NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Shares in solar power company First Solar fell over 20% in early trading Wednesday after the firm lowered its sales forecast for 2011.

The Arizona-based company, which is a leading maker of thin-film solar panels and also a developer of solar power projects, predicted net sales in 2011 of $2.8 to $2.9 billion. That’s down from earlier projections of $3.0 to $3.3 billion.

The company said the lower sales were due to delays in its projects caused by weather and “other factors,” but predicted a healthy 2012.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Brace yourselves, peanut butter lovers — prices are set to spike following one of the worst peanut harvest seasons growers have seen in years.

Prices for a ton of runner peanuts, commonly used to make peanut butter, hit nearly $1,200 this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s up from just $450 per ton a year ago.

It won’t be long before consumers see this price increase reflected on store shelves.

Kraft (KFT, Fortune 500) will raise prices for its Planters brand peanut butter by 40% starting Oct. 31, while ConAgra (CAG, Fortune 500) expects increases of more than 20% for its Peter Pan brand.

A spokesperson for Unilever (UL), which makes Skippy, would say only that it’s watching the situation “very closely.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — General Motors, maker of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, will sell a small totally electric car beginning in 2013, the automaker announced Wednesday.

The Chevy Spark EV will be sold in limited markets in the U.S. and other countries, GM said.

Smaller than a typical subcompact, the Spark is a so-called minicar. It’s a couple of inches shorter than a Mini Cooper.

A gasoline-powered version of the Spark is expected to go on sale here early next year.

NEW YORK — Hurricane Irene sent east coast shoppers into stores to stock up on essentials this week, instead of the clothes, notebooks and other supplies that retailers were counting on selling as parents prepare to send their children back to school.

Chains such as Home Depot Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc were doing brisk business on Friday, selling water, flashlights, batteries and other goods in states standing in Irene’s potential track from the Carolinas to Massachusetts.

“Most probably, the biggest demand right now is for generators, obviously,” said Suzanne Roche, manager of a Sears store in Wilmington, North Carolina. “We have got customers calling nonstop about the generators.”

Full Story at Home Depot, others get boost from Irene – Business – Retail – msnbc.com

Home Depot, Walmart, grocers get boost from Irene

DETROIT — Is the Chevrolet Volt running out of juice?

Even as the maker begins its long-promised production ramp-up, a new study suggests that potential buyers are rapidly losing interest in the plug-in hybrid vehicle.

Introduced last December, Volt is one of the first new vehicles to test the potential market for electric propulsion. It has been going head-to-head with Nissan’s pure battery-electric Leaf. Sales of the two vehicles have been marginal, at best, though the makers insist that has more to do with limited supply than buyer demand.

Washington (CNN) — With gas topping $4 a gallon, President Barack Obama on Saturday will announce new plans to speed up domestic drilling for oil.

In his weekly address to the nation, the president will outline his plans for what he calls “safe and responsible” oil production.

The Obama administration will speed up the leasing process for the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, give oil companies better financial incentives to use their leases and extend all drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico so oil companies have more time to implement safety measures after the devastating BP oil spill.

With families across the country struggling to economize, the electricity bill looms as a great place to cut expenditures. While unplugging laptops and installing compact fluorescent bulbs can certainly help trim your power bill, those items only account for a fraction of the average household’s electricity expenditure. To really cut down, you’ll need to take on one of the biggest energy suckers in your home: the refrigerator.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The 2012 New Beetle, the car that Oprah Winfrey gave away to her audience back in November, is finally ready to show itself in public.

The car was unveiled Monday at events held simultaneously in New York City and Shanghai.

The gains came after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake occurred around 10:30 a.m. ET, near the same location off the coast of Japan as the March 11 earthquake.

Japan’s news agency NHK issued a tsunami warning for roughly the same area that had been deluged by water less than a month ago. The tsunami warning was lifted two hours later, with no reports of major damage.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — U.S. stocks rallied for a third day on Monday, as fears about Japan’s damaged nuclear plants eased and investors cheered a huge merger in the telecommunications industry.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) jumped 178 points, or 1.5%, to 12,037. It’s the first time the Dow has closed above the 12,000-point mark since the day of the Japanese earthquake on March 11.

NEW YORK — Watch out for intraday swings because it’s going to be wild.

Cataclysmic events, including a nuclear disaster in Japan, uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa and the possibility of more currency market intervention will keep investors reacting to headlines.

“This is an extremely news-driven market. Investors are on the edge, and they are reacting to every headline they see,” said Randy Frederick, director of trading and derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research in Austin, Texas.

At a time when most of us stream YouTube videos and buy multimedia entertainment from the iTunes Store, the recollection of a time when we depended on a dial-up connection over an analog telephone land line to retrieve a few kilobytes of text may seem vaguely ridiculous.

But while our consumer entertainment and communications gadgets have advanced to nearly magical levels of capability, our nascent electric vehicle industry is still in its formative years, reminiscent of the dark ages of dial-up.