Idle Rambling -- Thursday Morning -- February 25, 2021

Jobless claims: this is interesting, link here, interested. Not interested:

• weekly jobless claims drop sharply
• first time claims fell to 730,000, week ended February 20
• forecast: 845,000
• a sharp decline from the 841,000 the previous week
• continuing claims hit a fresh pandemic-era low just above 4.42 million
• if this is important, why is it important? Because: human nature
• regardless of what Biden and Fauci say, Americans are more than ready to get back to work; enough of the pandemic, already; we have three vaccines, and more coming; more than enough masks; and ..... summer!
  

EVs: I do think that within three years we'll start seeing stories about analysts questioning the wisdom of automotive and trucking companies pivoting to EVs. 

EVs may make sense in places like India and China, and perhaps the EU, only because those in power could mandate it, but for the US, EVs simply do not yet make sense. But if they make sense, the margins will be very, very slim and there is going to be a huge amount of competition.

EV trucking may make sense for "last-mile delivery" and for moving cargo from ports to rail, but not for long haul

Plug Power:

• stock falls
• much wider-than-expected loss
• surprisely negative revenue
• oh-oh
• link here;
• a hydrogen fuel cell company
• earnings / income
  
• net loss widened to $476.2 million, or $1.12 / share
• prior net loss: $18.3 million, or seven cents / share
• Motley Fool: some years ago said this might be a great company, but it never makes money; I never linked / archived that article
• revenue:
• swung to negative $316.3 million
• prior: a positive $91.7 million
• consensus: a positive $87.2 million
• company's comments:
• results negatively impacted by a previously announced $456 million in costs related to "accelerated vesting of a customer's remaining warrants." Say what?
• provides upbeat guidance for all of 2021
• and this is the hydrogen darling of Wall Street
  

BP: already starting to walk it back; maybe renewables not so hot;

• oil demand won't be wiped out by energy transition;
• remember the theme:
• European majors pivoting to renewable energy; will move away from oil
• US majors: sticking to their knitting

Starting to some backtracking: oil demand won't be wiped out by energy transition; this links back to Tsvetana Paraskova, who writes:

Some, like BP, even say that the world may have already passed peak oil demand. Yet, it is also BP’s chief executive Bernard Looney who said CERAWeek’s India Energy Forum in October that “peaking of oil demand does not mean the end of oil. Oil will be around for a very, very long time.”

Regardless of when peak oil demand occurs, the world will not stop using oil, and any decline will only be very gradual, despite the wishes of environmental activists that Big Oil (and any oil firm) stop pumping oil immediately and leave the world to run on green energy.

The reality is that even the energy transition will need a lot of fossil fuel-powered energy to build out the infrastructure necessary to support a shift to green energy sources, Neal Kimberley, commentator on macroeconomics and financial markets, writes for South China Morning Post.

Throw in the inefficiency and unpredictability of wind and solar power, and the likelihood that battery technology is not going to improve a whole lot, and its likely that not only will we see more demand for oil and natural gas, but also for coal. 

The biggest question: from what will China generate electricity for all those golf carts: nuclear or coal?