ISIL/IS RANSOM $6.6M FOR FEMALE AMERICAN AID WORKER ... US surveil flights now over Syria ... 1 in 6 French support ISIL/IS: poll ... Cease-fire between Hamas, Israel ... Russian troops captured by Ukraine troops entered Ukraine "by accident": Russia military ... Iran rebuffed UN nuke inspectors wanting return to suspected nuke weapons component testing site on military base ... US approved anti-dumping duties against S Korea, other producers of steel pipe for energy sector ... Fracking link to birth defects probe ... China weighing $16B fund for EV chargers ... US grain piling up as trains move ND oil ... Chile attracting $7B of clean power investments ... Duke Energy now says 9K gal of diesel spilled into Ohio R. near Cincinnati last week, not 5K ... Farmer's Almanac forecasts super-cold winter for east US. Their predictions ~80% good over the years ... EIA predicting 353 BCM shortage of US natgas storage by Oct vs. '13, 5-yr avg ... Consol started drilling oil at Pittsburgh Airport ... PV2 Energy's proposed 247Mw, $600M solar project near Silicon Valley got PPA from S Cal Ed. But lost Duke Energy as major investor, though still minor investor. Project also needs final enviro permits, but their EIS approved. 1M solar panels on over 1.6K acres ... Coal export terminal OK'd in Brit Columbia. Opens late '15. 4M tons/yr capacity ... Saudi El Comp plans to bring over 4.75Gw of NG power gen online '15-'17. To spend SR622B '14-'23 to add 40Gw power gen capacity, upgrade grid. Total cap now over 61.6Gw ... NRC OK'd Exelon's request to increase output of 2 reactors at nuke plant near Philly. 140Mw more to get to 1.28Gw. 40-year-old reactors. (Some of US' youngest.) ... Solar Power's (SOPW) China unit got prelim OK to build 10Mw project in Shandong ... S4Solar (Brazil) to build $13.1M, 100Mw/yr panel assembly plant in Brazil. Online in Jan ... First Solar (FSLR) to build 1Gw project in Chile, finish in '16 ... Hareon Solar raised $3.2B debt for new solar projects. To develop 150Mw solar now in India with US investor ... UK county to resist 970Mw offshore wind project ... Andhra Pradesh distributors to jointly buy 500Mw of solar power starting in '16 ... World's 1st electric Grand Prix series will use UK startup Aquafuel to get algae-derived power. Saltwater algae to biodiesel to glycerine. No CO2, no smoke, no noise, no smell. Aquafuel says saltwater algae pond size of Switzerland could meet global energy demand ... Kyocera the only solar module maker to rank as "performance leader" in all 6 categories. Testing by PV Evolution Labs. 15 participating manufacturers ... Palo Alto municipal utility reached carbon neutrality in '13. '17 goal: hydropower over 50%, solar 23%, wind 12%, landfill gas 11%. Balance from market power ... US oil/gas industry stock valuations $4.9T. US coal $230B.