Friday Morning Links and News, Part I; Unemployment Rate Plummets To 7.5%; Two New Peaking Stations In The Bakken; Arctic Ice With Minimal Variation Since 1989

For those children who may never see snow again because of global warming:

Time lapse, Owatonna, MN, May 1- 2, 2013

Active rigs: 190 (very nice)

RBN Energy: how refinery maintenance affects imports.

A signal that pensions may be dead (or at least dying). CNBC is reporting:

A little known rule change that allows companies to contribute fewer dollars to pension funds is signaling just how meaningless the retirement vehicle has become.

"This proves that pensions are pretty much dead," said Greg McBride, chief economist at Bankrate.com. "The change is just another charade to mask the underfunding of pensions and increases the odds of having less money for retirement."

"It's not necessarily the immediate end of pensions but it's not good for them and it's certainly a bad sign," McBride added.

The pension change was part of a transportation bill-called Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century or MAP-21-passed by Congress last June. The change became mandatory this year.

From the National Ice and Snow Data Center:

Since 1989 the (Arctic ice) extent has mostly remained between 14 and 15 million square kilometers (5.4 and 5.8 million square miles).

It should be noted that it was always the Arctic that folks were concerned about with ice melting; the Antarctic was never predicted to shrink. At all.

The full paragraph:

In the earlier part of the satellite data record, average April extent remained above 15 million square kilometers (5.8 million square miles). Since 1989 the extent has mostly remained between 14 and 15 million square kilometers (5.4 and 5.8 million square miles). The years 1993 and 1999 were exceptions, when extent exceeded 15 million square kilometers (5.8 million square miles), as well as 2006 and 2007, when extent dropped below 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles).

Lowered expectations sends futures up:

Nonfarm payrolls are expected to have increased by 145,000 jobs, according to a Reuters survey of economists, after braking to a nine-month low of 88,000 in March. Taken together, the job creation pace over the past two months would still be far below the average of 200,000 for the first two months of this year.

"That would be consistent with an economy that's losing growth momentum but hasn't fallen out of bed," said Millan Mulraine, a senior economist at TD Securities in New York.

Also: the jobs recovery in graphs.

Two new peaking stations under construction in the Bakken. The Minot Daily News is reporting:

The Pioneer Generation Station is being built about 15 miles northwest of Williston and the Lonesome Creek Station is being constructed about 15 miles west of Watford City.
He said the two units will be fired by natural gas and have a generating capacity of 45-megawatts.