Chicago-area consumers are being asked to take it easy on the power grid tomorrow.
PJM Interconnection, the operator of the grid in all or parts of 13 states, including Northern Illinois, earlier today issued a call for consumers to take conservation steps during high-demand periods tomorrow, as the severe cold continues to put stress on power supplies.And that's the problem with wind- and solar-generated electricity: it can't ramp up when extra electricity is needed.
| 1/27/2014 | 01/27/2013 | 01/27/2012 | 01/27/2011 | 01/27/2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 190 | 190 | 204 | 164 | 86 |
Walgreens' and Walmart's pharmacies announced this month that they will help with the botched Obamacare rollout by providing free prescriptions to customers whose insurance coverage is pending.
The move, while well-intentioned, only helps those possessing a prescription, leaving anyone still seeking a doctor’s assistance stranded. The policies of both corporations this month were simple: those who can prove they signed up for Obamacare through HealthCare.gov and have a prescription can file it for free, even as they are not yet covered because of the system's inefficiency.
The problem is that to have a prescription, patients must go to a doctor, and their pending insurance applications mean they will have to either handle the full cost of a visit themselves. If they wait until their application is no longer pending, they are not eligible to receive the benefits from the pharmacies’ programs.
Walgreens was the first pharmacy service to announce that they would pitch in. Speaking to Breitbart News, a spokesperson for Walgreens confirmed that the corporation unilaterally made the decision to enact the temporary policy, but when asked whether they were in communication with the government responded that the corporation intends to be "in consistent and frequent communication with various groups... we are working with them to flag any systematic issues that we may see."
The relationship between Walmart and the Obama White House is more complicated. Walmart's spokesperson would not provide any specifics regarding whether there were discussions between public and private leaders on the matter, and the history between the two sides shows neither clear loyalty nor antagonism.
President Obama has appointed Walmart leaders to various positions of power. The company—a major seller of guns in some parts of the United States—has joined with the NRA to negotiate safer gun sales with the administration as well. Because both Walmart and Walgreens have stated they will help customers with figuring out whether their registrations are processing and with any questions they may have about the federal program, it seems impossible that the avenues of communication are closed.Take two aspirin and call your US representative in the morning.
Xcel Energy Inc., the investor-owned utility that has been championed for its commitment to wind power by clean energy advocates far and wide, is at risk of being dropped as the electricity provider to this city, which is its national headquarters. Among other reasons, it is accused of not being sufficiently pro-clean energy. [Minnesotans must love paying taxes and utility bills.]
The $14 billion Fortune 500 company, which operates in eight states and has provided electricity to Minneapolis for more than a century, faces the possible cancellation of a franchise agreement that allows it to provide power to an estimated half-million residents and businesses in Minnesota's largest city and the economic hub of the 3.3-million-resident Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.That was back in July (2013). I had not heard anything since but a google search resulted in this bit of news:
Unions and the business community joined forces Thursday to tell members of the Minneapolis City Council that they think it’s a bad idea for the city to take over the gas and electric utilities. The energy activists, though, also were out in force to say that a public takeover is an idea worth more study. After more than 50 speakers and three and a half hours of testimony, just about everyone at the public hearings had expressed an opinion except the folks who will vote to move ahead or drop the idea. City Council members did not speak during the session and will not vote on the matter until Aug. 15.Apparently not everyone in Minnesota likes higher taxes and higher utility bills:
“I’m opposed to this takeover,” said Peter Dvergsten. “Between taking over the gas and electric utilities and streetcars back downtown, I don’t know which idea is the worst.”
“My pocketbook is running pretty close to empty,” he said. “My options are running out, but one of my options is to sell the house and move out. Where? I don’t know, but North Dakota is looking pretty good.”
Jerry Wendt was there for his condominium association, which is about to spend $330,000 to install solar panels on its roof.
“The only way we can do this is with Xcel rebates,” said Wendt, who added that the panels are scheduled for installation this fall. “We don’t want this to blow up in our faces.”
“The city will be exempt from rate controls,” said Larry Lura. “That’s going to pull more money from my pockets, and people like myself, who are in an marginal economy, can barely pay our own bills.”Yes, the city would not have to abide by state utility regulations.
Xcel Energy Inc. is seeking permission to raise Minnesota electricity rates by 4.6 percent and 5.6 percent the next two years, saying the money is needed for a big push in infrastructure investment. [Wind, solar, transmission lines.]
Those hikes would amount to about $291 million, but the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has typically cut Xcel's rate increase requests in half in recent years. If granted in full, the increases would add about $10 on average to a customer's monthly bill.
TransCanada is pleased to confirm that at approximately 10:04 am Central Time on Saturday, December 7, 2013, the company began to inject oil into the Gulf Coast Project pipeline as it moves closer to the start of commercial service,” TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said in an email.
The opening of a pipeline to ease a supply bottleneck at a key storage hub has boosted U.S. oil prices, but analysts say the rally is likely to be temporary.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose to $96.64 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, ending the week with a 2.2% gain. It was the biggest weekly gain for U.S. oil futures in more than a month. Crude began flowing through the southern leg of TransCanada Corp.'s pipeline last week, connecting the storage hub of Cushing, Okla., to refineries along the Gulf Coast.
Supplies have been building up in Cushing, as innovations in drilling techniques increased U.S. oil production faster than the infrastructure could get it to refiners. Cushing is also the delivery point for the Nymex futures contract, and the large stockpiles there have depressed U.S. oil prices for years. While some investors expect the opening of the long-awaited pipeline to clear up that logjam, analysts and traders say the project will only move the supply glut farther south because the refineries soon will shut down to perform seasonal repairs.
And oil demand could remain tepid in the winter months, while domestic production shows no signs of slowing down.
"While the addition of the Keystone pipeline does move barrels from one point to another, it doesn't increase consumption of crude at the refinery level, and it doesn't add or subtract to the supply of crude that's coming out of the ground," said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citi Futures.
Peoples Gas says its customers have used 28 percent more gas this January compared to a year ago.
Nicor says this month has been 30 percent colder than last January; so, its customers are also using more gas.
ComEd says the overwhelming majority of its customers rely on natural gas rather than electric heat.Active rigs in North Dakota:
| 1/27/2014 | 01/27/2013 | 01/27/2012 | 01/27/2011 | 01/27/2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 187 | 190 | 204 | 164 | 86 |
Last week the U.S. NGL markets entered uncharted territory. According to OPIS, cash propane prices in the Conway, KS market reached almost $5.00/gallon for a time, responding to a massive product shortage across the entire eastern half of the country. But at the same NGL hub, OPIS also reported that the price for ethane/propane mix (EP mix) dropped deep into negative territory at $(0.50)/gallon. That’s crazy. The seller is paying the buyer to take the product. Nothing like this has been seen before in these markets. Propane inventories continue to drop, transport trucks are moving product hundreds of miles to markets, terminals remain on allocation and a state of emergency has been declared by at least 20 state governors. The inventory graphs look so scary that the "Black Swan" is frozen stiff. Today we begin a series on the NGL markets of 2014, a year that this industry will be talking about for a long time.Cold: on early morning NPR today, eastern North and South Dakota made the news -- incredibly cold weather -- well below 20 and 30 below with wind chill as low as 50 degrees below zero.
For some domestic steel buyers, it is now cheaper to purchase steel from China than from Pittsburgh. The reason: a near-record spread between the prices for almost all kinds of steel in the U.S. and steel prices everywhere else.
The widening spread, attributed to global oversupply and strong demand from car makers, has sparked a surge of imports, which are expected to reach 3.2 million tons in January, up 23% from 2.6 million tons in the same month a year earlier.
The average price difference between the U.S. and China has jumped to $159 per ton; a year ago, U.S. steel was actually $19 a ton cheaper, according to CRU, a price-analysis firm.Michael's (retail, crafts) warns that it may have become a victim of an attack on its data security --- follows Target, Nieman-Marcus.
Apple reports earnings Monday after the stock markets close, and as usual every word and number will be scrutinized for clues that will lead to sweeping judgments about the company's health or decline.
But in the myriad earnings data points released, one figure will be particularly interesting to see: iPad sales.
Last fall, after releasing the new iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display, Chief Executive Tim Cook declared: "It's going to be an iPad Christmas."
Such bullishness came after what was a surprisingly tough year for Apple's tablet, which had been such a disruptive force since its release in 2010.
After selling a record 22.9 million iPads during the 2012 holiday quarter, the company saw sales of iPads fall for the next three consecutive quarters for the first time in the product's history.
The sales of 14.5 million iPads in the September 2013 quarter was up only slightly from the same period a year earlier. And for the fiscal year 2013 that ended in September, Apple's revenue from iPads grew only 3%.
Cheap natural gas means Americans can buy the equivalent of a barrel of crude for $35. That's the exciting reality that has Ron Muhlenkamp, founder and portfolio manager of Muhlenkamp & Co. Inc., putting his investment dollars behind the next great fuel switch, this time in the transportation sector. With his fund having finished 2013 with a tidy 34.4% gain, he is now eyeing companies poised to outfit the U.S. transportation sector with all things natural gas, from fuel tanks to motors to filling stations.
In transportation, the infrastructure to make the switch to natural gas has not been in place. We didn't have the filling stations or the trucks. Now, the trucks are just becoming available. You can buy pickup trucks from Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. that run on natural gas. Furthermore, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has established natural gas filling stations coast to coast, every 250 miles on five different interstate highways.
Westport Innovations Inc. has been producing 9-liter [9L] natural gas engines. Waste Management uses 9L engines on garbage trucks and expects 85-90% of its new trucks to be natural gas-fueled. Westport has just come out with 12L engines, which are used for over-the-road trucks. I don't expect those engines to get adopted as fast as the utility industry made the switch to natural gas, but there has been a fairly rapid adoption in the waste management industry. I think we're on the cusp of a major trend.This may not be an investment site, but it certainly should give folks some ideas to explore. I hold no shares in CLNE, probably never will, but it remains one of the more fascinating energy companies. If I was 25 years old and just starting out, this might be a good one to consider accumulating for the very long term. The long-haul truckers are getting "killed" with the cost of diesel.
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 11-2013 | 26719 | 0 |
| 10-2013 | 22036 | 0 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 11-2013 | 20078 | 0 |
| 10-2013 | 17834 | 0 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 11-2013 | 24164 | 0 |
| 10-2013 | 21001 | 0 |