Monday, May 16, 2016 -- Motley Fool: Another Geico Rock 2016 Award Nominee?

Updates

Later, 9:40 a.m. Central Time: another Geico Rock Award 2016 nominee? Motley Fool -- they, too, now are noticing the train wreck or as some now call it, Dante's Inferno. Here's the headline:
ObamaCare's 2017 insurer rate requests are starting to stream in, and the figures are scary.

Here's the lede:

It's been more than two years since ... ObamaCare went into full effect for individual consumers...the largest insurer in the US [is] vacating a majority of the 34 states it's currently operating in ...Humana has also threatened to pack up shop due to losses suffered on ObamcaCare exchanges ... more than half of all of ObamaCare's approved healthcare cooperatives closed up shop...due to unsustainable losses...premium prices in 2017 were going to go way up...two states, Virginia and Oregon ... double-digit percentage rate hike requests...the early data is chilling and suggestive of huge premium price hikes coming ... in Virginia, Aetna ... 13% ... Anthem HealthKeepers...Blue Cross Blue Shield ... 15.8%....Aetna and Inova's joint venture .. 16.6% ...the weighted average of the 13 received rate requests is nearly 18%... in Oregon ... even worse .. average rate hikes of 32%...worse of all, it doesn't appear as if insurer rate hike requests are going to ebb once we get beyond 2017...

Well you get the picture. The article goes on and it only gets worse. We've reported everyone of those "facts" over the past two years and predicted them two years earlier. It looks like the Motley Fools and others are finally climbing out from under their rock.

As I've said over and over, the GOP needs to run, not walk away from any discussions on ObamaCare. Let the folks who engineered it, fix it.

Later, 9:00 a.m. Central Time: see first comment from a reader with first-hand experience in New England:

The increased CO2 emissions from New England's power plants is barely scratching the surface of this bizarre, devolving situation. 

During the winter, due to lack of natural gas supply, coal burners and oil burners are fired up to keep the lights on.

Last week, the city of New Canaan, CT, embarked upon a multi-decade long involvement of digging holes and emplacing underground propane tanks (ya know ... the eeevil fossil fuel) in a frantic effort to ensure their children will not freeze this coming winter during school hours. 

All across that area, government facilities, restaurants, new senior citizen complexes are being relegated to having diesel powered trucks resupply propane tanks for DECADES to come so they can have hot water to clean dishes, take warm showers, etc. 

All this within a short car ride from the biggest natgas fields on the planet.

That's very interesting. During our four years in Boston I saw the same thing -- the huge number of diesel trucks on the city roads delivering heating oil, etc, despite the natural gas glut. This sort of reminds me of taxi medallions. Obviously those comings hauling heating oil and propane have a huge invested interest that this does not change. 

Original Post

Active rigs:

	5/16/2016	05/16/2015	05/16/2014	05/16/2013	05/16/2012
Active Rigs	28	83	190	190	211

RBN Energy: natural gas supply / demand in the Northeast.

The U.S. Northeast natural gas supply/demand balance has been getting less and less short in recent years due to the onslaught of Marcellus/Utica production, and in 2015 flipped to net long supply for the first time on an annualized basis. That means the 15-state Northeast region as a whole produced more gas in 2015 than it used. Then, in the winter of 2015-16, the region reached another milestone when it ended the season net long supply for the first time. Now regional production may be flattening out and future growth is at risk as takeaway capacity projects face economic and regulatory headwinds. What does that mean for the Northeast balance going forward? Today, we begin a series analyzing the latest fundamental trends in the Northeast gas market.

The last time we looked at the Northeast natural gas supply/demand balance was last November (2015).

At the time, we predicted that the Northeast region was likely to end 2015 as a net supplier of gas for the first time on an annual average basis. Until a few years ago the Northeast was a major net demand region with little local supply. The “flip” from net demand to net supply region didn’t happen overnight, of course. Northeast production has been marching toward this milestone since 2010, when the Marcellus Shale became the “next big thing” in the evolution of shale gas production, and the pace picked up in 2013 when the Utica Shale in Ohio joined in the fun. The Northeast supply deficit has been shrinking ever since. While demand has been growing as well, production growth until last year had been far outpacing demand.

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Big Oil's Big Plans For New Natural Gas Markets

The Wall Street Journal is reporting: Producers hope to create new markets to boost demand to drag LNG prices out of the doldrums.

Natural gas transported across the world’s oceans by ship has helped to displace coal burned in European power plants and Chinese household cookers. Now, producers want it to become a fuel for cruise liners, container ships and road trucks.

In doing so, Big Oil hopes to boost demand by enough to drag prices of liquefied natural gas out of the doldrums. LNG prices last month sank to a seven-year low in Asia as demand failed to keep up with rising supply from countries including the U.S. and Australia. Wood Mackenzie, a U.K.-based consultancy, expects the global gas glut will take years to clear, with 70 million metric tons of LNG uncontracted by 2021.

This downbeat outlook helps to explain why energy companies are continuing to seek new markets in LNG, even as they cut spending elsewhere. Royal Dutch Shell PLC recently signed a deal with cruise operator Carnival Corp. to provide LNG at major ports for AidaPrima, a recently launched liner. Woodside Petroleum Ltd. in April signed a five-year deal with Norway’s Siem Offshore Inc. for Australia’s first LNG-powered marine-support vessel that will operate along the northwest coast.

Notice which major energy user is not mentioned: the US Navy. They are still researching algae-based biofuel in case there's ever a shortage of fossil fuel -- oh, that's right. Obama mandated all agencies derive 20% of all energy from "green" sources. Like algae. 

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Finally, What They All Wanted, They Got: Single Payer

The Wall Street Journal is reporting: Insurance Options Dwindle in Some Rural Regions Some health insurers quit unprofitable markets; ACA exchanges in some areas will have one insurer.

Health-insurance customers in a growing number of mostly rural regions will have just one insurer’s plans to choose from on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges next year, as some companies pull out of unprofitable markets.

The entire states of Alaska and Alabama are expected to have only one insurer on the health law’s signature online marketplaces next year, according to state regulators. The same is expected to be true in parts of several other states, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona and Oklahoma.

So far, more than 650 counties appear on track to have just one insurer on the exchanges in 2017, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is tracking withdrawals as they become public. That would be up from 225 in 2016, when the state of Wyoming, among other areas, already had just one ACA marketplace competitor. Of the counties in jeopardy of having only a single exchange insurer next year, 70% have populations that are mostly rural.

 The good news: with no competition, advertising and marketing costs will go down, and healthcare premiums are likely to plummet.

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CO2 Emissions Increasing In New England

It Turns Out Solar/Wind Not What Was Promised

The Boston Globe reported this story over the weekend. Actually it was being reported earlier this year in Right Side News, March 2, 2016:

When Vermont Yankee was set to close, activists such as Bill McKibben claimed that Vermont “is completely capable of replacing (and far more) its power output with renewables, which is why my roof is covered with solar panels."

This isn’t what happened. Instead, natural gas generation expanded in New England.  As a result, carbon dioxide emissions increased 7 percent in 2015. 

Vermont Yankee, a 604-megawatt nuclear plant, provided New England with 42 years of reliable, carbon dioxide-free power before its closure at the end of 2014.

The plant’s capacity factor exceeded 80 percent over its lifetime—more than double the capacity factor of the most efficient solar or wind plant in the United States, which were expected by some to replace it. But, in reality wind and solar power cannot replace the generation from Vermont Yankee, because a nuclear plant can operate 24/7 and is not dependent on the wind blowing or the sun shining.

As a result, natural gas generation increased in New England by 5.5 percentage points (from 43.1 percent of generation in 2014 to 48.6 percent of generation in 2015), and with it, carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions increased in New England by about 7 percent in 2015, increasing from 28 million tons to 30 million tons, according to data from EPA.

An honorary Geico Rock Award for New England?

Here's The Boston Globe story:

For the first time in five years, power plants across New England are producing more carbon emissions, dealing a setback to Massachusetts’ legally mandated efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and raising concerns that reduced production of nuclear energy will undercut environmental gains.

Last year, the region’s power plants released 5 percent more carbon dioxide than the year before, the first year-to-year increase since 2010, according to ISO New England, an independent company in Holyoke that operates the region’s power grid.

The uptick comes as Massachusetts works to curb carbon emissions in nearly every sector of its economy, in hopes of reaching its 2020 targets.
Massachusetts is legally required to reduce greenhouse gases 25 percent below 1990 levels by that date — part of a national effort to stave off global warming.

I wonder "who" exactly requires Massachusetts to reduce greenhouse gases 25% below 1990 levels by 2020? I assume ultimately the "voters."

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Wow, The Summer Travel Season Has Not Yet Begun

CBS Chicago is reporting that 4,000 travelers missed their flights because they showed up late to the airport. Okay.

My understanding is that the longest line through Midway was only 1 hour and 45 minutes. If you show up two hours early -- as recommended -- hey, never late. And the operators are delaying a/c departures to accommodate late arrivals.

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The Apple Page

Warren Buffett discloses he has $1 billion invested in Apple. I have three Apples on my mind. Our younger granddaughter needs either an iPod or the new iPad. I think the new iPad is the better deal, but she's leaning toward the iPod for convenience sake -- easier to carry while on her walks. For the house, the new iPad so May can watch television news in the kitchen. So, we'll see.

Back to Buffett: his IBM bet was a huge loser.