Thursday Night News Dump; The End-Of-Day Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+230 -- September 7, 2017

Florida nuclear plants shutting down: link here, data points:

• two nuclear plants: Turkey Point; St Lucie
• Florida Power & Light
• Florida's only operating nuclear power plants
• can you say Fukushima? not too worry -- 
• the nuclear sites are among the strongest in the United States and are designed to withstand heavy wind and storm surge. Turkey Point's nuclear reactors are enclosed in six feet of steel-reinforced concrete and sit 20 feet above sea level. Nuclear plants also have significant redundancies that serve as back-ups to back-ups
• specific information as to when plants would be shut was not provided by the company, but US NRC said:
• Turkey Point should shut down Friday evening;
• St Lucie would go off-line 12 hours later

And then I guess Florida will need to rely on solar and wind energy (and there will be a lot of wind energy -- just not particularly useful). I know Algore would go with solar and wind.

Hartford, CT, ready to declare bankruptcy. WSJ story here. $50 million pales in comparison to what is about to happen in Florida, what happened in Texas. Wouldn't it be great if Amazon selected Hartford for HQ2. "Doomsday: US cities" tracked here.

Amazon HQ2: to employ up to 50,000 people. Sounds like a lot. On the other hand, the Foxcconn facility that will be built in Wisconson with a $3 billion taxpayer price tag might hire 3,000 people. Quick, how many people does Foxconn employ at their Zhengzhou ("Pat, is there a "z"? I would like to solve the puzzle.")? Answer: 250,000 people are employed at one plant. Source: WSJ.

The Mideast.  Rules of engagement (ROE) have changed. I don't know if folks recall this story. But some years ago when ISIS celebrated the taking of some Iraqi/Syrian city, they had a huge "parade" of scores (hundreds?) of Toyota military vehicles. The USAF could have taken out 100's of military vehicles but President Obama's ROE ruled it out. Not this time. Stripes is reporting that "US warplanes picked off ISIS fighters drawn to a stranded convoy like moths to the flame."

Ah, yes, here it is. It was in West Anbar province where ISIS held a massive parade celebrating victory in Ramadi, May 18, 2015. See photographs below: USAF could have taken out this whole group with little collateral damage but the administration said "no."

UPDATE, September 14, 2017: apparently the US blinked. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the ISIS convoy reached militant-held Syria after US-led coalition stops strikes. The US-led coalition ceased airstrikes at the request of the Russian government. Wow. Since much of the convoy was made up of wives and children perhaps it was the right thing to do. Apparently the convoy was made up of buses. Even US warriors have (moral, ethical) trouble taking out yellow school buses.

Islamic State militants stranded in the Syrian desert for two weeks have reached ISIS-controlled territory in eastern Syria after the U.S.-led coalition ceased its airstrikes on the convoy’s route, according to opposition activists.

The convoy of buses traveled across Syria as part of a controversial deal brokered in August by the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah that allowed 600 people—Islamic State fighters and their families—to withdraw from the Lebanese border in southwestern Syria and head toward its border with Iraq.

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Following News That SRE-Oncor Deal Remains On Track

Around $102/share in January, 2017; now closing in on $120/share.

In 1998, the quarterly dividend was 39 cents/share; this year, the dividend is running around 82 cents/share. During that time period, the dividend has dropped as low as 25 cents/share.

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