Most Markets Open Columbus Day

My bad. My earlier posting was wrong. I thought the markets in the US were closed Columbus Day. But I guess it's only the bond market, the federal government, and some banks.

The futures for commodities show the price of oil is trending higher, up forty-one cents.

Timeline Regarding Foreclosure Situation (Not a Bakken Story)

This is not a Bakken story. Don't worry. It will soon disappear and be lost among all the other postings. 

March 26, 2010: Obama administration modifies Making Home Affordable program to assist those facing foreclosures. I could be wrong, but it was my impression the Obama administration felt that banks were being too aggressive with regard to foreclosures.

October 7, 2010: Obama will not sign bill that he feels could make foreclosures easier; this seems to suggest that my understanding of the Obama administration stance on foreclosures was correct.

October 8, 2010: Bank of American announces that it has halted all foreclosure action. They made the announcement unilaterally and without warning. Some would have expected the administration to support this action, to make sure foreclosures were fair and legal.

October 10, 2010: Headline: Obama administration doubts need to halt all foreclosures.

October 11, 2010: Attorneys General in 40 states will investigate banks on foreclosure processes. More banks halt foreclosures. 

It's my understanding that about the only houses selling in some markets (California and Nevada, for example) are foreclosed homes. The real estate industry has to be reeling due to the housing market. I assume the real estate lobby contacted the administration when Bank of America took this unilateral action to halt all foreclosures.


Two comments:

1) I'm trying to sort out the difference between a moratorium on foreclosures for the real estate industry and a moratorium on off-shore drilling for the oil industry.

2) Just when there was a glimmer of hope that the housing industry was about to turn around, all bets are now off. Anyone who got a "great deal" on a foreclosed home may learn that the deal was "too good," and are worried that they will lose their home. Would you buy a foreclosed home under this new cloud?

Follow-Up:

October 11, 2010: is there a tectonic shift in the way baby-boomers and Gen X's think about mortgages?

99 Wells Come Off Confidential LIst in November

By my count from the NDIC data, a record number of wells will be coming off the confidential list in November: 99.

Throughout most of the year the number of wells coming off the confidential list each month has been in the mid-60's. I questioned why the number seemed so low with so much activity. Part of the reason, I was told was that EOG did not frack their wells between November and March, and the first March wells to be fracked would come off the confidential list six months later, September.

The backlog seems to be opening. Last month (October),  I counted about 74 wells coming off the confidential list

Now, with 99  coming off the list in November, we are starting to see the activity I expected.





99, Toto

A Huge Thank You

A huge thank you to two folks who wrote to tell me that it was indeed possible to bring the NDIC's "Confidential Spreadsheet" and the "Active Drilling Rig Spreadsheet" to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

I had tried doing that some months ago but it did not work for me. When these folks told me that's what they did, I tried it again, and it worked like a charm.

I can't guarantee my numbers will always be current. Some days I am away from my computer and some days, even if I am watching things, data changes so quickly, one cannot keep up with it.

But the bottom line is that it is incredibly easy to move the NDIC spreadsheets to one's Excel spreadsheet, and then from there sort the data as one wishes.

So, a big thank you. I won't mention names: they know who they are.

The Dollar Cost of Wind Energy (Not A Bakken Story)

I have followed the Cape Wind story near Boston, Massachusetts, ever since I started visiting Boston on a regular basis starting about a year ago.

From the very beginning, it was obvious that a) the wind project was going to be very expensive; and, b) it was being marketed by a small group of self-serving developers (or developer, singlular) and politicians (or politician, singular).

From my perspective, the Boston Globe stressed the "green energy" aspect and not the cost. Today, in a front-page story, the truth is starting to come out: the high cost of this project.

Once the 130 turbines begin rotating, the energy produced will cost up to 50 percent more than energy today from some land-based wind farms and twice as much as some hydroelectric dams. The cost will increase customers’ monthly electric bills about 2 percent, and for many that is too steep in tough economic times.

From the headline, the Globe makes it sound like it was the developer's responsibility to discuss the cost when marketing the project. I remember how hard it was in the beginning to find cost estimates, and only as time went be, due to letters to the editor, did readers find out the real cost. For me, this is a day late and a dollar short for the Boston Globe.

At a time of climbing fossil fuel prices, the administration expected that energy from Cape Wind would not cost much more than energy from other sources. Then came the recession, and a sharp decline in the cost of fossil fuels. State officials continued to make public statements about savings from the project, but the truth was that Cape Wind suddenly looked forbiddingly expensive. Even National Grid, which wants to buy half of Cape Wind’s power, has noted amid its hundreds of pages of legal testimony that the total cost to consumers over the life of the 15-year contract will be more than $560 million over the company’s forecast of energy prices.

"Even National Grid, which wants to buy half of Cape Wind's power...." is stretching the reality. A for-profit entity would not want to enter into this deal. In fact, it was political pressure that pushed National Grid into signing. 

But with regard to cost, it's even worse.

Now, after a new analysis by the attorney general’s office placed the cost of building Cape Wind at more than $2.5 billion, 2 1/2 times the original estimated price tag, the state Department of Public Utilities is weighing whether National Grid’s proposed 15-year contract with Cape Wind is a good deal for ratepayers. A decision is expected by mid-November.

The price tag is 2.5 times the original estimated price tag, and the price of natural gas has fallen to historic lows where it is expected to remain for years.  And that cost will be passed on to consumers.

State officials wanted utilities to enter into 20-year contracts to buy power from renewable power plants, but the utilities balked, saying such deals could cost them millions. It was a major sticking point in the negotiations, but a deal was struck: The utilities agreed to sign 10- to 15-year contracts in return for a guaranteed 4 percent markup over whatever price was negotiated for the renewable power.

The Globe continues to be complicit in hiding the real cost to consumers. The Globe did not mention that the rate paid by consumers would be automatically increased on an annual basis. 

The story has relevance for those living in the Midwest.

The Environomental Cost of Green Energy (Not a Bakken Story)

Updates

March 4, 2012: saving the tortoise is costly for solar energy companies.  Well, duh. Tell that to Big Oil.

How this creature the size of a shoe box became the single biggest obstacle to industrial-scale solar development in the Mojave Desert is turning into a true story of the survival of the fittest.

At the $2.2-billion BrightSource Energy solar farm in the Ivanpah Valley, the tortoise brought construction to a standstill for three months when excavation work found far more animals than biologists expected.

BrightSource has spent $56 million so far to protect and relocate the tortoises, but even at that price, the work has met with unforeseen calamity: Animals crushed under vehicle tires, army ants attacking hatchlings in a makeshift nursery and one small tortoise carried off to an eagle nest, its embedded microchip pinging faintly as it receded.

The company made its first concession to the tortoise during planning, giving up about 10% of its expected power output in a redesign that reduced the project footprint by 12% and the number of 460-foot-tall "power towers" from seven to three.

BrightSource also agreed to install 50 miles of intricate fencing, at a cost of up to $50,000 per mile, designed to prevent relocated tortoises from climbing or burrowing back into harm's way.

The first survey of tortoises at the site found just 16. Based on biological calculations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued BrightSource a permit to move a maximum of 38 adults, and allowed a total of three accidental deaths per year during three years of construction. Any more in either category and the entire project would be shut down. 

Original Post

Wow, wow, and wow!

California is moving desert tortoises to make way for thousands of acres to be covered with solar panels.

This story points out the hypocrisy of environmentalists when it comes to energy.

However, unintended consequences suggest that this will be used as an argument for precedence when other industries are challenged on environmental grounds.

As you read the story, it just gets worse and worse.

The area will be called a "tortoise-free zone."

Tortoise translocation is still an experimental strategy with a dismal track record. In previous efforts, transported tortoises have shown a tendency to wander, sometimes for miles, often back toward the habitat in which they were found. The stress of handling and adapting to unfamiliar terrain renders the reptiles vulnerable to potentially lethal threats: predation by dogs, ravens and coyotes; respiratory disease, dehydration and being hit by vehicles.

But project biologist and tortoise expert Mercy Vaughn was optimistic.

"Our goal is zero kill," Vaughn said. "I feel a lot more positive about this relocation project than any other I have been involved with or heard about. That is because these animals will be transported less than a half-mile away. So they will still be within their home range, or near it."

Let's see. They wander miles to get back to their homes, so moving them a half-mile away will help prevent that. Ooo-kay.