Hypocrisy Is Spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y -- December 23, 2017

Updates

December 26, 2017: China's natural gas consumption soars. From oilprice.com.

Chinese natural gas consumption surged through the first 11 months of 2017, up 19 percent year-on-year.

China is the third largest consumer of natural gas in the world, behind the U.S. and Russia, and is expected to show the strongest demand growth over the coming decades—propelling it to second place by 2040.

As the nation's industrial and residential sectors pivot away from coal (think: smog), natural gas demand is going through the roof, with domestic Chinese LNG prices reaching a six-year high in recent weeks.

One data point that highlights these tightening fundamentals is how CNOOC just rented a convoy of 100 trucks to transport LNG thousands of kilometers to northern regions in China to fill supply gaps.

Driven by this recent rampant rise, China is now the second-largest importer of LNG globally. Spiking demand has lifted Northeast Asian spot LNG prices above $10/MMBtu.

Natural gas consumption: US, Russia, China, and then India, I suppose. That tells met that India is using a lot of coal (as is China, of course).

Original Post

North Texas. Yesterday was cold, windy, rainy -- it completely reminded me of southern Scotland in winter. We were told to expect more of the same today.

It was a bit cool taking Sophia to gymnastics and then swimming this morning, but when we left the education and training center about noon, it was a beautiful day: bright sunshine, no wind, and fairly warm.

Now (about 4:00 p.m.CT) it's short-sleeve weather and not a cloud in the sky. Our older granddaughter says our e-mail will be slower today since "everything is now in the cloud," and THE cloud is nowhere to be seen today. Yesterday, with all the clouds, she said, our e-mail moved very, very quickly.

Speaking of which, I'm told that iPhones use slightly more power on nights when there are full moons. To protect the iPhones, Apple will throttle back the processing time of older iPhones to conserve battery power when the moon is full. Apple says that most people won't notice it but if they do it will be rare, usually only once in a blue moon, or 1.16699016 x 10-8 hertz.

I assume Apple is making the announcement to fend off class-action lawsuits.

Whatever.

All I know is it's great bicycling weather and that's what I'm doing -- but stopping now for a Coke and a bit  of blogging.

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ISO Watch (Or Is It ISO-Ouch?

ISO New England: spot price for electricity surged to almost $250/MWh earlier this morning and $150 this afternoon, but is now (6:34 p.m. ET) down to about $50/MWH. How's that renewable energy working out?

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Global Warming

Global warming. Both China and the UK are experiencing incredibly cold winters. I mentioned China's winter a few weeks ago and now I'm hearing about the weather in the UK. We've talked about this many times over the years. If I find the old posts, I will link them but I'm not going to go looking for them. The articles today (sent by various readers):

• China's LNG imports surge to record amid winter heating crunch, from Bloomberg, December 22, 2017 --
• LNG imports rise 53% y/y to a record 4 million tons
• November LNG pipeline supplies up 27% to 2.5 million tons
• coldest winter in five years has been forecast for Britain, from The Daily [London] Star, December 23, 2017
• it's a bit difficult making sense of the article as written, so I won't say anything but post the link.
• this article and headline are a bit easier to understand. From The [London] Express, November 28, 2017: Britain is facing "snowmageddon" as La Nina to bring Big Freeze. 
• Britain's Christmas weather 2017 is set to be the harshest for years thanks to a freak phenomenon in the world's biggest ocean. Two comments:

I did not see England's most famous analyst mention the forecast for such a harsh British winter; if John Kemp tweeted it, I missed it.

Thank goodness for global warming to provide a bit of warming effect on this very, very cold weather to hit Great Britain ... and just when things seemed to be going so well.

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Synonyms: Hypocrisy, Fake News

Bird Brains

Killing eagles. This is my world view of the laws protecting migratory birds:

• for two centuries (1781 to 1981) the US had the strictest and best-enforced laws in the world to protect migratory birds
• era of Algore: California piloted the advancement of the wind power industry. Between 1981 and 1986, 15,000 turbines producing more than 1,000 MW of power were installed in the state
• in December, 2016, the Obama administration officially announced that individual wind-energy companies that plan to operate the technology for up to 30 years, will be allowed to kill up to 4,200 of the birds without liability. See also Scientific American, in which it was noted that the bill did not limit killings to wind farms: the permits can be sought by "all sources of human-caused eagle mortality," including oil and gas exploration and production, mining, military bases, airports, cell towers and utility lines
• on December 23, 2017, the Trump administration did away with the need for permits and re-interpreted the Federal laws to say that "accidentally killing migratory birds not a crime."

I have no dog in this fight. It is what it is, but considering that slicers and dicers, and solar fryers kill tens of thousands of more birds than any oil site, this bill is clearly a huge win for the renewable energy sector. It also provides a lot of "coverage" for USAF air bases. I know there were more than a few Air Force commanders that wanted to kill the Canadian geese pooping on military golf courses.

It was not hard to see this one coming. Either it's legal or not legal to kill migratory birds accidentally, but one energy industry cannot be held to a different standard than another energy industry.

However this issue plays out -- I assume it will end up in court -- it's going to be entertaining to watch the Sierra Club thread this needle.

Later: now that unlimited bird strikes are allowed, maybe this wind farm developer will re-consider. Back on December 18, 2017, Penn Energy reported that an energy company has cancelled plans for a wind farm in central Montana, blaming the regulators, saying the regulators set the price too high to make the project unfeasible. TransAlta has scrapped the 21-megawatt farm near Martinsdale after regulators approved a price of $23.30 per megawatt hour. The Calgary-based company wanted more than $43 per megawatter hour for the power. Consumers wanted a price of .... drum roll ... $13.96. 

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Short Takes

Montana: I heard on the radio yesterday that the electricity grid is still pretty much shut down in Puerto Rico.

One wonders if this would have been resolved by now if that Montana company had been allowed to simply complete their job and not told to leave the island by the US Congress. Just wondering. I know anything Montana folks set their minds to will get it done. I have personal experience. As a high school wrestler our Williston team wrestled teams from Montana and North Dakota. The only teams that "terrified" me were the Montana teams.

Back to that Chinese winter story, in case the link is broken. It's an important story on so many levels:

The world’s largest energy user -- that would be CHINA -- is facing a winter supply crunch after demand surged this year amid President Xi Jinping’s fight against smog, which has focused on cutting the use of coal in favor of cleaner-burning gas. 

Parts of the country started facing shortages just two weeks into winter, with Hebei and Shandong provinces in the north and central Hubei reporting supply shortfalls last month and curtailing supplies to businesses and factories in order to keep homes warm. 

Spot LNG prices in Northeast Asia rose this week to $10.90 per million British thermal units, the highest in three years. China’s top economic planner last week reiterated its call for gas suppliers should speed up LNG imports to meet winter demand. 

And I thought wind energy and solar energy was going to solve all the world's energy problems. Silly me.