15 May11: Tepco now says reactor 1 melted down within a few hours of the tsunami hitting Fukushima and the automatic shutdown. Almost all the fuel rods melted and dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel, from which all water had drained.

15 May 11: Iraq will miss oil output targets. So say senior company officials operating there. The plan was to quadruple by 2017: lift production to 12 mbd within 6 years, up from 2.6 mbd currently. This increase in production was to be a vital part of keeping oil prices manageable from 2015. Infrastructure is the problem.

15 May 11: Saudi must invest $88bn on power over next 10 years if electricity demand is to keep growing at 8% a year to reach the necessary 75 GW says the water and electricity minister.

5 December 2010: FT:  “From Quakers to suited psychopaths: Too many socially minded businesses leave their conscience behind, argues a new business history that impresses Jeremy Leggett.”

14 February 2011: Huffington Post: US must help Saudi Arabia turn into “the Saudi Arabia of solar,” WikiLeaks cables say. I find it encouraging to see American diplomats thinking like Silicon Valley visionaries when it comes to the role renewable energy industries can have in generating a secure and sane world a couple of short decades from now.

14 May 11: UK will sign up to CCC carbon plan through 2027, the only government to have a legally-binding carbon target beyond 2020. Targets in the plan for 60% overall carbon emissions cuts og 60% by 203 include 40% of power from renewables by then, and 31% of new cars and 14% of cars on the road being electric. Cameron intervened on Huhne’s side against Treasury and BIS.

14 May 11: EDF PR bid to persuade British to embrace nuclear. De Rivaz is thought to be on the verge of admitting that 2018 is now no longer tenable: Fukushima will cause at least a year’s delay.

13 May 11: Rising Mississippi threatens 10% of Louisiana oil production. Heavy rain has been lifting the Mississppi and Ohio rivers for weeks.

13 May 11: Former IEA director: shale gas revolution will disappoint. Jean-Marie Bourdaire concluded at the recent ASPO conference that the US developed the infratructure and (lack of) polcy for a slow-growth industry. Europe will not permit this. China and Australia will not develop shale gas until the returns are better.

13 May 11: Threefold rise in UK of people unable to pay energy bills, in the last four years. So warns the Money Advice Trust.

13 May 11: The meltdown in Fukushima reactor 1 was complete, but it is still not clear whether the pooled fuel on the floor of the reactor vessel went critical again. A China Syndrome seems to have been avoided though.

12 May 11: Tepco discovers reactor 1 fuel rods are fully exposed at Fukushima. Its not clear for how long. Workers started entering the building for the first time last week.

12 May 11: Japan to shut down 35 reactors by end May. That means only around a third of its 54 reactors will be in service. 5 more will be shut down in the months therafter for regular inspections, meaning 75% could be offline this summer.

12 May 11: Japan dodges many rolling power cuts because people and businesses are saving on a whole new scale. Many scheduled rolling power cuts have not proved necessary.

12 May 11: Serious disaster plan problems at US nuclear plants, NRC finds. Inspections show unusable emergency equipment, and failure to consider two of the Fukushima problems: trouble at more than one reactor, and infrastructure failure.

12 May 11: World oil demand almost flatlined in March, the latest IEA data show. Global demand rose just 0.4%. Reasons include the drop in US demand, but also “exceptional events” such as Fukushima.

12 May 11: US gasoline prices fall just as Washington cranks up pricing investigation: gasoline futures are down 9.3% in two days. Prices have hit $4 a gallon in some areas of the US.

12 May 11: Exxon CEO: oil industry needs $21bn subsidies that Democrats are trying to cut over 10 years to help reduce the deficit. Tillerson tells the Senate Finance Committee that removing them would be “counterproductive.” Other company bosses agree.

12 May 11: Wikileaks cables show scramble for Arctic resources by the circum-Arctic nations. Peter Wadhams: the ice has “gone of a cliff.” Measurements have shown that there is now only a quarter of the ice there was in 1979.

12 May 11: Huhne cannot say what the green deal interest rate will be. This is a key question. The Germans only manage 100,000 homes a year even with a Government-supported 2.6% interest rate.

12 May 11: US natural gas revolution wildly oversold, a PostCarbon Institute study concludes. Author David Hughes argues that EIA estimates of quadrupled of shale gas by 2035, from 14% of US gas to 45%, overlook the fast decline rates of wells after as little as a year.

11 May 11: French lower house votes to ban fracking of fossil fuels. If the senate repeats the vote next month it will become law.

11 May 11: Dwindling oil threatens use of Alaksa pipeline. Oil used to flood in at 2 mbd hot enough to mean arrival atround 100 degrees three days later. No longer, it seems. A third as much enters, meaning a journay five time longer. For how much longer?

11 May 11: Vestas says offer of 2,000 UK jobs depends on policy. The wind turbine manufacturer has signed an option on land for a factory.

11 May 11: Huhne strengthens energy bill with edict for landlords forcing them to take prt in the green deal. From April 2016 they will not be able to refuse reasonable requests from tenants, and from April 2018 they won’t be able to reent properties with less than an E rating.

11 May 11: SSE found guilty of mis-selling to 800,000 customers. Doorsteppers were told to give the impression they knew the householder was paying more with another energy supplier, when they didn’t. Surrey County Council Trading Standards have prosecuted them successfully. Now they want to go for their assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Sentencing is on 27 May.

11 May 11: Rolling Stone: Goldman Sachs lied, and should be presecuted. In an article chronicling the extraordinary findings of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, they set out a considerable rap sheet: a tale of master manipulation of systemic fraud.

10 May 11: UK green deal criticised as too weak as the Energy Bill enters second reading in the House of Commons. Households and businesses will be able to pay for energy efficiency measures in installments on their energy bills. FoE proposes a “warm homes” amendment committing to numbers and forcing landlords to act.

10 May 11: UK cabinet split on CCC’s 60% cuts by 2030 recommendation. Cable has written to Huhne saying the proposed carbon budget will cost the economy too much. The Treasury agrees with him, saying the UK could not afford them. Climate Change Committee chairman Adair Turner meets ministers to lobby. Will the government reject the independent statutory committee’s advise?

10 May 11: UK set to miss carbon and renewables targets. Cambridge Econometrics says current and planned policies will entail narrowly missing the first and second target, and missing the third (2018-2022) by a long way. The key targets of 20% carbon cuts and 15% renewables by 2020 will both be missed.

10 May 11: Co-operative Energy opens shop with a low-carbon UK energy consumer offering: lots of renewables, but some gas and nuclear in the mix offered. They want to change the Big 6 to the Big 7, they say.

9 May 11: US study finds methane contamination of drinking water near fracking sites, with up to 17 times normal concentrations within 1 km of wells in Pennsylvania and New York. Companies expect to drill some 2,000 wells in Pennsylvania this year.

9 May 11: Solar PV industry protests climate committee treatment of solar: barely mentioned in the CCC report, and only as an expensive option, comparing out of date costs to wholesale price competition, not retail.

9 May 11: S&P cuts Greece rating two more notches into junk status on the prospect of a further bailout, which they argue would be equivalent to a default. Politicians have said the €110bn original bailout is not enough. The ECD has agreed a restructuring of the debt is needed.

9 May 11: Banks cave in on PPI mis-selling, starting with Lloyd’s. The floodgates are now open for the biggest-ever consumer payout.

9 May 11: Solar PV cell and module production up >100% in 2010. PV News reports 23 GW of cells and 20 GW of modules produced, by more than 100% year on year. 17.5 GW of installations exceeded 2009’s 7.2 GW by 141%. Germany installed 7.3, Italy 3.9. Tier 1 Chinese crystalline silicon module prices declined from around $2.20/Wp on average in 2009 to $1.75/Wp in 2010. Five cell producers are >1 GW: Suntech (1.5), JA Solar, First Solar, Yingli and Trina. China/Taiwan is now 59% of the cell market, up 152%. Cell and module production is expected to increase by over 50% in 2011.

8 May 11: UK public still favours nuclear post-Fukushima, and in so doing is out of step with the rest of Europe. 80% of British are either in favour or think that nuclear will have a role to play in climate policy. 16% are against in any circumstances. These figures, in a Populus poll, haven’t changed since 2007. 42% favour building new nuclear, and 31% are against. But the support for, unlike against, is increasingly “soft”, the poll shows.

8 May 11: Oil rebounds, but a hedge fund loses £400m on the slide: Clive Capital, the world’s largest commodities hedge fund. Most were wrongfooted by the unexpected fall.

8 May 11: Shale gas “will transform markets.” Renewables will rise at best to 7% of primary energy by 2035, and require mjor subsidy, says Nick Butler in the FT. But shale gas production has risen 12 fold in the US during the last decade, now providing a quarter of needs. Some talk of exports. This could happen elsewhere. Shale gas could be the future.

8 May 11: “Victorian orthodoxies” will not save the UK economy, argues Will Hutton in the Observer. At today’s interests rates, we should be borrowing and investing, creating demand. He cites E&Y’s calculation of £450bn investment needed in the next 15 years to fight climate change, of which only £70bn is planned, i.e. £380bn short.

7 May 11: UK government way off “greenest government” promise, a report for Friends of the Earth by former Sustainable Development Commission head, Jonathon Porritt, concludes. Little or nor progress can be claimed on three quarters of 77 sustainability policies.

7 May 11: Pirate solar PV salesmen are becoming a problem in the UK. The BBC describes a dire example involving a Poole-based operator who is not Micropower Certification Scheme (MCS) accredited.

6 May 11: BP has to concede in fight with AAR: TNK-BP will do the Arctic oil exploration. BP still hopes to keep the share swap with Rosneft alive. But this will entail Rosneft agreeing to work with TNK-BP. All this is as a result of the conclusions of an arbitration panel. BP failed in April to buy out the oligarchs of AAR, who demanded $35bn fo their 50% share.

6 May 11: Japan shuts down more reactors. The government asks for two south of Tokyo at Harnakoa, atop a fault, to be closed pending reviews of earthquake vulnerability.

5 May 11: Oil falls 10% in a day – $12, the biggest ever abolsute fall – and commodities generally suffer a rout. The reasons probably begin with new figures showing a slowdown in the US economy, but other factors probably figured.

5 May 11: Kremlin accuses Russian oil groups of price fixing. They have colluded to keep petrol out of the market, and this is why there are shortages, he says. He orders the anti-monopoly service to investigate.

5 May 11: Workers enter Fukushima reactor building for first time since the accident. They can only do 10 minutes each, so high is the radiation. They will fit ventilators.

5 May 11: Italy signs a decree capping solar feed-in tariff payments at levels it thinks will deliver grid parity by 2017: a gradual descent to 2013 (with a fixed limit through 2012), thereafter amounts tied to a €6-7 bn overall limit on spending through 2016, by which time they expect 23 GW installed.

5 May 11: Seven PV companies take Italian government to court over Italian solar feed-in tariff cuts. AES Solar, Martifer Solar, Würth Solar, Fotowatio Renewable Ventures, Siliken, Solarig and Akuo want to pressure the government to keep the existing Conto Energia 3 in place, at least until the end of the year. They claim stranded investments.

5 May 11: Gillian Tett has a sense of deja-vu over ETFs. Exchange traded funds remind her of CDOs. They seemed a good idea at first, but increasingly exotic ETF instruments may be priming a financial trouble spot, as the Financial Stability Board has said in a small little-noticed report.

4 May 11: IPCC on renewables: costs will fall, output will leap. Their most comprehensive IPCC renewables report yet concludes that the technical potential, especially for solar, is higher than projected world energy demand. Renewables will grow up to 20 fold by 2050, reaching 200-400 exajoules. (World energy supply in 2008 was 492 EJ).

4 May 11: Renewables firms struggle with austerity and cheap gas. Vestas, REC, EDP Renewables and First Solar all flag weak 2011 prospects.

4 May 11: “Cute” green energy won’t solve global problems, says Bill Gates, only big schemes like solar in deserts and nuclear will. Research is needed to find breakthrough technologies, he says. Isn’t here a danger of him sounding like the men from IBM?

4 May 11: Act now on peak oil or curtail mobility, EC Transport DG tells a meeting in European Parliament. Jeremy Leggett speaking at the meeting: … “warned the Brussels conference that the peak oil risk paradigm closely resembled the credit bubble shortly before it burst in 2008. “Our worst-case fear is that this will be experienced as a form of energy famine that – in a ‘just-in-time’ delivery world – could descend surprisingly quickly,” he said.”

4 May 11: Two US nuclear reactors are nearing completion. S&P analysts say they on course for operating licences by end 2011. S&P do not expect material delays as a result of Fukushima.

4 May 11: EU nuclear stress tests may be watered down. Beginning in June, they were to include terrorist attack and human error, but regulators are pushing for tests of natural disaster resistance only.

4 May 11: 5 men arrested at Sellafield had taken wrong turn. This morning, however, they and their suspicious “behaviour” of yesterday were front page “terrorist” news.

4 May 11: India looks to Australia for yet more coal. Adani Enterprises, the largest Indian coal importer, has bought an Australian coal terminal for $2bn.

4 May 11: FTSE 100 would be nearly a third carbon fuels after the Glencore IPO at the end of the month, if the likely valuation of c. £60bn holds. The mining, oil and gas sectors would make up some 34% of the index. Mining would be worth £320bn, more than oil and gas.

4 May 11: French bank volunteers to pay a Tobin Tax. The 0.01% self-imposed tax on Credit Cooperatif’s foreign exchange trading would raise an estimated €100,000 a year for development projects.

3 May 11: Iraq halves oil output target. It is now 6.5 to 7 mbd, down from 12, by 2017, according to Oil Ministry sources of the Times. It current pumps 2.68 mbd. The government is aware that too much production would depress prices, and that massive investment would be needed in order to hit the target: $150bn according to the IEA. Contracts will be rengotiated with BP, Shell and others.

3 May 11: Third Eurozone country bailed out: Portugal accepts €78 bn (¢116m) package from EU and IMF.

3 May 11: Goldman advises clients to sell commodities, while Morgan Stanley says continue to buy, for now. Goldman’s reasons include weakening demand in the US and Japan, and the risk of Middle East instability spreading.

3 May 11: US justice department sues Deutsche Bank for more than $1bn, over lies and “reckless” endorsement of risky mortgage loans during the run up to the financial crisis.

3 May 11: “More total fuel damage has occurred at Fukushima than all previous reactor accidents combined.” So concludes a Union of Concerned Scientists expert review of events to date.

3 May 11: Fukushima has triggered soaring EU concern about nuclear power, an FT Harris poll shows: around half are more concerned in UK and France. 8% of Germans and 71% of British find it feasible that renewables can replace nuclear within 30 years.

3 May 11: 5 men arrested at Sellafield hours after binLaden killing, on suspicion of terrorist activity. They are from Bangladesh, living in London.

3 May 11: UK solar workforce grows 32% in last 4 months. Most of the 951 new jobs are in sales.

3 May 11: Brightsource IPO may trigger a “Google effect” some investors enthuse, with solar the main sector of interest. Solarcity, SunRun and OPower are cited as other candidates.

3 May 11: Oceans could rise >5 feet by 2100: Arctic researchers. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Project reports back, without troubling newspaper editors too much. Their estimates are higher th an the IPCC’s (up to 23 inches by 2100, in the 2007 report) because they factor in melting of the Greenland ice cap.

3 May 11: Climate change will bring more extreme precipitation and floods, scientists report. An Oxford-led study of 6,000 weather stations from 1951 to 1999, published in Nature, shows a rise in extreme events that cannot be explained by natural variability, but fits greenhouse-gas concentration increases. Humidity is loading the weather dice.

2 May 11: Climate change influenced record US tornadoes in April, top climatologists say. Kevin Trenberth says it is “irresponsible” not to mention climate change in the context of the record month, and record 24 hour period. There is around 4% more water vapour in the atmosphere than 30 years ago.

1 May 11: Centrica threatens to shut gas field in tax protest. The BG owner says it may not resume production in the field, supplying 6% UK of UK gas, unless chancellor Osborne’s recent tax is cut.

1 May 11: Radical new energy solutions may be possible, and will be needed: Scientific American special report. Examples of outliers considered include on the one hand machines that convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into fuel and on the other those capable of “igniting fission reactors with laser-driven fusion explosions that consume spent nuclear fuel.”

30 Apr 11: Renewables will overtake oil, gas, coal as main world energy source by 2025, say leaders of ……..oil, gas companies. The annual Maxwell Drummond International Energy Survey 2011 is based on responses from business leaders in major oil and gas operators and contractors in Europe, US, Canada, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Middle East. Kevin Davidson, CEO: “In contrast to last year’s survey, alternative energy is now at the forefront of energy business leaders’ minds as an increasingly valuable source.

29 Apr 11: US gasoline price now $3.87, close to the 2008 high. Terrible news for President Obama. Polls show that Democrats tend to be blamed when gas prices rise. 69% want more offshore drilling. Exxon’s profits in Q1, just announced: $10bn. But cutting subsidies does not help the motorist, cutting tax does.

29 Apr 11: “Days of abundant resources & falling prices over forever”, guru fund manager Jeremy Grantham says in a quarterly newsletter to investors.

29 Apr 11: Can the Saudis maintain 9 mbd production? Maybe not, an Energy Bulletin analysis suggests. Consistent with earlier Barclays Capital analysis, they conclude that the Saudis are wrong to say the reason for the March production fall is that the market is oversupplied.

29 Apr 11: Scientists hunt million year old ice core. Ice age pulses occurred every 40,000 years or so before then, faster than the 100,000 years or so since. Why?

28 Apr 11: Africa’s largest solar factory to be built in Algeria by Centrotherm: 116MW, by 2014, €290m ($430m) cost. Tangiers plans to spend $60bn by 2030 on renewables, financed by an oil export tax.

28 Apr 11: Oil crunch in 2012-13, Chris Skrebowski predicts at the ASPO Europe annual meeting. Supply is getting tighter and not enough people view the supply issue in terms of flow rates.

27 Apr: 7 PV companies will take the Italian government to court over changes to the Conto Energia IV, a new law that reduces solar support from June. They seek to protect projects long ago started.

25 Apr 11: Greenland ice cores show 5-6 C changes in just years. So James White of the University of Colorado has shown with his research.

4 Apr 11: Virtually no UK mid-sized solar projects will go ahead under the government’s feed-in tarrif cuts, research by building giant Kingspan shows. Almost nothing above 50kW would be reach the 5% target return that DECC has in mind.