12/13/2007 - Farmington Hills-based Lumecon LLC said Wednesday that it had won a contract with the city of Ann Arbor to supply more than 1,000 LED retrofits in the city's move to 100 percent LED street lighting downtown.

Lumecon was founded earlier this year as the sales and marketing arm of Relume Technologies Inc., which was founded in 1994 as an LED research and development company.

The Relume LED retrofit system is based on XLamp LEDs from Durham, N.C.-based Cree Inc.

The city's contract was awarded after a 25-fixture evaluation installation showed a 50 percent energy savings and a 3.8-year payback on the initial purchase and installation price of the new lamps.

December 12, 2007

China's nuclear program may be a harbinger of things to come in the industry. That nation, which now uses coal to fuel two-thirds of its electric generation, says that its eventual goal is to obtain a third of its power from nuclear energy.

Mainland China has eleven nuclear power reactors in commercial operation -- six of which it has brought on line since 2002, five currently under construction and several others in the works. The aggressive build-out is a response to its reliance on coal and the clean air issues it is creating there. Without change, it will assuredly impact its bustling economy. Unlike western nations, China is unfettered politically with respect to forging ahead with its nuclear expansion. Its experience is therefore going to weigh heavily on the path that developed nations will take.

December 7, 2007

Liquefied natural gas could overflow with prosperity. But, real risks are present.

Stranded gas found in pockets around the world can be frozen, transported and then re-gasified in areas where natural gas shortfalls persist. Right now, that LNG provides about 2.8 percent of this nation's natural gas, a figure that the U.S. Department of Energy is predicting to increase to 16 percent by 2030.

November 28, 2007

Union Drilling says that its natural gas drilling fleet consists of 71 land-based rigs. It is predicting business will boom in all of its service territories from the Appalachian Basin through the Arkoma Basin in Arkansas and Oklahoma and into the Forth Worth Basin -- all containing rich sources of conventional and unconventional natural gas.

The company is one of dozens angling to get more access to natural gas reserves in the United States. The industry's arguments today have more resonance and namely that the demand for natural gas is greater than available supplies, causing prices to rise. But, their points are well-taken because of improvements in drilling technologies that are reported to leave a much smaller footprint in the communities in which they operate.

November 26, 2007

It is election season and the rhetoric in the air may not be healthy for the nuclear industry. The sector is getting it from all sides, with some on the right arguing that too many subsidies exist while some on the left are saying it is still unsafe.

It all means that nuclear energy could get burned before it would rise from the ashes. With ample uranium to feed the proposed plants and with relatively no harmful emissions associated with it, the nuclear sector is poised to respond. But legal and financial impediments are still combining to add extraordinary risks.

November 14, 2007

Things are looking up south of the border. But restrictive policies in the electricity and natural gas sectors still hamper growth in Mexico.

Over the past 20 years, Mexico has made great strides reducing trade barriers and thereby allowing more private investment. While its current gross domestic product is growing annually at 4.8 percent, it still needs to enact more regulatory reforms to lift per capita GDP growth, raise living standards and reduce poverty at a quicker rate, says the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Russia will always remain a mystery. Over the last 15 years, the nation has evolved from one that is tightly regulated to one that is more open -- and then partially back again. The nation's electricity sector, however, is about to be largely privatized.

Shareholders of RAO Unified Energy Systems just voted to liquidate the company, in a process that will be completed by July 1, 2008. The state will still own about 52 percent of the enterprise but 45 percent of it will be sold to investors on the London Stock Exchange. That's a major move for the Russian government, which has decided to expand its influence in certain economic sectors and namely in natural gas and aerospace.