STUFF ... Ethanol damaging enviro much more severely than US govt willing to admit: AP. 5M acres converted from conservation to corn since '09. Destroying habitats, polluting water supplies ... Rene Sola (NYSE:SOL) completed 2.5Mw solar plant in NM ... US utilities bought 7.6Gw wind power capacity 1st 9 months '13. 70Mw in 3Q, down 96% from last year. 13.1Gw installed last year ... Power Secure (POWR) completed 3Mw solar plant for QVC NC distrib center ... U of S FL engineers use salt-filled ceramic balls in concentrated solar system to operate up to 12 hours after sundown. Cost down to $2K/Kw for solar thermal system, $15/Kwh for storage. Other systems have been $3K and $40 ... U of C FL got $3.2M from DOE to lead 1 of 4 consortia to develop distributed energy techs, increase engineering capacity, prepare for national shift to clean/renewable energy ... Spain court found no criminal responsibility for '02 oil spill on coast ... Scientists improving models to predict killer cyclone storm surge ... Climate change poses major threat to big game: report ... Tesla (TSLA) plans pickup truck in 5 yrs ... IEA: non-OPEC oil production to increase 1.1Mb/d this year, 1.7M in '14. Asia, Europe paying 2x for energy than US ... Pipeline explosion, evacuation of TX town ... DOE plans to move uranium waste to NV landfill ... Google, KKR investing $400M in 6 solar plants in Cal, AZ. Recurrent building total 106Mw, online Jan ... Neste Oil signed on with Dutch av biofuels initiative ... Houston VA med center to produce near 12Mw biodiesel power ... Repsol (Spain) plans to invest $4B more in Venezuela oil/gas projects thru '22. Want to increase output from 40Kb/d now to 100K. Country reserves some 211B bls. Wants to boost production to 6Mb/d by '20. Repsol total invest plan $25B thru '15 ... Intelligent Energy marketing world's 1st hydrogen fuel cell mobile phone charger ... Shell to sell $15B of assets to offset record investments ... EIA: US gasoline prices to avg $3.39 in '14 ... JA Solar (JASO) selling 30Mw to 4 UK projects ... Eurus Energy (Japan) to build 14Mw solar in N Japan. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) panels. Online '15. Also 33Mw plant planned in Hyogo. Online '15 ... WalMart failing its post-Katrina climate pledge ... NTR suspending investment in US wind over PTC concerns ... US clean energy project finance down 34% 1st 9 months '13 ... Africa Renewable Energy Fund raised $64M. Targeting up to $200M ... US judge blocked sale of $700M Hoku polysilicon plant in Idaho ... Trillium Power (Canada) moving forward with $2.15B offshore wind stoppage lawsuit v. Ontario ... Geronimo approved for 200Mw ND wind farm ...Gaelectric (Ireland), Dresser-Rand to invest 300M Pounds in compressed air energy storage project ... IEA: clean/renewable energy to meet 31% of global power gen by '35. 20% in '11. (I think we can do better than that.)