Solar stock Ersol rose to a new record after German engineering giant Bosch said it paid $157 a share, a premium of more than 60%, for a controlling stake in the company. This from The Guardian:

Shares in leading German solar stocks rose substantially on expectations that other big players, including oil groups, are on the prowl in a market that grew to €6.6bn last year and is forecast to top €18bn by 2020.

Vietnam has drawn up plans to mine local uranium for its first civilian nuclear power plant, which is expected to come online in 2020.

According to Bloomberg, the project aims to extract about 8,000 metric tons of uranium octaoxide from the central province of Quang Nam.

“If coal is the short-term solution to the world’s energy needs, uranium is the long-term play,” says Jason Simpkins in Money Morning.

Companies specializing in centralized fossil fuel fired generation need to move towards energy efficiency and diversity of generation, Scottish and Southern Energy, Britain’s second largest energy supplier, said today.

“The days of meeting an unchecked demand for energy through monolithic carbon intensive power stations are coming to an end. Increasingly the emphasis will be on energy efficiency, renewables, cleaned up fossil fuel plant and micro generation,” the company said in a statement accompanying its full-year results, according to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

China’s nuclear power companies have ambitious export plans, but massive domestic expansion may stop them from going global for up to a decade, according to Thomson Reuters:

A $1 billion deal signed last week with Russia to build and supply a uranium enrichment plant in China was another step towards civilian nuclear independence, less than two decades after its first nuclear generator came on line.

A new era of coal is upon us.

‘Check out the new Harmony uranium venture. It’s looking interesting…’ My ears pricked up. It is the most positive thing I have heard from any of my contacts in South Africa for a good few months. As I told Erin, it could not be more up-to-the minute, having both uranium and gold!