of island's el needs. Elims need for 1M tons/yr of diesel oil, reduces GHG emiss by almost 1M tons/yr v. fossil fuel power.

Uganda opened 250Mw hydropower plant to nearly double country's el supply, virtually eliminating future power shortages, blackouts. $900M. 5-year build. Country's el demand has been growing 10%/yr.