The Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative on Friday approved a wholesale rate increase for its co-op members.
More electricity, less demand, and "we" still gotta pay off those pesky wind turbines.The board approved a 4.5 percent increase, effective this month. The increase comes four months after a 4.5 percent increase in December.
Spring runoff is happening a little sooner than usual, producing more hydropower in the Columbia Basin, there is more wind power in the market and the demand for power is flat, he said. All of which is driving down the short-term price of electricity.It would have been interesting for the writer to go a bit more into the "expenses." One can guess where additional expenses are originating.
The wholesale price increase is needed for Southern to balance its revenues with expenses in a fluctuating market.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia needs to pump at least 9 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude for the next few years and is considering boosting capacity to meet rising demand, Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW) said in a report citing Saudi sources this week.By the way, if one reads the 1Q11 Schlumberger earnings conference call closely, the following quote from the linked article is very, very interesting (in light of what Schlumberger said in the conference call):
Saudi Arabia plans to bring in more rigs this year as it moves ahead with Moneefa, boosting rigs at its disposal by over a quarter.
Despite steadily rising fuel prices in this year’s first quarter, deliveries of crude oil and petroleum products were up sharply from a year ago, according to the latest data from API.I was going to do a stand-alone post on this subject; was thinking about it all day while out and about.
In its monthly statistics report, API reported that total US first-quarter oil deliveries, a measure of demand, climbed by 5.5% from the 2010 first quarter. March deliveries surged by 7.3% to 20.5 million b/d from a year earlier.
China’s top energy industry regulator raised its forecast for the nation’s electricity demand in 2011 because of faster-than-estimated economic growth.This is a huge story on many levels. Just four months ago, China predicted a 9 percent growth forecast; now that forecast has been raised 30 percent.
The country’s power use may increase as much as 12 percent to 4.69 trillion kilowatt-hours this year following a “good start” in economic expansion, the National Energy Administration said in a statement today. That compares with the 9 percent growth forecast made by the agency in January.
A typical medium sized family car will create around 24 tonnes of CO2 during its life cycle, while an electric vehicle (EV) will produce around 18 tonnes over its life. For a battery EV, 46% of its total carbon footprint is generated at the factory, before it has travelled a single mile.
Enbridge will allocate space on two pipelines for May because demand for crude shipments exceeds capacity, the company said.
