Monday, May 16, 2016

Nothing About The Bakken; Simply ... May 16, 2016

Stuttering Mess
 
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If you came here looking for the Bakken, scroll down or go to the sidebar at the right.

I've been watching Pannebaker's 1968 Monterey Pop Festival DVD.

On any given night, I might pick a different "act" to call the "best." Tonight it happens to be Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Wow.

And then I read the comments. Had it not been for the blog I would not have known about the Swampers. I've long forgotten who alerted me to the Swampers but whoever it was, a huge "thank you."

I have about a dozen music DVDs; they are the best of the best. And one of them is of Muscle Shoals; I never would have known of Muscle Shoals had I not blogged about Sam Phillips. Someone saw the post and said if I enjoyed the Sam Phillips DVD, I would love Muscle Shoals. That was so true; it became one of my favorites. Tonight, when I went to YouTube to see Otis Redding, someone said he did most of his good stuff with the Swampers. Incredible. It comes full circle.

So, there you have it. I could quit now, but I'm in the mood to let a stream of consciousness take over.

Otis Redding

I had a close friend some time ago. She said it best: "No, I don't think about suicide. But often I wish I could just fall asleep and not wake up again." Having been so lucky to have experienced the '60's I often think that if I fell asleep and never woke up, at least I saw the '60's. If that makes sense. It helps me put things into perspective.

Stand By Me, Ben E King

I see oil futures this evening have oil over $48 (WTI).

Can you believe this, OKC Thunder stuns Golden State Warriors, 108 - 102, at Sacramento? Wow.

Someone suggested it was time for another road trip; I agree. But I can't leave Sophia.

These are called "first world problems":
The [Baltimore] Ravens had "a five-minute period on May 6 [2015] when rookies and first-year players suited up in pads during a non-contact punt protection drill.

That's against the rules and the NFL will investigate.
According to Hensley's story, the Ravens thought rookie minicamps had different rules than regular OTA practices (so .... they've been violating the CBA for five years?) and pulled the players off the field after Ravens union rep Ben Watson offered some clarification.
If it was just five minutes, that's very easy to confirm because all practices are filmed. But it's still impossible to believe the Ravens had no idea that rookie minicamp wasn't under the same rules about padded practices as the rest of the OTA work.
It's not a new coaching staff and it's not a new rule, either. Maybe it's not a coincidence it happened with rookies who might not know any better. It might have only been five minutes, and maybe it was an honest mistake, but it'll be easy for the NFL to determine if the Ravens broke a longstanding rule. That five minutes could end up being pretty costly.
 And I thought "deflategate" was blown out of proportion. 

Obviously we're not going anywhere with this tonight. See you all tomorrow.

Update On A Few DUCs That Have Been Completed (1Q15, 2Q15) -- May 16, 2016

Since the last update one month ago, these three 1Q15 DUCs have been reported as completed:
  • 25854, 3,098, Statoil, Skarson 1-12 2TFH, Banks, t4/16; cum --
  • 25855, 3,115, Statoil, Skarston 1-12 3TFH, Banks, t4/16; cum --
  • 25857, 4,545, Statoil, Skarston 1-12 4H, Banks, t4/16; cum 4K after 4 days;
Since the last update (unsure when that was), these 2Q15 DUCs have been reported as completed:
  • 30193, 687, XTO, Evelyn 31X-3C, Lindahl, t3/17; cum 10K only 18 days in 3/16;
  • 30194, 352, XTO, Evelyn 31X-3GXH, Lindahl, t315; cum 1K after 4 days;
  • 30196, 231, XTO, Evelyn 31X-3H, Lindahl, t3/16; cum 7K; only 10 days in 3/16;
  • 30195, 686, XTO, Evelyn 31X-3D, Lindahl, 3/16; cum 4K only 13 days in 3/16;
  • 29968, 819, XTO, Odegaard State 31X-16C, Midway, t4/16; cum --
  • 29969, 644, XTO, Odegaard State 31X-16BXC, Midway, t3/16; cum -- only 2 days on line;
  • 28079, IA/689, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 42-22 12T2, Alkali Creek, t12/15; cum 4K after 8 days and then taken off-line;
  • 29564, 3,583, Statoil, Skarston 1-12 XE 1H, Banks, t3/16; cum 14K after 6 days;
Since the last update (unsure when that was), these 3Q15 DUCs have been reported as completed:
30370, 698,
30372, 413,
30859, 156,
30651, IA, produced 3 days 2/16;
30669, 10,
30670, 320,
30173, drl --> SI/NC,
29448, 1,986,
30535, IA, produced a bit, but off-line immediately
30757, 81,
30758, 396,
29752, drl - 233,
30257, 2,110,
30420, 135,
30256, 1,617,
29972, 1,643,
29973, 3,702,
29974, 380,
30456, 1,558,
29563, 4,278,
  
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Pool Girl

Pool_Girl_May_16_2016

Enerplus Reports A Nice Bakken Well -- May 17, 2016

Active rigs:


5/16/201605/16/201505/16/201405/16/201305/16/2012
Active Rigs2883190190211

Wells coming off confidential list Tuesday:
  • 24963, 1,936, Enerplus, Banjo 149-94-02B-01H- TF, Mandaree, t11/15; cum 124K 3/16;
  • 29132, SI/NC, Hess, BW-Erler-149-99-1522H-5, Cherry Creek, no production data,
  • 30622, see below/SI/NC, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC Aldag 4-36-35-164N-100W, West Ambrose, producing,
  • 31202, SI/NC, XTO, Kaye Federal 13X-3C,  Lost Bridge, no production data,
  • 31880, drl, CRL, Corsican Federal 7-15H, Sanish, no production data,
Kaiser-Francis Oil renewed one permit, a Torino permit in Mountrail County.

No new permits.

And that's all there was.
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30622, see above, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC Aldag 4-36-35-164N-100W, West Ambrose:

DateOil RunsMCF Sold
3-201684613900
2-2016123080
1-201640860

24963, see above, Enerplus, Banjo 149-94-02B-01H- TF, Mandaree:

DateOil RunsMCF Sold
3-20162464820820
2-20162291822384
1-20162548020369
12-20153501120369
11-2015152726262

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Channeling Jim Carrey

Notice at the very beginning she abruptly jumps from "herself" to her "acting/posing":

MakingFaces_May_16_2016

Saudi Aramco IPO: The Numbers Don't Add Up And For Bloomberg: Business As Usual -- May 16, 2016

Updates

Later, 9:13 p.m. Central Time: with regard to US Treasuries and Saudi Arabia, please do not read my post without reading the post at ZeroHedge, a post found by a reader (see first comment, thank you very much).  Too comments:
  • Saudi Arabia could be holding more US Treasuries than being report by the US government
  • it appears no one has any clue
Be sure to read the entire ZeroHedge post. Again, a huge "thank you" to the reader for spotting this. 

Original Post
 
From various sources this is my 30-second, elevator speech regarding Saudi Arabia and its trillion-dollar mistake:
  • the country is said to have had about $850 billion in cash and marketable equities when this all started;
  • the country is said to have lost maybe $250 billion since October, 2014, due to the "trillion-dollar-mistake"; maybe more, maybe less; maybe a lot more;
  • currently the country is losing about $5 billion / month;
  • the NY Times recently reported that if the "9/11 report" was released, Saudi Arabia was ready to sell $750 billion in US Treasuries; and,
  • one would think about 2/3rds (maybe more of a country's assets) would be in cash, marketable equities, or in this case, 0.67 * 850 = $550 billion.
In a short Bloomberg story posted today, the writers note that the US Treasury Department:
... has released a breakdown of Saudi Arabia's holding of US debt (i.e., Treasuries), after keeping the figures scret for more than four decades. 
And ... drum roll ... drum roll...
The stockpile of the world's biggest oil exporter stood at $116.8 billion ... 
... let's just call it less than $150 billion, giving Prince Salman a bit of slack. Now 5% of a trillion company ($50 billion) looks a lot more reasonable. I always wondered why such a low amount ("less than 5%" has been the usual boiler-plate number) was being offered in the IPO. Well, now we know. If one's stockpile is only $150 billion, then $50 billion actually looks pretty impressive.

I don't know. Nothing adds up. But then my experience in the the Mideast for two years confirms that nothing ever adds up in the Mideast.

Compare the Saudi's state amount of US Treasuries (less than $150 billion) with that of:
  • China, $1.3 trillion
  • Japan, $1.1 trillion
Bloomberg says Saudi's $116.8 billion "ranks Saudi Arabia among the top dozen foreign nations in terms of holdings of US debt, and ..."

I don't know about you, but $120 billion is not even in the same ballpark as $1 trillion, especially when you are losing $5 billion/month. But then that many zeros has (have) always confused me.

Maybe I'm misreading something. 

1,000 DUCs In Eagle Ford -- May 16, 2016

Energent Group is reporting:
There are currently about 1,000 drilled uncompleted wells in the Eagle Ford.
Throughout 2015, operators completed additional wells reducing the uncompleted inventory.
Anadarko, EOG Resources, and Chesapeake are the operators with the most DUCs in the Eagle Ford. The three top operators hold 38% of the DUC inventory.
Link here.

The NDIC says that there are about 1,000 DUCs in the Bakken.  Emergent Group had an update on the Bakken DUCs in April, 2016.

Musings -- May 16, 2016; Sandridge Files For Bankruptcy

Sandridge Energy files for bankruptcy.
...filing for bankruptcy protection Monday after reaching a deal with its creditors to swap $3.7 billion in debt for control of the oil and gas company.
The Oklahoma City company filed for chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston after reaching a deal with the majority of its lenders and bondholders on the terms of a “prearranged” debt restructuring pact.
SandRidge Chief Executive James Bennett said the proposed debt swap, which requires court approval, will allow the reorganized company to concentrate on oil and gas exploration and development in our active Oklahoma and Colorado project areas.
The company will stay open during the chapter 11 case and expects to exit bankruptcy “with minimal disruption to our business,” Mr. Bennett said.
SandRidge says it has enough cash to fund its ongoing operations without a bankruptcy loan. Among its initial bankruptcy request is the authority to pay operating expenses associated with production activities, royalties and wages to its workers. The company also intends to pay all suppliers and vendors in full during the bankruptcy.
This is sort of what the government does when it does bailouts. 

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Page 3 (the most important page of The Wall Street Journal), above the fold, the headline: mass balloon releases prompt lawsuit. The mass balloon releases are the balloons that are released at the beginning of college football games, for example. Activists say such mass balloon releases after an "adverse effect on the environment.

On the op-ed page, the WSJ editors remind us that activists are not concerned that the Obama administration feels 5,000 bald eagle deaths/year is not too big a price to pay for wind energy.

And so it goes.

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Daniel Yergin who is probably the most trust name in "oil" has a long op-ed piece in today's WSJ: Where oil prices go from here.?With political change in Saudi Arabia and the market rebalancing, look for $50 a barrey by the fall. As I've said before, $50/bbl for Saudi Arabia is no better than $30 oil when they budget for $100 oil and are losing $5 billlion in cash reserves each month.

For the US oil and gas industry, $40 oil is a lifeline, $50 oil means more will survive, and $60 oil -- long term -- is just fine.

It helps that GS is now "talking oil up" in light of the imminent SaudiAramco IPO. Monetizing less than 5% of their company suggests that it's more about the headline than the substance of the story.

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Putin, Twitter, And The CIA

Twitter says it will no longer allow the CIA to mine its data (at least not a formal, paying basis). Twitter will continue to allow Putin to mine is data. I can't make this stuff up.

GS "Talking Up Oil" Now That The Saudi Aramco IPO Is Being Finalized -- May 16, 2016

Updates

Later, 2:10 p.m. Central Time: GS is calling it a "supply deficit." I have not seen the GS definition for "supply deficit." It certainly is not the same as  my definition. To me, a "supply deficit" means the demand is higher than the supply. If that were true for oil, the spot price would certainly be a huge story and we are not seeing a corresponding story "spot price." The gasoline lines we saw during the "manufactured" OPEC embargo back in the 1970's -- or whenever it was -- now that's what a "supply deficit" looks like to me. When oil moves from around $46/bbl to around $47/bbl, that  hardly seems to suggest traders take "supply deficit" talk seriously. LOL.
 
Original Post
 
I had forgotten; a reader reminded me. I posted this as an update back in April:
April 19, 2016: Saudi Aramco picks JPMorgan and banker Klein for IPO. Here's the Bloomberg story:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Michael Klein, the former Citigroup Inc. investment banker who runs his own boutique, have been selected to advise on state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co.’s initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.
Klein is providing strategic advice to the government, while JPMorgan is working on preparations for the IPO and may be among the banks that underwrite the listing, the people said, asking not to be named as the details aren’t public. The deliberations are still at an early stage, and no final decisions about the IPO have been made.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman is working on a plan to list shares in Aramco, as the business is known, on the country’s domestic stock exchange as early as 2017. A listing could turn the world’s biggest oil exporter into the largest publicly traded firm with a value in the trillions of dollars.
After months of "talking oil down," Goldman Sachs has now turned bullish:
Goldman Sachs said the oil market has moved from a state of oversupply to a deficit, and believes major supply disruptions in markets such as Nigeria, Venezuela and China will sharply lower production levels.
This is very, very interesting. Think about it. When the IPO is finally offered, the bankers will want to ensure maximum participation and maximum return. What better way to do it than to start "talking oil up." 

Think about it. Last Friday when we were shutting down for the week, there was a huge global oil glut. Here it is, Monday morning, less than 72 hours later, and we are already in a "global oil deficit." 

It should be noted that North Dakota crude oil production remained flat month-over-month in the most recent monthly report despite the headwinds.

Remember: when Saudi Arabia said they would not cut back on oil production back in October, 2014, nothing changed with regard to real production in the big scheme of things. Sure, on a raw data / real number basis, production did increase but from a percentage point of view, it amounted to peanuts, and certainly with demand predictions it was not that big a deal. At least that's my world view / my myth. 

So, now as a reader noted, and reminded me (thank you, very much), now that Saudi Arabia is about to finalize their IPO, the bankers are going to "talk up oil." JPMorgan may have the inside track but this could be such a big deal, JPMorgan may need the help of other bankers, like GS. In addition, the Saudi Aramco IPO could certainly spawn (is that the best / right word) other IPOs and other deals.

WTI is up over 3% right now, flirting with $48/bbl. 

The Exxon service station folks outside my window are changing the price of gasoline on their outside signage as I type this. LOL. 

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Bragging On Our Granddaughter
Notes for the Granddaughters

Wow, this is a big, big deal. Our middle granddaughter, age 9, goes to a pretty big school, a pretty competitive school, a fairly "elite" school -- yes, that word, "elite." Sorry.

I've just received word that from her fourth grade class (three school rooms of students in her fourt-grade class) at her school, she was one of five students selected to have her art work shown at the city's convention center. Wow. The list, student's name followed by teacher's name:
  • Peyton Mester - Kiehn
  • Trenton Bowler - Kiehn 
  • Layne Nguyen - Steele
  • Olivia Nevin - Steele
  • Abbie Ha - Brewton
The reception and award/recognition ceremony will be held this Wednesday. You can expect at least one photograph to be posted! Yeah, pretty proud.

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Bragging On Our Granddaughter
Notes for the Granddaughters

This past weekend our older granddaughter, who plays the flute in her middle school band, attended a band competition in San Antonio/New Braunfels area. The highlight of the trip -- besides the band concert and competition -- was one day at the world famous water park, Schlitterbahn.

Today we got this news from the band director:
We had a fantastic trip to New Braunfels and Schlitterbahn. Our band received all first division ratings and a second place overall rating, missing first to the CTMS Honors band. No one else at that competition could touch CTMS!
We are so proud of all of these guys and girls. It was really a very good performance and I loved seeing them get the reward for their hard work.
Everyone who went is coming home with a souvenir towel from Schlitterbahn. I've seen minimal sunburns and most people came back to school today, so I think the trip was a success!
The "CTMS Honors Band" is the "Cross Timbers Middle School Honors Band" -- her "own" school's honor band. Our older granddaughter has tried out for that honors band and is waiting word on whether she has been accepted. 

Monday, May 16, 2016 -- Motley Fool: Another Geico Rock 2016 Award Nominee?

Updates

Later, 9:40 a.m. Central Time: another Geico Rock Award 2016 nominee? Motley Fool -- they, too, now are noticing the train wreck or as some now call it, Dante's Inferno. Here's the headline:
ObamaCare's 2017 insurer rate requests are starting to stream in, and the figures are scary.

Here's the lede:
It's been more than two years since ... ObamaCare went into full effect for individual consumers...the largest insurer in the US [is] vacating a majority of the 34 states it's currently operating in ...Humana has also threatened to pack up shop due to losses suffered on ObamcaCare exchanges ... more than half of all of ObamaCare's approved healthcare cooperatives closed up shop...due to unsustainable losses...premium prices in 2017 were going to go way up...two states, Virginia and Oregon ... double-digit percentage rate hike requests...the early data is chilling and suggestive of huge premium price hikes coming ... in Virginia, Aetna ... 13% ... Anthem HealthKeepers...Blue Cross Blue Shield ... 15.8%....Aetna and Inova's joint venture .. 16.6% ...the weighted average of the 13 received rate requests is nearly 18%... in Oregon ... even worse .. average rate hikes of 32%...worse of all, it doesn't appear as if insurer rate hike requests are going to ebb once we get beyond 2017...
Well you get the picture. The article goes on and it only gets worse. We've reported everyone of those "facts" over the past two years and predicted them two years earlier. It looks like the Motley Fools and others are finally climbing out from under their rock.

As I've said over and over, the GOP needs to run, not walk away from any discussions on ObamaCare. Let the folks who engineered it, fix it.

Later, 9:00 a.m. Central Time: see first comment from a reader with first-hand experience in New England:
The increased CO2 emissions from New England's power plants is barely scratching the surface of this bizarre, devolving situation. 
During the winter, due to lack of natural gas supply, coal burners and oil burners are fired up to keep the lights on.

Last week, the city of New Canaan, CT, embarked upon a multi-decade long involvement of digging holes and emplacing underground propane tanks (ya know ... the eeevil fossil fuel) in a frantic effort to ensure their children will not freeze this coming winter during school hours. 
All across that area, government facilities, restaurants, new senior citizen complexes are being relegated to having diesel powered trucks resupply propane tanks for DECADES to come so they can have hot water to clean dishes, take warm showers, etc. 
All this within a short car ride from the biggest natgas fields on the planet.
That's very interesting. During our four years in Boston I saw the same thing -- the huge number of diesel trucks on the city roads delivering heating oil, etc, despite the natural gas glut. This sort of reminds me of taxi medallions. Obviously those comings hauling heating oil and propane have a huge invested interest that this does not change. 

Original Post
Active rigs:


5/16/201605/16/201505/16/201405/16/201305/16/2012
Active Rigs2883190190211

RBN Energy: natural gas supply / demand in the Northeast.
The U.S. Northeast natural gas supply/demand balance has been getting less and less short in recent years due to the onslaught of Marcellus/Utica production, and in 2015 flipped to net long supply for the first time on an annualized basis. That means the 15-state Northeast region as a whole produced more gas in 2015 than it used. Then, in the winter of 2015-16, the region reached another milestone when it ended the season net long supply for the first time. Now regional production may be flattening out and future growth is at risk as takeaway capacity projects face economic and regulatory headwinds. What does that mean for the Northeast balance going forward? Today, we begin a series analyzing the latest fundamental trends in the Northeast gas market.
The last time we looked at the Northeast natural gas supply/demand balance was last November (2015).
At the time, we predicted that the Northeast region was likely to end 2015 as a net supplier of gas for the first time on an annual average basis. Until a few years ago the Northeast was a major net demand region with little local supply. The “flip” from net demand to net supply region didn’t happen overnight, of course. Northeast production has been marching toward this milestone since 2010, when the Marcellus Shale became the “next big thing” in the evolution of shale gas production, and the pace picked up in 2013 when the Utica Shale in Ohio joined in the fun. The Northeast supply deficit has been shrinking ever since. While demand has been growing as well, production growth until last year had been far outpacing demand.
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Big Oil's Big Plans For New Natural Gas Markets

The Wall Street Journal is reporting: Producers hope to create new markets to boost demand to drag LNG prices out of the doldrums.
Natural gas transported across the world’s oceans by ship has helped to displace coal burned in European power plants and Chinese household cookers. Now, producers want it to become a fuel for cruise liners, container ships and road trucks.
In doing so, Big Oil hopes to boost demand by enough to drag prices of liquefied natural gas out of the doldrums. LNG prices last month sank to a seven-year low in Asia as demand failed to keep up with rising supply from countries including the U.S. and Australia. Wood Mackenzie, a U.K.-based consultancy, expects the global gas glut will take years to clear, with 70 million metric tons of LNG uncontracted by 2021.
This downbeat outlook helps to explain why energy companies are continuing to seek new markets in LNG, even as they cut spending elsewhere. Royal Dutch Shell PLC recently signed a deal with cruise operator Carnival Corp. to provide LNG at major ports for AidaPrima, a recently launched liner. Woodside Petroleum Ltd. in April signed a five-year deal with Norway’s Siem Offshore Inc. for Australia’s first LNG-powered marine-support vessel that will operate along the northwest coast.
Notice which major energy user is not mentioned: the US Navy. They are still researching algae-based biofuel in case there's ever a shortage of fossil fuel -- oh, that's right. Obama mandated all agencies derive 20% of all energy from "green" sources. Like algae. 

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Finally, What They All Wanted, They Got: Single Payer

The Wall Street Journal is reporting: Insurance Options Dwindle in Some Rural Regions Some health insurers quit unprofitable markets; ACA exchanges in some areas will have one insurer.
Health-insurance customers in a growing number of mostly rural regions will have just one insurer’s plans to choose from on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges next year, as some companies pull out of unprofitable markets.
The entire states of Alaska and Alabama are expected to have only one insurer on the health law’s signature online marketplaces next year, according to state regulators. The same is expected to be true in parts of several other states, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona and Oklahoma.
So far, more than 650 counties appear on track to have just one insurer on the exchanges in 2017, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is tracking withdrawals as they become public. That would be up from 225 in 2016, when the state of Wyoming, among other areas, already had just one ACA marketplace competitor. Of the counties in jeopardy of having only a single exchange insurer next year, 70% have populations that are mostly rural.
 The good news: with no competition, advertising and marketing costs will go down, and healthcare premiums are likely to plummet.

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CO2 Emissions Increasing In New England
It Turns Out Solar/Wind Not What Was Promised

The Boston Globe reported this story over the weekend. Actually it was being reported earlier this year in Right Side News, March 2, 2016:
When Vermont Yankee was set to close, activists such as Bill McKibben claimed that Vermont “is completely capable of replacing (and far more) its power output with renewables, which is why my roof is covered with solar panels."
This isn’t what happened. Instead, natural gas generation expanded in New England.  As a result, carbon dioxide emissions increased 7 percent in 2015

Vermont Yankee, a 604-megawatt nuclear plant, provided New England with 42 years of reliable, carbon dioxide-free power before its closure at the end of 2014.
The plant’s capacity factor exceeded 80 percent over its lifetime—more than double the capacity factor of the most efficient solar or wind plant in the United States, which were expected by some to replace it. But, in reality wind and solar power cannot replace the generation from Vermont Yankee, because a nuclear plant can operate 24/7 and is not dependent on the wind blowing or the sun shining.
As a result, natural gas generation increased in New England by 5.5 percentage points (from 43.1 percent of generation in 2014 to 48.6 percent of generation in 2015), and with it, carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions increased in New England by about 7 percent in 2015, increasing from 28 million tons to 30 million tons, according to data from EPA.
An honorary Geico Rock Award for New England?

Here's The Boston Globe story:
For the first time in five years, power plants across New England are producing more carbon emissions, dealing a setback to Massachusetts’ legally mandated efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and raising concerns that reduced production of nuclear energy will undercut environmental gains.
Last year, the region’s power plants released 5 percent more carbon dioxide than the year before, the first year-to-year increase since 2010, according to ISO New England, an independent company in Holyoke that operates the region’s power grid.
The uptick comes as Massachusetts works to curb carbon emissions in nearly every sector of its economy, in hopes of reaching its 2020 targets.
Massachusetts is legally required to reduce greenhouse gases 25 percent below 1990 levels by that date — part of a national effort to stave off global warming.
I wonder "who" exactly requires Massachusetts to reduce greenhouse gases 25% below 1990 levels by 2020? I assume ultimately the "voters."

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Wow, The Summer Travel Season Has Not Yet Begun

CBS Chicago is reporting that 4,000 travelers missed their flights because they showed up late to the airport. Okay.

My understanding is that the longest line through Midway was only 1 hour and 45 minutes. If you show up two hours early -- as recommended -- hey, never late. And the operators are delaying a/c departures to accommodate late arrivals.

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The Apple Page

Warren Buffett discloses he has $1 billion invested in Apple. I have three Apples on my mind. Our younger granddaughter needs either an iPod or the new iPad. I think the new iPad is the better deal, but she's leaning toward the iPod for convenience sake -- easier to carry while on her walks. For the house, the new iPad so May can watch television news in the kitchen. So, we'll see.

Back to Buffett: his IBM bet was a huge loser.