FERC Approves WMB Natural Gas Pipeline For New York City; For Investors Only: May 12, 2014; Has Coal Touched Bottom; Global Warming In Colorado; WMB, CHK, COP All At New 52-Week Highs

Top energy story for the day:

Williams Partners’ and its wholly-owned subsidiary Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC  today announced that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved its application to construct and operate two related projects designed to increase natural gas delivery capacity to Brooklyn and Queens in time for next winter’s heating season.

The Transco pipeline is the nation’s largest-volume interstate natural gas pipeline system; it is a major supplier of natural gas to New York City. Customers in a dozen states along the 1,800-mile pipeline route spanning South Texas to New York City receive natural gas shipped on the Transco system.

Thirteen companies announce increased dividends or distributions.

Samson Oil & Gas announces 100% increase in proved reserve value: Co announces estimated the company's Proved reserves to be 1.805 MMBOE and valued at $47.7 million.

Companies trading at new 52-week highs: CHK, COP, TRN, WMB.  CHK goes over $30.

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.  

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Nebraska: Pipeline Vs Wind Farms

Outa Sight, Outa Mind vs In Your Face, Every Day

Having just spent a better part of a long day driving through western Nebraska this was a particularly timely. A big thank you to a reader for sending it to me. One can read it for free at the link below, or pay a few pennies to read it at the source.

From National Review On-Line, a nice little essay on energy in Nebraska: the Keystone XL vs wind farms. I like this bit best: 

There is almost no visible evidence of the pipelines. Now and then, you'll see an above-ground station. Otherwise, the pipelines are buried, "out of sight and out of mind," as Robert Milligan, who has a farm in this area, says.

You can see wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail (some 150 years after they first appeared). The pipelines, not really.

What is very much visible is the wind farm: the Steele Flats Wind Farm. The turbines are enormous, inescapable, "in your face," as Cynthia Milligan says. They utterly alter the landscape, and, in some eyes, blight it. [Wait until the turbines start to show inevitable wear and tear.]

The Nebraska Public Power District set a goal: By 2020, 10 percent of energy should come from renewable sources. The relevant boards in this part of Nebraska held hearings last spring. The subject was the wind farm. Arguments flew back and forth, naturally. Also naturally, there was an element of NIMBY: "Not in my backyard." This affects families high and low. In Massachusetts, the Kennedy family objected to the Cape Wind Project -- which would spoil the view from their storied compound.

Here in the Diller-Steele City area, Kevin McIntyre objected to the Steele Flats project. For one thing, he didn't want to put up with the noise of the turbines. He was quoted by the Beatrice Daily Sun as saying, "I want to go out on my back deck and sit in peace and quiet and listen to the cows or to the birds. We all pray for rain at church. I'm going to pray for lack of wind."

Other residents were friendlier to the turbines, including those who would have them on their property: They would receive about $7,000 per turbine, per year. The turbines are expected to be in place for 20 years.

There are 44 of them. They went up last summer and fall. They were installed by NextEra Energy Resources, a company out of Florida. The company got in under the wire: At the end of the year, Congress let the tax subsidy for wind expire. But those who began construction before December 31 get to enjoy their subsidy for the next ten years.

These turbines are enormous, as I said. You almost have to see them to understand how dominating they are. Each turbine is 426 feet tall -- taller than the capitol tower in Lincoln, as Cynthia Milligan points out. (Nebraska's capitol is the second-tallest in the country, after Louisiana's.)  

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Coal

Don sent me a number of stories on coal. The good news: presidents come and go. Coal will be here forever.

Peabody Energy is upgraded by Morgan Stanley: Commenting on the 2014 outlook for the industry, Kurtz wrote, "We believe coal burn will increase by 63 mt in 2014. While production should be able to keep pace, this is a major change from the heavy destocking environment dogging the market since 2012."

Barron's calls a "bottom" in coal, due to the Polar Vortex.

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Colorado's Global Warming Ice Age

Reuters is reporting:

A mid-May snowstorm dumped as much as 3 feet of snow on Colorado's Rocky Mountains on Monday while the U.S. Midwest braced for hail and other severe weather, forecasters said.

Snowplows cleared the way for the Monday morning rush hour after the storm, which is expected to taper off by midday, blanketed Denver with more than 4 inches and the mountains northeast of Steamboat Springs with 36 inches  of snow, said Jim Kalina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder, Colorado.

I had hoped to change the "Global_Warming_2013_2014" tag to "2014_2015" in June but I may have to wait until the end of July. Just saying. This has been one heckuva winter.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

This is so cool. I just discovered Brenda Wineapple's 2003 biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne. It turns out I've read another of Wineapple's biography, one on Gertrude Stein.

A few weeks ago I happened to pick up another biography: Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein by Brenda Wineapple. Now, about one-third of the way through, I realize that the first third of the book could have been subtitled "The Boston (or Harvard) Years." This first third of the book dovetails nicely with Richardson's William James, who in fact was one of Gertrude Stein's professors. She eventually received a "B" from his one semester course that she took. She did "A" work in the first half of the semester, but "C" work during the latter half, during the opera season.

I might be back in a Boston/Harvard/Salem phase with discovering this new biography. I've read the first two chapters and the book is delightful. It's a big book and one I can enjoy for a few weeks, I suppose.

My "library" blog is here.