STUFF

Canadian NG production stabilized in '11. Despite decrease in drilling. Shale plays up. Exports to US declining since '08. US exports to Can up 55% same time.

By '35, mined bitumen in Can could reach just under 2Mb/d. Insitu bitumen could get to 5Mb/d.

Brit Columbia has shale gas. Horn River 78-96TCF, Liard next door. Apache Oil.

Ongoing discovery of links between Mafia and Italy's wind, solar industries.

Study: speedup of glacier melt in Andes threathens freshwater supplies in Peru, Bolivia.

Study: "chasm" between big comps, suppliers over climate risks.

Musk: "govt inaction on clime "Russian roulette".

Report: small farmers need research, investments to reduce clime impacts on food production.

UN SecGen making clime change a top priority this yr.

Study: airlines reaped profits from EU's carbon law.

EU carbon permit prices reached new low.

US State Dept: Keystone XL decision delayed to after March.

Survey: energy M&A activity seen picking up this yr.

Halliburton testing tech using fracked gas to power fracking.

Alta Devices (US) expects military aps for drones, tents, backpaks to gen 80% of revs this yr. Targeting mobile phone mart. That could gen $20B of sales through '16 for industry. Their tech gallium-arsenide thin-film solar. 28.8% efficient. (FSLR 17.3%). 2Mw pilot plant now operating. 40Mw factory scheduled online next yr. But they have to sell all that. Investors include Sumitomo, Dow Chem, GE.

Brightsource shelving 500Mw solar thermal project in S Cal desert, but proceeding with 2 similar projects further along in development. (The project bought from Solar Millenium last year.) Molten salt storage.

IKEA to double clean energy investment to $4B by '15. Still aiming for 100% clean E by '20. Now ~34%.

US fed investment tax cred for solar goes from 30% to 10% in '16. Look ahead.

Newport, OR to be site of 1st utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy test site in US. Pacific Marine Energy Center. $4M from DOE last year.

China consumed 1/3 of global PV solar panel shipments in 4Q12. 2 yrs ago, China was under 10%. Global demand increased to 8.3Gw in Q4. China demand expected to fall below 20% in 1H13.

OH nuke reactor shut down after blown fuse.

Wash DC topping green bldg (LEED) rankings.

Analysts: NG cars could soon make up 20% of fleet in US.

Indy utility to spend $511M for EPA mercury emissions compliance.

Oil flowing again through N Iraq to Turkey pipeline after bomb last weekend.

S Korea started prelim concept design for nuke fusion demo reactor (K-DEMO). Collab with DOE's Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. SK already developing "K-STAR" Tokamak and contributing to ITER ($20B project in France). K-DEMO to gen 1Gw for several weeks vs. ITER goal of 500Mw for 500 seconds by late '20's.

FARC back to bombs in Columbia after 2-month ceasefire produced no deal. Blew up 2 southern oil pipes, planted bomb on top coal exporter's north railway.

BG Group possible merge or takeover candidate. Stock down 50% last 2 yrs. $60B comp. Project delays in N Sea, US, Brazil, Egypt. Reducing LNG supply to Chile.

Swiss scientists at Empa have developed CIGS thin-film solar cells on flexible polymer foils at 20.4% efficiency. Beat their '11 record of 18.7%.

Canada considering nuke reactors to power oil sands extraction.

Demand for oil supertankers down. 22% surplus next 30 days.

Anchoring offshore wind turbines with "upside-down bucket" anchors could save over 5% of estimated 90B Pounds of spending on offshore wind farms. Universal Foundation. Tests soon in N Sea.

New geoengineering study suggests sprinkling mineral dust into oceans will assuage global warming. Olvine can make oceans more alkaline, 10% more able to absord CO2. Would require coal industry level mining. And could change biology of oceans. 100 huge ships would be needed to dump the dust year around. 3B tons of olvine/y. 1/3 of CO2 saved added from mining, distribution. But more permanent solution than spraying sulphate particles into atmos.

Solon (Tucson) turned on 10Mw PV solar plant in AZ. Duke owns. UniSource E Svcs buying the power.

Swinerton Renewable E expanding their services to offer them to any solar facility in N Am. 100% employee owned.

Ontario to shut down last coal-fired plants this year. 1 year ahead of schedule. They now get 56% of elgen from nuke, 22% from hydro, 4% from clean/ren.

OH gets 82% of its elgen from coal.

FCEL got service contract for fuel cell plant in Switzerland operating since '10. 1st carbonate fuel cell installed in Switz. Uses NG.

Renewable Energy Generation got $20M loan from HSBC for 3 2Mw wind turbines from Gamesa for onshore project in England. (Looks like extra closing funds deal to me.)

Average polysilicon spot price up to $16/kg. 3rd weekly increase off all-time low. Price down ~43% past yr. Below production costs at most producers.

Swiss Re: up to $41.7B/yr losses by '30 from weather disasters. Investments in biofuels, clean E, etc could reach $3.1T/yr by then. "Strong case for clean E investments."

EV probs: thebatts. Reduced driving ranges, recharges no match for gas stations, fast charges reduce batt life, batts cost almost as much as rest of cars, short life, and resale car value depends on batt life left. Answer: KNDI. Lease batt and car. Beijing smog crisis may help.

DAVOS talk centering on how to build econs that can grow without bubbles and without gobbling up irreplacable resources.

70% of firms fear climate threat to revs. 2.4K firms surveyed.

Green Growth Alliance tasked by G20 to consider green growth. They say spend on infrastructure now. And save. Govts need to spend $130B/yr now. If well directed, it would garner $570B more/yr from private finance. GGA chaired by former Mex prez Calderon.

Ecotech Inst (Denver) has "clean jobs index". Aggregates all available clean E jobs in US. Over 3M in '12.

Ukraine bioenergy industry stalled by corruption, policy flux.

N Korea vowing to expand arsenal.

Pentagon opening combat jobs to women. They aren't as strong as men. Hello. Can be raped. Hello.