Sudans signed agreement to resume oil exports. May take up to 3 weeks. Halted since Jan '12. 98% of S Sudan govt revenues.
255 of 548 Utica Shale wells that received permits have been drilled, completed in OH. 74 so far producing NG. Wells cost $6-10M.
TX asked Supreme Court to intervene in NM's draining of Rio Grande.
Think tank urged Obama to use exec power to reduce methane, HFCs, black carbon (diesel soot) and other emissions.
Survey of participants at World Biofuels Markets gathering in Europe say biofuels will boom by '20 as cellulosic ethanol becomes competitive. Up to 1/5 of world's energy supply will come from biomass by '20 they say.
Ocean acidification weakens mussels' ability to survive. (Age is challenging me own muscles. Har.)
Designers of Cal's cap-and-trade system predict prices will stay low.
Automakers pushing back against zero-emission vehicle mandate (Cal?).
Scientists discovered early warning system for coral stress. (Got your own early warning system?)
Retired NASA scientists say man-made global warming "not proven". (They're rocket - not climate -scientists.)
Fed appeals court dismissed oil/NG industry argument that BLM can't indefinitely withhold issuing leases to comps that have submitted winning bids. (BLM supposed to issue leases within 60 days of winning bids.)
Workforce, infrastructure challenging Eagle Ford Shale (TX).
Marcellus-area college to dedicate campus to oil/NG programs.
Valero to barge TX oil to Canada refinery.
Sweden's Bioenergy Pyrogrot demo project awarded part of E1.2B from EU program. Forest residue feedstock to produce 160K tons/y of pyrolysis oil. Energy content est. ~750Gwh. Input 720 tons/d of residue. Swede bioenergy use grown from 40Twh/y in '70's to ~140 in '12. Leading energy source for country since '09. 9% decrease in their GHG's '90-'10 while GDP up 50%. '80 referendum called for nuke phase-out by '10 (how goes that?). CO2 tax since '91. Green el certificates since '03. Tax exemptions for transport biofuels. And their total forest stock has increased while using residue for energy.
Schneider El launched complete range of best-in-class products for residential, commercial, off-grid solar, batt backup markets.
Lawrence Berkeley Lab: even with low NG prices, wind power beneficial for long-term price stability. Used data from 287 PPA's, 23.5Gw. Insulates energy portfolios from rising fuel costs (when NG goes up. Already up to 3.70).
3-yr-old NG-fired $523M power plant in Germany may be closed. Losing almost $24/Mwh. Operating less than 25% of time. Slumping power prices, cheaper coal, clean energy requirements, collapsed carbon permits cost. Prob all over Europe. NG now 25% of Europe elgen. NG share of Germany's elgen fell 2.3% to 11.3% in '12. Region's NG demand to drop 3.5% by '15 from '10 to 550B cubic meters: IEA. Gazprom lost position as Europe's largest NG supplier to Norway last year. RWE - Germany's 2nd largest utility, Europe's largest CO2 emitter - put out 11% more GHG's last year with added coal burn. Profitability increased by collapse of carbon permits to record lows, lower cost of coal. Euro utilities need to shut over 30% of fossil-fueled power plants to counter increased wind, solar. El output from French NG plants down 24% in '12. GDF plans to close/mothball 10Gw of capacity across Europe, mostly NG plants. (They have to figure something out now. Regression to coal from NG is not acceptable.)
United Biofuels bought 50M gal/y biodiesel plant under construction in NY. Online next year. Will be 1 of largest biodiesel facilities on east coast. (No $ figs.)
Codexis (CDXS) launching 2 next-gen enzymes. Significantly reduces cost of cellulosic sugar production for biofuels, biochems. Up to 85% conversion of available fermentable sugars. 10-20% improvement over last gen. Should be big boost for Brazil's ethanol industry. Puts CDXS head-to-head with Novozymes, DuPont.
EcoEngineers (Iowa) got EPA approval to offer quality assurance program to prevent fraud in renewable fuel industry. To bring stability, fairness to biofuel marketing.
ZeaChem started production of cellulosic chems, ethanol. Advancing to commercial scale. Oregon 250K gal/y demo refinery. Among 1st such biorefinery in world. (USA!) C2 (2-carbon atom) platform. Market potential for C2 products $485B. Can also create C3 chems. Combined markets over $1T. Local non-food feedstocks. Chrysler, Valero, P&G among investors. 25MG/y refinery in construction with USDA loan guarantee.
Bahrain researchers demo'd date pits can be biodiesel feedstock. Up to 8% oil content. Remaining cake good for animal feed, glycerin for cosmetics. Bahrain has ~380K date palm trees.
Direvo Industrial Biotech (Germany) developing consolidated pilot-scale bioprocess for lactic acid production from lignocellulose. Using Miscanthus grass.
Chatham House (UK) says country should move away from ethanol toward waste (like used cooking oil).
Sun is ~6% more luminous today than 600M years ago. (Luminous = more heat?) Luminosity will only rise with time. (Let's do the science, pards.)
Exxon says algae biofuels still 25 years away. 3 yrs into JV with Synthetic Genomics. At start, they were 10 years away. JV has been unable to come up with way to produce enough raw material from algae to supply a refinery.
Algae Biomass Org expects competetiveness with fossil fuels by '20.
Methane 25x more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in atmos over 100 years. 100x more potent over 20 years. Old study: meth emission levels spike 20x in reservoirs at low water.
Taiwan protests could doom $8.9B new nuke plant, country's 4th. All built near coast on active fault lines. (Why do they DO THAT?!)
Brazil's subsalt oil/NG deposits 2x as large as country's existing reserves. ~35B bls recoverable. Some ests. 100B. Subsalt region ~ size of NY state.
Iceland has cheap, 100% clean energy supply from geothermal. Considering exporting excess to UK. Credits clean energy for GDP growth.
OH regulators approved route for high-volt powerline from OH to just outside Delaware.
Residents near Fukushima filed suit against TEPCO for radiation exposure, forced evac. USS Ronald Reagan sailors, as we know, also bringing suit over delay in warning. (Definitely not the way to deal with nuke disaster. But who saw that quakenami coming?)
GA Power helping Piedmont College save money with rebates, incentives through GA P's Commercial Energy Efficiency program.
Clean air (smog) rules may squeeze SC industry expansion.
Exelon resubmitted ap to increase power output at PA nuke plant.
75% of Asia-Pacific nations face lack of water security.
DOE wants to establish industry to make up to 50 small modular nuke reactors/year by '40 or sooner.
Report: fusion could become commercial with $30B US investment. (View that with plenty of skepticism.)
FL algal bloom killing record #'s of manatees. (I had manatee-friendly prop on my powerboat at Cape in '90's.)
Sierra Club suing DTE Energy over emissions at 4 coal-fired power plants.
Court upheld order keeping Greenpeace away from Shell vessels in Alaska. (If they will ever return.)
Nestle vows to cut emissions, water use.
Utah extended tax credits for clean fuel cars.
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