Science and Technology:
¶ Renewable power is disruptive – and that is good. Since 2008, the price of solar modules is down 80%, and wind turbines are down 29%. It is cheaper to be clean than to be dirty, which is disruptive to those who prefer to be dirty. [ThinkProgress]
World:
¶ Renewable energy offers Southeast Asia clean and secure power at fixed long-term rates that are lower in price compared to power generation from marginal fossil fuel on an unsubsidized base. [eco-business.com]
¶ RES Group’s global construction portfolio of wind and solar generating capacity has exceeded 8,000 MW, more than 6,000 MW of which is located in North America. [Cogeneration & On-Site Power Production Magazine]
US:
¶ The Army announced the first awards Friday under its $7 billion procurement to obtain renewable energy through private sector financing, awarding contracts to five firms for potential geothermal energy projects. [Electric Light & Power]
¶ GE has announced it will provide operations and maintenance services for 819 wind turbines at eight wind farms in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Texas for E.ON Climate and Renewables North America. [4-traders]
¶ The California ISO is preparing for another summer without the San Onofre power station while facing the growing possibility that the nuclear plant will never return to service. They expect no blackouts for the summer. [Los Angeles Times]
¶ A poll of North Carolina senators in the finance committee shows that the voice vote to repeal the state’s renewable energy standard, which the chairman controversially declared passed, actually had a majority against the change. [WRAL.com]
¶ The NRC says a pair of goldfish found swimming in a pitcher of radioactive water in the Perry Nuclear Power Plant does not constitute a security event, and they have no idea where the radioactive water came from. [Timesonline.com] (I guess you could say the NRC security people have no objections to pranks played with radioactive materials.)
¶ The Kewaunee nuclear plant is scheduled to be shut down at noon today by owner Dominion Resources. A local economic development team visited a plant being decommissioned, to see what lessons could be learned. [Green Bay Press Gazette]
¶ About 79 gallons of diluted radioactive water were released into Lake Michigan from the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant before it was shutdown, according to the NRC. The level of radioactivity was very low. [Kalamazoo Gazette – MLive.com]
geoharvey 
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