STUFF

~1/2 of Oslo, most of its schools heated, powered by burning garbage. Now they have to import Europe garbage. Thinking about importing US garbage - shipping that cheap. Garbage for heat/power has exploded across N Europe in recent decades. Demand for trash far outstrips supply. 150M tons/yr generated in region, incinerators can handle over 700M tons. Sweden, Austria, Germany building more plants. Oslo households separate garbage. Foodwaste, plastics, glass, etc. in separately colored bags. Bags handed out free by stores. (Why can't US do that? Fossil fuel industry, chem industry, etc. O yea, and citizen apathy. I remember Cincinnati had an incinerator. But it was shut down in what, early '60's? Of course, then nothing was separated in trash so toxic chemicals were released in the inclusive trash burn. Also, Europe doesn't have the expanse of land that US does. So US just piled hills of trash up somewhere, though now getting methane out of it in places.)

Report: vast majority in US support fuel economy standards. (No surprise, right? Who doesn't like spending less on gas?)

Britain Committee on Climate Change found carbon footprint of domestic fracking for NG less than importing it. Their homegrown CO2 emissions down 19% lately, but more than offset by supply chain of imports, including LNG.

Top 3 US banks got poor marks by enviros on coal. "Extreme investment" in mines, power plants.

Navajo Nation formed comp to op NM coal mine.

FERC Chairman says growing rooftop solar will provide protection against lengthy blackouts. But trend also cuts into revenues utilities count on to maintain transmission. System vulnerability witnessed April 16 after gunman damaged PG&E transformer, triggering power shortages in Silicon Valley.

Mid American Solar, Sunpower (SPWR) began construction on 579Mw AC co-located solar projects in Cal. MidAm bought projects early this year for over $2B. SPWR panels, trackers, ops and maintenance. S Cal Ed PPAs. All online by '16.

Solar World (Germany) (SRWRF) losses widening, proposing debt-to-equity swap for ~60% of liabilities. Present shareholders to end up with about nothing.

New WY lithium deposit could meet all US demand. US now imports over 80% of lithium it uses. U of WY researchers found it while studying CO2 storage underground in Swest WY. Found in brine. Could be up to 18M tons, worth ~$500B at current prices. Largest US producer has 118K tons of deposits in NV. 18M tons equiv to ~720 yrs of current global lithium production.

Turkey to announce by weekend which country, comps selected to build $22B nuke power plant, Turkey's 2nd nuke plant. China, Japan frontrunners.

Russia to try to loosen China's grip on global rare earths industry. ICT Group, Rostec $1B deal to develop deposit in far east Russia. 154M tons of ore with terbium, neobium oxide, yttrium, scandium.

EPA now says much less methane leaks during NG exploration than thought before. Tighter controls have resulted in 20% reduction in meth releases from '90 to '10. (Pay off? Or bonifide science? I tend bonafide. Producers care. It's product. Money.)

China Hydroelectric closed sale of 30Mw hydro project for $44.3M.

Laos plans to have clean/renewable energy provide 30% of their total elgen by '25. Already growing jatropha for biodiesel. Developing sugarcane ethanol. To gen 1Mw of solar power at 30K remote offgrid households, a World Bank project started in '01 finishing up next year. 84% of population has el. Clean/ren plan to get est. $1.8B of private sector investment. 1st phase 10% of total elgen by '16.

PX Group (UK) got 5-yr contract to op $108M, 18Mw plant in London to use waste fat, oil from capitol's drains to gen el. Part of output to run sewage works, desalination plant. Rest to grid. Online '15. ~40K blockages/yr from fat/oil poured down London drains.

Uruguay issued decree to develop 200Mw of solar power. National power comp to offer PPAs for projects 30-50Mw.

Finavera (FNVRF) (Canada) selling 2 Brit Columbia wind projects under development to Pattern for $27.6M. Total 300Mw.

Greenbriar (Canada) JV with Alterra Power (Canada) to develop 100Mw of solar power in Puerto Rico.

Polythene (UK) has new "Polyair" material for packaging. 100% recyclable, removes CO2 from atmos. Made from sugarcane, uses photosynth to capture CO2, release O. They say every ton product made, 2.5 tons CO2 removed from air.

EPA has turned national pollution monitoring network that provided data to researchers for 22 yrs into regulatory tool. States scrambling to figure out implications.

USGS doubled est. of Bakken-area resources to 7.4B bls. (1st I've seen on that. Kind of big, yea?)

Report: fed agencies don't encourage innovation. Break. EU to impose 2-yr ban on bee-killing chems. Break. BP $4.2B Q1 profit beat forecast, 11% off last year.