Energy Roundup: Suncor-PetroCanada Merger, Energy Warfare, Mitsubishi's Electric Car, and More

Fort Hills oil sands has bright future under merged Suncor and PetroCanada — Shareholders approved the merger of Suncor and PetroCanada, forming a behemoth company with 15 major projects, mostly in the oil sands. Lower costs, rising oil prices and the merger have helped the delayed Fort Hills project and outgoing CEO Ron Brenneman says it will likely move up in the priority list. [Source: Calgary Herald]

Declassified documents show U.S. explored electromagnetic warfare — Government-funded research examined electromagnetic warfare, according to declassified documents released recently. What could you possibly use it for? In one application,  electromagnetic fields could be used to incapacitate large groups of people. Another use it to cause brief memory loss. [Source: Cleantech Law and Business]

Mitsubishi unveils $47,000 electric car  — Mitsubishi unveiled its electric iMiEV car and consumers will be able to buy them by April 2010. For now, the cars will be leased to commercial customers in Japan. Another Japanese automaker, Subaru, has an all-electric car of its own and plans to release a small 170-unit run of the Stella EV minicar by the end of the year. [Source: Greentech Media, Earth2Tech]

U.S. Geothermal tapped for DOE loan — U.S. Geothermal, pinpointed by BNET blogger Chris Morrison as one of the top five companies to watch, has been selected by the Department of Energy for review on a $85 million project loan. The money would be used to fund about 80 percent of the $106 million estimated cost for its Neal Hot Springs project in eastern Oregon. [Source: Renewable Energy World]

Chesapeake board targeted by proxy firm over CEO pay — Chesapeake Energy’s board is still receiving flack over CEO Aubrey McClendon’s $112.5 million pay package. Last month, BNET discussed protests over pay at Chesapeake and Shell. This time proxy-advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co. is encouraging shareholders to withhold votes for members of the board. The firm’s recommendation holds little promise for a change in the board’s structure because the three members facing re-election at next week’s annual meeting are unopposed. [Source: WSJ]

Refined fuel stockpiles rise, crude floating storage falls – Refined fuel stored on tankers at sea has surged 71 percent since April, while a recent report shows the number of supertankers used to store crude oil dropped last month. About 41 million barrels of gas oil and jet fuel — up from 24 million barrels in April — were being stored in tankers. Meanwhile, the number of supertankers storing crude oil  dropped to 34 in May from 53 a month earlier.  [Source: FT, Business Insider]