On Another Down Day -- Look At The Winners; This Is The Earliest That The Great Lakes Have Ever Frozen -- US Coast Guard

Updates

Later, 12:02 pm Pacific Time: this probably doesn't have anything to do with what I posted earlier, but did not want to post this as a stand-alone post, so I thought I would post it here. Two photos to compare: one a solar farm. One a Bakken well.

First, the Apple solar farm. At the link, scroll to the bottom.

Second, the Bakken oil well near White Earth, North Dakota.
 

Original Post

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

I love the Warren Buffett philosophy of investing. I am not a trader. I have left a lot of money on the table. Let's see: any more cliches? Invest in what you know.

Enough of that. One of my favorite holdings has been SRE. The share price has been struggling for the past few weeks (months?) -- but with a long term horizon and automatic dividend reinvestment, I love it when the company shares are on sale.

But today, SRE is up almost 2%, trading near its 52-week high. So, what's the news? Reuters is reporting: California may relay on more gas-fired generation due to drought.

California power companies may be forced to rely more on higher-cost natural gas-fired generation in 2014 as record drought conditions are expected to reduce the state's hydropower output for a third year in a row.

Public power utilities that rely heavily on hydroelectric generation may be forced to use more expensive power sources, such as gas-fired plants, and purchase power to make up for any hydropower shortfall, Fitch Ratings, a credit rating agency, said in a report on Friday.

Fitch said eight of the 14 public power companies it rates receive between 10 percent and 32 percent of their power from hydroelectric resources. Among them is the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, one of the state's largest power providers.

I posted another story (sent in by a reader) on hydroelectric power just the other day. At the time I did not know it affected California to this extent.

What happened to solar power and wind power to fill the hydroelectric gap? Oh, yes, that's right, two data points: a) the numbers don't add up; and, b) way too expensive. I assume solar/wind is thirty times more expensive than what hydroelectric power costs. Maybe just twenty times. Natural gas (and coal)? Dirt cheap. 

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PSX also hit a new high today. But CVX is having a terrible day and COP not doing much better. So, winners and losers.

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It's official: this is the earliest that the Great Lakes have frozen -- US Coast Guard. It looks like mainstream media is missing the biggest story of the year: the polar vortex.