Wholesale power sales from wind generators in California in the first quarter of this year fell an eye-opening 32.7% compared to sales in the first quarter of 2014.
Forty-eight wind farms in California sold 1.304 million MWh of wind power in the California Independent System Operator market in the first quarter of 2015, compared to 1.936 million MWh sold in Q1 2014, according to data filed with FERC and other government agencies and compiled by Platts.
The roughly 630,000 MWh sales decline came despite a 197-MW increase in available wind capacity during the year. Capacity grew from 4,275 MW to 4,472 MW by the first quarter of 2015.
The state’s wind generators thus operated at a capacity factor of just 13.5% in the first quarter of 2015, a significant drop from the 21% capacity factor at which they operated in the first quarter of 2014.
The FERC wholesale wind power sales data shows that 42 out of 44 wind farms in California that had sales in the first quarter of 2014 have seen their Q1 2015 sales decline. There were four facilities that had no sales in Q4 2014.
One of the biggest declines has come at Pattern Energy’s 265-MW Ocotillo wind farm in the Imperial Valley, in the state’s most southern region. Ocotillo, which sells power to San Diego Gas & Electric, saw its sales fall 45.5% in the first quarter of this year over the first quarter of last.So, let's parse this:
Studies of UK and Denmark wind farms suggest their actual economic lives appear to be 12-15 years due to wear and tear. One of the unanticipated problems that arose with larger turbines is premature cracking failure of the main axial bearing(s). These failures arise from two very difficult engineering conditions. First is uneven loading. Wind speeds increase with altitude so the three blades, which span great distances, are never evenly loaded. The bearing(s) wobble under the tremendous forces generated. Second, braking when wind speed exceeds 25mph suddenly loads reverse torque on the axial side where previously unloaded (and wobbling) individual bearings are in natural misalignment to their trace. If things go ‘well’, cracking can be caught before catastrophic failure. It is expensive to repair. The blades must be detached so the turbine can be dismounted and sent back to the factory.Developers and promoters of wind farms, of course, base their economic projections on 30-year wind turbine lives.]
Scotland's landscape could be blighted by the rotting remains of a failed regeneration of wind farms.
A study commissioned by the Renewable Energy Foundation has found that the economic life of onshore wind turbines could be far less than that predicted by the industry.
The “groundbreaking” research was carried out by academics at Edinburgh University and saw them look at years of wind farm performance data from the UK and Denmark.
The results appear to show that the output from windfarms — allowing for variations in wind speed and site characteristics — declines substantially as they get older.
By 10 years of age, the report found that the contribution of an average UK windfarm towards meeting electricity demand had declined by a third.
That reduction in performance leads the study team to believe that it will be uneconomic to operate windf arms for more than 12 to 15 years — at odds with industry predictions of a 20- to 25-year lifespan.I think that's exactly what we will see in the US in 2020; I already saw it among the wind farms around Indio, California.
Evidence from market data suggests that wind power producers will accept prices down to about negative $35 MWh before they shut down, since marginal operating costs are very low for wind power we can conclude that the subsidies are worth about $35 – $40 for each MWh of wind output.
Subsidies do this sort of thing – distort the market and lead to waste – and of course to some degree distorting the market is just what is intended when policymakers offer a subsidy. Only usually it isn’t so easy to see the evidence of the waste created by the subsidies. Wind turbines that operate more hours require more maintenance, so these hours spent producing negative-value electric power do consume real resources. At the same time, the conventionally-fueled generation that is forced offline temporarily will also face additional “wear-and-tear” and require additional maintenance because of the effects of shutting down and then restarting the machines. This extra wear-and-tear and extra maintenance also represents wasteful use of resources due to PTC- and REC-subsidized power production.
Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest -- built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced -- are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.
The problem arose during the late spring and early summer last year. Rapid snow melt filled the Columbia River Basin. The water rushed through the 31 dams run by the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in Portland, Ore., allowing for peak hydropower generation. At the very same time, the wind howled, leading to maximum wind power production.
Demand could not keep up with supply, so BPA shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days.The one place wind farms were probably most redundant: the Pacific Northwest where there was already an abundance of hydroelectric power.
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SANISH | 3-2015 | 7 | 1323 | 1430 | 1104 | 3289 | 3071 | 218 |
| SANISH | 2-2015 | 13 | 3255 | 3310 | 2586 | 5770 | 5651 | 119 |
| SANISH | 1-2015 | 19 | 4940 | 5186 | 5227 | 5059 | 4921 | 138 |
| SANISH | 12-2014 | 23 | 5877 | 5672 | 643 | 5786 | 5149 | 637 |
| SANISH | 11-2014 | 22 | 5841 | 6166 | 816 | 7989 | 7767 | 222 |
| SANISH | 10-2014 | 31 | 15119 | 15441 | 4407 | 23907 | 22111 | 1796 |
| SANISH | 9-2014 | 29 | 20216 | 19991 | 4787 | 32098 | 29687 | 2411 |
| SANISH | 8-2014 | 28 | 14523 | 14662 | 8809 | 16746 | 12862 | 3884 |
| SANISH | 7-2014 | 31 | 15759 | 15597 | 7024 | 22426 | 17717 | 4709 |
| SANISH | 6-2014 | 30 | 13710 | 13454 | 10279 | 23278 | 16694 | 6584 |
| SANISH | 5-2014 | 30 | 16935 | 16946 | 16320 | 19928 | 17294 | 2634 |
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SANISH | 4-2015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 3-2015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 2-2015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 1-2015 | 10 | 12739 | 13425 | 2353 | 26637 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 12-2014 | 31 | 61227 | 60866 | 21032 | 94902 | 19995 | 68265 |
| SANISH | 11-2014 | 2 | 902 | 459 | 1430 | 1141 | 0 | 1141 |
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SANISH | 3-2015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 2-2015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 1-2015 | 1 | 425 | 243 | 175 | 11759 | 0 | 0 |
| SANISH | 12-2014 | 9 | 11458 | 12112 | 1651 | 17761 | 10500 | 6002 |
| SANISH | 11-2014 | 24 | 41810 | 41032 | 23447 | 31299 | 0 | 31299 |
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SANISH | 3-2015 | 31 | 40077 | 40245 | 3521 | 58946 | 54294 | 0 |
| SANISH | 2-2015 | 26 | 32571 | 32469 | 3114 | 44834 | 41065 | 0 |
| SANISH | 1-2015 | 26 | 43428 | 43557 | 4485 | 58628 | 0 | 32839 |
| SANISH | 12-2014 | 24 | 34793 | 35362 | 4302 | 46971 | 22002 | 21181 |
| SANISH | 11-2014 | 24 | 38036 | 36789 | 20360 | 25746 | 0 | 25746 |
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SANISH | 3-2015 | 31 | 32566 | 32504 | 4772 | 48718 | 44898 | 0 |
| SANISH | 2-2015 | 25 | 24448 | 24176 | 3418 | 33370 | 30463 | 0 |
| SANISH | 1-2015 | 27 | 30300 | 30897 | 5983 | 40905 | 0 | 23746 |
| SANISH | 12-2014 | 24 | 36141 | 35873 | 6834 | 48791 | 13396 | 31632 |
| SANISH | 11-2014 | 24 | 37315 | 36777 | 29534 | 13586 | 0 | 1358 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 3-2015 | 34262 | 47108 |
| 2-2015 | 27157 | 33721 |
| 1-2015 | 29994 | 0 |
| 12-2014 | 50261 | 17165 |
| 11-2014 | 3107 | 0 |
Those who think their current health insurance plans are too expensive should brace themselves for 2016, at least based on the recent predictions of one healthcare executive. Health insurance companies are likely to demand even more money in the coming year from people seeking to buy healthcare.
"You cannot have every doctor in your network, very low copays, broad benefits and lower costs. It just can't work that way," [an analyst] said, calling such demands, including for insurance companies to charge lower premiums or monthly fees that people pay for to have insurance coverage, "unrealistic."
Under the Affordable Care Act, landmark legislation frequently referred to as Obamacare, more than 14 million people in the United States gained health insurance. Nearly 12 million people signed up for health coverage plans on exchanges created under Obamacare, and the law, despite being controversial, has been widely credited with making health insurance and medical care more affordable and accessible to millions across the country. Nearly nine out of 10 adults in the U.S. have health insurance, a Gallup poll published in April showed -- the lowest-ever rate of uninsured people in the United States.
Costs were likely to go up because a high percentage of those who had newly bought health insurance through the Affordable Care Act needed expensive medical care that, until they bought insurance, had been delayed. As a result, health insurers were finding they had to spend more to cover the expensive medical bills, and because fewer younger -- and presumably healthier -- people had signed up for coverage, companies had smaller pool of funding to draw on.
Even as premiums might be about to go up, a study published Thursday by the consumer healthcare nonprofit group Families USA showed that one out of four adults who bought health insurance through exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act skipped necessary medical treatment because the care was too expensive. These adults had paid monthly premiums, some of them subsidized by the government, for health insurance but were nevertheless unable to afford the very care it was supposed to provide.
The Health Insurance Providers Fee was aimed at insurance companies. The thinking went: Because insurers would gain a windfall of customers, they ought to help pay for the expansion of coverage. Insurers say they have raised prices for individuals and small businesses to cover the new tax.
As it turns out, they are raising their prices to state Medicaid programs, too.The federal government issued guidance in October requiring states to build the tax into what they pay for-profit Medicaid health plans that serve low-income people. The first year's tax was due to the IRS in September, and state governments are now settling up with insurance companies.
It works like this: State governments pay insurers for the tax. The insurers then pay the tax to the federal government. The federal government then reimburses part of the cost to the states.
It may sound absurd, but it's not amusing to state governments, which wind up losing 54 cents for every dollar of the insurance tax. State taxpayers end up the biggest losers, without any added benefit to their state's low-income Medicaid patients.
In the 1950s, hydropower supplied almost 60% of the state's electricity. Now, it provides 14% to 19% in a normal year, and even less during a drought — accounting for about 8% of the state's total power last year. Renewable energy, on the other hand, provided more than 20%, according to the California Energy Commission.Then this:
Making up the difference from less hydropower has not been cheap. The cost to California ratepayers could have been as high as $1.4 billion from 2012 through 2014.
Renewable energy, especially solar, helped make up for about 55% of the reduction in hydroelectricity in 2013 and 2014, state officials said. Natural-gas-fired power made up the rest.Background:
Shasta Dam, looming more than 600 feet tall and gatekeeper of the largest man-made lake in California, was designed to perform two crucial functions: Store water and generate power.
And for decades, the massive concrete structure has channeled water to cities and farms while generating up to 710 megawatts of hydropower, enough to provide electricity for more than 532,000 homes.
But amid four years of drought, the reservoir is drained to 50% of capacity, cutting the dam's power production by about a third, according to federal reclamation officials.
The story is the same at many dams across California, where electricity production at some is expected to be less than 20% of normal because of low water levels.
The shortfall shouldn't cause brownouts, officials said, because California relies on dams for power far less than it did in decades past, due in part to the emergence of solar and wind energy.And herein likes the problem: the tea leaves suggest renewable energy in California has picked the low-hanging fruit; it only gets more difficult from here on out.
A reduced supply from dams forces the grid operator to turn to more expensive sources of power, such as natural gas, which also enlarges the state's carbon footprint.
Unlike solar or wind-produced power, which depend on whether the sun comes out or the wind is blowing, hydropower is more controllable, officials said. At reservoirs, officials can turn a valve to increase the water flow whenever more electricity is needed. Energy suppliers rely on hydro as reserve power, and as a quick way to respond to surges in demand for electricity.
In drought years, it's a difficult balancing act because hydropower isn't always an immediate option.Any thoughts on how the state will try to make up for reduced hydropower? That's a rhetorical question; please don't respond.
Throughout the last two decades state after state has passed renewable energy standards, often with big bipartisan majorities, as investment in technologies like wind and solar held great promise for economic growth and job creation in addition to cutting greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change and decreasing air pollution.
But in the last few years, pressed by fossil fuel businesses such as Koch Industries and advocacy groups funded by the Koch brothers, including Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), bills have been introduced in state after state to repeal these standards. And in a few states, such as Ohio and West Virginia, they’ve succeeded.
Now Kansas is following in their footsteps. This week the legislature voted to repeal its mandatory renewable portfolio standard (RPS), passed in 2009, and replace it with a voluntary standard. It passed overwhelming, 105-16 in the Kansas House and 35-3 in its Senate.
The legislation is now headed for Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk, and he’s certain to sign it, given that it was unveiled at a press conference last week held by Gov. Brownback and legislative leaders at which he said it “further solidifies and stabilizes the policy environment so that investment can continue in Kansas.” The Wichita Eagle noted that Mike Morgan, a lobbyist for Kansas-based Koch Industries, was also present at the news conference.It will be interesting to see how the economy of Kansas does over the next decade.
“If your objective is to grow the economy, would you rather put more money into government, or leave it in the hands of small business?” Mr. Brownback asks during a recent interview in his office at the state capitol.
Three years ago Kansas enacted the biggest tax cut of any state, relative to the size of its economy, in recent history. Lawmakers reduced the top rate on the personal income tax to 4.9% from 6.45%.
They also eliminated the income tax for small business owners who file as individuals, a broad group that includes sole proprietors, limited liability partnerships and S-corporations.
The governor declared that Kansas was “open for business” in such strong terms that he might as well have donned a sandwich board reading “Come to Kansas / Keep Everything You Earn.” He boasted: “Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.”
The months-long fight for the key central Iraqi city of Ramadi now appears to be going ISIS's way, with the Islamist extremist group capturing police headquarters, the Ramadi Great Mosque and even raising its trademark black flag over the provincial government building.
So, the latest offensive began on Thursday evening and looks like it was over by Friday evening. This is the JV team. On its way to Baghdad. The New York Times is reporting the same thing but in greater detail.The ISIS push began Thursday, with armored bulldozers and at least 10 suicide bombings used to burst through gates and blast through walls in Ramadi, according to a security source who has since left the city. Dozens of militants followed them into the city center.
The new jihadist assault began under the cover of darkness late Thursday, starting with a wave of suicide attacks by clean-shaven fighters driving armored Humvees and dressed in Iraqi Army uniforms.
As fighters for the Islamic State advanced on Friday, there were reports of massacres. Sheikh Omar Shihan al-Alwani, a tribal leader whose men have been fighting the Islamic State there, said more than a dozen families had been killed in his area of Ramadi, along with about 50 policemen and tribal fighters.
Flashback, December 10, 2014: ISIS is stalled, can't take Baghdad -- International Business Times. However, it should be noted:“We asked our fighters to leave their weapons and withdraw,” he said. “Otherwise, we would lose them all.”
The rise of the Islamic State group has prompted Barack Obama to say that ISIL is one of the biggest threats America faces. “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way,” the president said in an address to the nation in September, 2014.What sets Obama apart is his ideological rigidity and fathomless ignorance.... WSJ, link here.
T-Rex Oil, Inc., an independent energy company engaged in the exploration, development, production and acquisition of oil and natural gas resources, with an emphasis on oil plays and with a focus on Rocky Mountain region, today announced that it had entered into a letter of intent to purchase 16,100 net mineral acres in the Williston Basin with access to the Madison, Bakken, Three Forks, and Red River Formations.
Located in Daniels County, Montana, the net acreage is comprised of 36 leases that have approximately a 24 month life with a net revenue interest of 80% with a right to renew for 3 years.
The Company intends to purchase the undeveloped acreage for a price of $7,000,000 through a combination of cash, debt and equity and expects to close on the purchase in July 2015, subject to satisfactory due diligence.
Oneok Partners today filed to activate a second lateral on its Oneok Bakken pipeline that moves mixed NGLs from the Bakken and Niobrara shale formations to Colorado.
Oneok began initial flow on the Little Missouri lateral on March 2, 2015, but failed to file for the tariff upon completion of the line because of an administrative oversight, the company said in a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) today.
The lateral in McKenzie County, North Dakota, connects to the mainline system with a lateral fee set at $0.2988/bl (0.71¢/USG). Fees at the alternative Niobrara lateral that originates in Converse and Niobrara counties in Wyoming were set at $0.42/bl (1¢/USG).
The Oneok Bakken pipeline moves y-grade from origin points in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana to connect with the Overland Pass pipeline in Weld County, Colorado. The rate between origins and the interconnection in Colorado stands at $3.4906/bl (8.31¢/USG).
The pipeline is currently moving about 70,000 b/d, Oneok said in its latest earnings report. Phase two of the pipeline is expected to finish in the second quarter of 2016, and will ramp up to 85,000 b/d.
"It had never happened before. In their last American tour, the Rolling Stones had played in Rugby, but BB King never came to Rugby. Oh, you mean the train. Oh, I don't know anything about any train called BB King. The only thing that happens around here are those dang WBR&C oil trains that keep going off the track and blowing up. It's worse than Casselton. Casselton gets all the press because it's closer to Fargo."The train had hardly come to a full stop before Sam and Liam arrived on scene.
A slew of recent soft economic data has fueled fresh expectations of dimmer U.S. growth, underscoring the already-anemic economy’s unusual vulnerability to even fleeting shocks.
This softness—with output possibly flat for the first half of 2015—looks set to give Federal Reserve officials pause as they eye when to raise short-term interest rates from near zero.
Fed officials see many indications of underlying strength: Companies are hiring, while incomes and wealth are rising.However,
A variety of other indicators, though, tell a less upbeat story. The Fed on Friday reported U.S. industrial production contracted in April for the fifth straight month, down a seasonally adjusted 0.3% from the month before. A University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment also dropped. Soft April retail-sales data and dismal trade numbers, both released during the past week, had already led analysts to reduce their estimates of growth.
Wall Street analysts are now marking down estimates for second-quarter growth, and many expect the first quarter to get revised down into negative territory. J.P. Morgan economists see a growth rate of just 0.5% for the first half.By the way, regular readers were very, very aware that the Bloomberg industrial production story did not even use the word "contraction." It was hard to sort out exactly what industrial production did in April based on the way Bloomberg reported the story. At least I don't recall the word "contraction." Memo to self: check the spelling on obfuscation.
The company poured about $6 million into improvements on the building to bring its vision to fruition. That vision includes a store that provides low-priced grocery items to customers.
Sellers said the store will provide bulk-food options and organic items that are otherwise difficult to find in Dickinson. The store also plans to have a sushi, soup and salad bar.
But Sellers said one of his favorite sections of the new store is a long butcher table, which will add an old-time feel to an otherwise modern store.
“You are going to have that old-block butcher feel,” he said.Pretty exciting. I have been quite impressed with the Cash Wise store in Williston. I do not recall if the Cash Wise store in Williston had a sushi bar. Lutefisk bar, perhaps.
U.S. Lower 48 oil production will continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than expected this time a year ago as lower oil prices impact production and industry capital expenditures, according to recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie.
However, a Wood Mackenzie analyst emphasized that the firm doesn’t expect an annual trend of declining production to occur until oil prices remain at $50/barrel for a two-year period.
Lower 48 production grew by 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) during 2014, but Wood Mackenzie expects the rate of growth to decline going forward, with 675,000 bpd incremental production forecast for 2015 and 425,000 bpd of incremental production growth in 2016.
As a result, Wood Mackenzie estimates a long-term impact of this growth to be 800,000 bpd by the end of the decade. Due to the reductions and cuts in rig activity, which happened more quickly than Wood Mackenzie expected, the firm anticipates seeing a flattening and plateau of monthly production in mid-2015.
Beyond that, month-over-month declines in production could occur in the second half of 2015 as static comes out of the North America supply story, particularly for tight oil, over the next couple of years.