STUFF

Fisker spent $660K on each $103K plug-in car. (Smart business, A?)

Area of continental US in moderate or worse drought dipped below 50% 1st time in nearly a year.

Expert: clean/renewable subsidies should be cut to save EU carbon market.

China absorbing lessons from EU while drafting its own emissions trading legislation.

Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan tripled Q profits.

Next Era proposing to shrink Blythe solar project in Cal by over 1/2 from initial 1Gw in shift to PV solar last year from CSP. They're evaluating both thin-film and PV, fixed-tilt and single axis tracking. FSLR already working with Next Era on 550Mw project in Cal.

Recent IRS ruling that storage batts for solar systems qualify for 30% tax credit. But limits on credit if batt can also store grid power.

Germany to subsidize solar energy storage in $32.6M program. 660 Euros/Kw of storage cap. Program begins May 1. Funds should be quickly depleted.

3Gw 12-yr solar project in Cal's San Joaquin Valley gone from drawing boards to review process. To be built on ag lands contaminated by selenium, salt from yrs of irrigation or drainage-impaired soils.

San Antonio city utility CPS Energy's new project - "Sun Credit" - will charge solar customers for all el they use, incuding what they produce from their own solar arrays, then credit back their solar elgen @ 5.6 cents/Kwh. Means existing, future solar installs that might otherwise pay for themselves in 10 yrs will now take 15+ yrs. In Austin, a similar program, but 12.8 cents/Kwh payback for solar.

Total production by top 5 oil majors down 25% since '04.

Ceres (Cal) net loss $9M in Q ended Feb 28 v. $6.8M loss last yr.

Cereplast (Cal) $30M loss for '12. Projecting profit next year, possibly this year.

Carbios signed 7M Euro strategic collab with INRA in France. Plastic waste recovery, bio plastics, bio polymers.

Chinese comps forbidden from investing in oil sands. But CNOOC bought Nexen for $15B.

Helius Energy opened new biomass power plant in Scotland. Will create energy using byproducts from local single malt whiskey distillery. 8.23Mw combined heat and power plant. 60.5M Pound cost.

New plasma tech could revolutionize energy generation, storage. Engineers at U of MO designed way to create, control plasma in atmos. Plasma the 4th state of matter after solid, liquid, gas. (Eg. fire, lightning, sun.) Their breakthrough allows plasma to hold itself together while it travels through regular air with no containment.

Anadarko announced discovery of huge NG field off Mozambique coast. Plans to drill 2 new wells.

1st of 4 generators at E China nuke plant online. 1Gw. Increases Fuijan's clean elgen to 45% from 42%. Construction began in '08. China has 15 nuke plants in op, total cap 12.5Gw. 32Gw under construction.

Masdar (UAE) turned on Africa's largest solar PV plant project. $32M, 15Mw plant in Mauritania. 10% of Mauritania elgen cap. Their grid mostly powered by diesel. 144Mw. Energy demand increasing 12%/y. Masdar developing 6Mw wind farm on Seychelles, project in Afghanistan to supply 600 homes with solar and 500Kw solar project in Tonga.