Another Opportunity For The Kennedy Clan To See Snow -- November 7, 2015; The Keystone, TKO Decision

USA Today is reporting that it's very possible Boston will see record snow this winter.

There is a theory about snow in Siberia during the month of October: If there is a lot, it can mean a particularly wicked winter in the northeast United States.

Last month, Siberia experienced record snowfall and the worst blizzard in a decade.

Above-average snow cover in Siberia is believed to affect the now-famous polar vortex and send bitterly cold temperatures to the Northeast. This happens when the Arctic Oscillation, a climate pattern, shifts.

Very, very interesting about the Siberian snow. It seems every month another record is set in something somewhere in the world: record high temperature, record low temperature, record Arctic melting, record Antarctic ice thickening, record snow in Boston, record snow in Siberia, ten years without a major hurricane to hit landfall in, records at both ends of the spectrum. I guess with computer modeling you can get whatever you want.

Anyway, as long as I started with that, I might as well clean out the e-mail before I get to "top stories of the week."

What else is in the mailbox from this past week?

FuelFix is reporting on a $2.5 billion, 700-mile project to take the place of the Keystone. Actually, not quite, but reported the same day as The Kerry-Obama (TKO) decision to kill the Keystone, it certainly becomes a metaphor for the changing winds when it comes to energy in this country. Apparently folks don't mind high voltage transmission lines cutting through their own backyards but are absolutely adamant that they won't allow a pipeline to cross, out-of-sight, some distant state. But I digress. The 700-mile project is a proposed high-voltage transmission line from the Oklahoma panhandle to Tennessee, via Arkansas. The transmission line is required for yet-to-be-built wind farms in western Oklahoma.

I was curious if this transmission line would pass through Hope, Arkansas, so I went to google maps to refresh my USA geography. I see that overnight President Obama quietly re-named Hillary's ancestral state. In the graphic below, it appears that President Obama has taken a page from Vladimir Putin's playbook and doubled the size of Kansas, apparently by executive order. Of course, Obama outdid Putin on this one. Whereas Putin had to use troops to take the Crimean, the Ukraine, and Syria, Obama did the "Kansas Thing" without the army or even Homeland Security. This would not have happened if Bob Dole were still alive.

 From Google maps, Saturday, November 7, 2015, ~ 8:35 a.m. Central Time

By the way, for future reference, we now have a rule-of-thumb to estimate the cost of a new high-voltage transmission line. This transmission line ($2.5 billion / 700 miles) will cost about $3.6 million / mile. With cost overruns, etc., one can safely say a high-voltage transmission line will run you about $4 million / mile. A pipeline runs about $1 million / mile, as does a new four-lane divided state highway. This country -- the good 'ol USA -- has money to burn.

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Michelle Caruso-Cabrero Is Looking Forward To Another Trip To Greece

This may be the most-overlooked story of the week. Germany and the EU have pretty much bailed out Greece so many times in the past few years most of us have lost count. Angela Merkel was able to get Germany to go along with the most recent bailout by assuring her fellow country men and women that Greece was on its road to recovery, and once they got the bailout, the Greek economy would take off.

How's that scenario working out? This was in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. The graphic below might be a bit confusing for those living in Hope, Kansas. The dark blue is the historical GDP growth rate; the light blue is the current projected GDP growth rate; and the "T" is the previously projected GDP growth rate on which the Greek bailout was sold.

Uh-oh. Look closely at Greece. Greece was forecast to have 3% rate of growth for all of 2016, a growth rate higher than Spain, Germany, and even the Eurozone! That was the old forecast, the forecast that was used when bailing out the country of Socrates and Pericles. But look at the current projection -- not only is the rate of growth lowered, but it falls deeply into negative territory.

Again, this is a hard graph to understand. The graphic above with Kansas more than doubling in size is easier to see but harder to envision.

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Back To The Keystone: The New York Times Perspective

At risk of beating a dead pipeline, this article is linked for this reason: close reading of this article suggests that even The New York Times was perplexed by the Keystone TKO. The TKO made absolutely no sense based on a) reality; b) previous actions by the administration; and, c) common sense. The writer was positing a different theme, but reading between the lines one might see what I'm talking about:

The Obama administration, for example, approved a shorter section of the pipeline connecting the storage field in Cushing, OK, with Texas refineries, allowing an increase in both Canadian and domestic shipments of 700,000 barrels a day. At the same time, Enbridge and Enterprise Partners expanded a separate pipeline system, called Seaway, which can now deliver 850,000 barrels a day from Cushing to the Gulf refinery hub.

All told, the Gulf refineries have tripled their processing supplies of Canadian crude since 2010 to more than 300,000 barrels a day.

The point is that Canadian oil is reaching the gulf over the rails or by barge down the Mississippi, certainly less efficient, more costly, and more dangerous. And, of course, emitting that highly toxic CO2 all along the way, none of which is emitted while flowing down a pipeline.

By the way, what is the most current reading for atmospheric CO2? I'm glad you asked:

Again, the number comes in below 400, despite the fact that China is burning 17% more coal than previously reported. That, too, was previously posted.

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Speaking Of Bicycles

Not everyone in North Dakota was upset about the Keystone TKO but The Dickinson Press did suggest that they now have an "off-ramp to nowhere":

A new Dickinson exit for Interstate 94 has been completed and is open to traffic.

The $29.4 million project will eventually connect to the next phase of the Dickinson Bypass, scheduled for completion during the 2016 construction season.

Dickinson City Administrator Shawn Kessel said the wider project of the bypass was conceived at a time when the amount of truck traffic coming through the city was “rather excessive.”

“We were concerned not only about the traffic, but the impact to our roadways, the amount of dollars it was going to cost us to repair and replace those things and also the safety of not only the driving public, but those people who walk and use bikes and such,” Kessel said.

And such. Especially the bike riding. Every time I drive back to the Bakken I see a lot of bicycle riders on the interstate west of Dickinson. It's nice to see the new exit ramp installed so bikers don't need to ride through the ditches to see the MDU-Calumet refinery.

The Dickinson Press also noted that some folks in North Dakota and Montana were very unhappy with the Keystone decision, especially those folks who now have mountains of pipeline sitting above ground and rusting. I suppose one could stand some of the sections of pipeline on their ends and make shafts for wind turbines, or turn them into artificial leks for sage grouse. 

The mail box still has a few items, but my contract does not allow for individual posts to go on this long. So, after a commercial break, I'll be back to do the top stories this past week in the Bakken. The break may be several hours. I'm going biking.