GLG News by Nuclear Power Experts (North America)

As projections show the first year-to-year decline for NAND flash orders since the last recession which companies will be willing to test the calmer waters of MEMS, solar cells and LEDs to avert profit losses and potentially ride-the-tide successfully to 2009 and beyond.  Any successful transition...

    The anticipated export of Eastern U.S. coal in 2008 and 2009 will need to be sourced in great extent from the Powder River Basin (PRB).  This is in addition to the new coal plants coming on in 2008 and 2009 using PRB coal. The discussion below provides a forecast on...

    The global coal availability and price has provided the opportunity for U.S. Eastern coals to be placed in export to Europe.  This has dramatically increased Eastern coal prices.  This provides an opportunity for Western Powder River Basin (PRB) coals.

    The increase in coal prices will obviously increase the electricity generating costs at a coal plant exposed to these price increases.  The impact to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and their potential margins is understood.  Regulated utilities, on the other hand,...

    The global coal availability and subsequent coal price explosion has provided a great benefit to Eastern U.S. coal producers.  The Western U.S. coals may not be able to appreciably directly-participate in the export surge.

Achieving grid parity of $1/Watt in the solar cell industry is the holy grail for replacing common methods of energy production.  The increased demand for polycrystalline silicon has hampered the most developed and highest efficiency solar cells from meeting this objective.  Thus,...

The long-awaited breakthrough to achieve a functional and manufacturable phase-change memory integrated circuit appears to have been achieved by Samsung and Numonyx over the last five monthes.  Samsung has approximately a six-month lead in this emerging market over all other competitors. ...

The International Herald Tribune brings in the open the dilemma of the US power companies.  Their efforts to meet increased power demands with pulverized coal fired power plants has been stymied by negative reactions of the financial community due to unforeseen carbon tax risks and, of course,...

Alberta estimates their recoverable bitumen are about 175 billion barrels. making Canada's oil reserves second to those of Saudi Arabia. This has been excellent news for the reliable supply of syncrude to the US refineries. Of course, the pioneer days are over and a shakeout is in progress due to increased...

Hydrocarbon Processing reported in the February 2008 issue that the EPA has now classified gasification process units located within refineries as basic refinery production units. The refineries are now allowed to recycle oil bearing hazardous secondary materials to increase clean fuel production and/or...