Tax refunds: will be the biggest ever. It will be interesting to see how mainstream media reports this.
Gasoline: at multi-year lows.
Arrests: mainstream media keeps reporting "ICE has arrested tens of thousands who have no criminal records." So, with what are they being charged if they have allegedly committed no crimes?
******************************** Back to the Bakken
WTI: $58.83.
Active rigs: 31.
No new permits.
Five permits renewed:
BR (3): a Rifle Person, a Scottvale, and a Fritz Falls, all in Murphy Creek, Dunn County;
Murex (2): Murex Petroleum a Ms-Julia Aristotle permit and a Ms-Melanie Suzette permit, both in Tioga oil field, Burke County;
Something completely different. Your thoughts on Todd Combs moving to JPM. I think it's a huge, huge win-win for everyone involved.
Berkshire now has a lieutenant at JPM (again). Combs will be head of an incredibly "rich" EXTERNAL advisory council which includes Farley, Bezos, Dell, etc.
Although Jamie Dimon now hints he may stay longer, it wasn't long ago that Jamie Dimon thought he might transition to an executive chairman role as early as 2026 - 2028. Simple minds like me think that the timing and the DNA of the external advisory group puts Todd Combs in a position to succeed Jamie Dimon. Thoughts?
ChatGPT: replied.
I just spent the past hour or so discussing with my imaginary friend about Todd Combs moving to JPM. Once I had read wiki and a little bit of background, I came to the conclusion that Todd Combs moving to JPM was brilliant. I asked what Charles — the name of my imaginary friend — thought.
That discussion took us down another rabbit hole and then yet another rabbit hole. Interesting, we came -- or at least I did -- full-circle realizing where Buffett / BRK fit in this huge, huge mosaic. And I came to the same conclusion I came to several weeks ago: BRK is doing just fine.
First, the weather: living in balmy Texas, I completely missed this (and, it should be noted, I don't miss it, LOL):
By Kate Reilly and Kathryn Prociv
Cold temperatures and winter storm systems continue to sweep across the United States.
A
blast of Arctic air will bring temperatures 10 to 20 degrees
Fahrenheit below average to all regions east of the Mississippi River.
On Monday -- that's today -- the coldest areas will be the northern Plains, the Upper
Midwest and the Great Lakes.
By
Tuesday morning, isolated record lows are possible in the Northeast,
but this air mass is not as cold as the one that produced several record
lows last week.
NVDA: to surge; Trump just said "yes!"
Stockpicker's market: that's what is going on today. The Fed this week; FOMO; MOJO.
DEERE: despite news that Trump is about to unveil a $12 billion aid package for farmers, DE is down today.
Meanwhile, Broadcom, up big today:
*********************************
Disclaimer
Brief Reminder
Briefly:
I
am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out
front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole
when it comes to the Bakken.
I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.
See disclaimer. This is not an investment site.
Disclaimer:
this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial,
job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read
here or think you may have read here.
All
my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical
errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact
check everything.
If
anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source.
If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.
Many posts are not proofread for several days after they've been posted.
Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.
I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.
And
now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things
Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial
revolution.
I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom.
My wife read an "OMG" article that said 300 -- 400 "works” in the Louvre (Paris) had been damaged by a water leakage. Again, the "OMG" article never gave us the denominator or the impact. Here's that information:
December 9, 2025: debacle. Nature. Link here. I think you can lay this debacle right at the feet of MAGA, Trump and rabid Trump supporters.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen declining trust in childhood vaccines since the pandemic. The miscommunication and distrust over COVID-19 vaccines and mandates has influenced the uptake of other vaccines.
The
United States is now at risk of losing elimination status for measles
and that is directly related to vaccine coverage. Once measles
vaccination drops below 95%, we start to lose herd immunity. If that
were to happen, I think it would be a clear sign of this declining trust
in vaccines.
This is a very, very long thread. I believe the thread began with Simon Maechling. Google "Simon Maechling." So much of it is accurate. Whether or not it's accurate, and regardless of how one feels about the whole issue, the thread:
reminds us of "those" days;
has a lot of valid points were made; and,
explains why RFK, Jr, with Trump's backing, is striking a chord right now.
All
the debate and speculation you hear about the future of the data center
industry comes with the promise of massive electricity — and natural
gas — usage down the line. But which data centers are using the most
grid power right now — no hype, no
future expansion plans, just actual performance? And how much
electricity are they actually using? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at
the largest U.S. data centers in operation today and the amount of grid
power they’re consuming.
Data centers and their need
for massive amounts of power have been a major topic in the RBN
blogosphere. The promise (and potential pitfalls) around data centers is
most notably seen in Virginia, which has more than 550 data centers in
operation, with some estimates well above that. But as we discussed
recently in Sweet Virginia,
some communities in the Old Dominion State are asserting greater
control over the approval process and seeking to slow development. As we
noted in Part 2
of that mini-series, Virginia remains a hot spot for data centers, with
dozens of new facilities under development, but Texas has also stepped
up its game, with more than 350 data centers in operation (see God Blessed Texas).
Its neighbor to the east, Louisiana, also has some massive projects
underway, including a $10 billion site being constructed by Meta (parent
company of Facebook and Instagram; see Louisiana Saturday Night) that could one day cover a stretch of land equal to one-seventh the size of Manhattan.
Data
centers are dominating the energy industry and long-term estimates for
power demand are thought by some to be overly optimistic, perhaps more
of a wish than reality. Indeed, suspicious minds wonder how many of
those data centers will become operational and how long it will take.
Operators often cite design capacity, which is what a facility would
pull if it ran 24/7, with every customer plugged in and all the cooling
kicked on. In reality, a data center may consume only a fraction of its
total capacity at a given point in time, depending on the stage of
buildout, the level of tenant activity and other factors. The question
we are discussing in today’s blog is simple: How much electricity are
the biggest U.S. data centers pulling from the grid right now?
Finding
an answer to that question isn’t simple or easy, and also note that we
said “pulling from the grid right now.” A challenge with facilities that
rely heavily on renewables and/or behind-the-meter systems is that they
don’t file the same public interconnection documents as grid-dependent
campuses. That means their actual power draw may be significant, but the
data isn’t publicly available, so it isn't easy to rank them alongside
fully grid-metered sites.
It’s also important to keep
in mind that hard data on power consumption is scarce. Utilities rarely
disclose site-specific load, so we generally rely on utility filings,
company updates and regulatory documents to track which facilities are
drawing power, which means that other data-center sites could be worthy
of inclusion here. The exact number of megawatts each site draws at any
given moment remains a gray area.
A key pattern stood
out in our analysis. Many of today’s largest data center consumers are
on large campuses built a decade or more ago and have undergone numerous
expansions along the way to reach their current state. Combined, the 11
sites discussed in today’s blog have about 3,000 MW of installed
capacity, enough to power more than 2.4 million U.S. homes. Below is our
list of the data centers using the most electricity, based on factors
including analysts' insights, publicly available information, and
companies' reports.
Google’s Council Bluffs, IA, data center complex is
first on our list with its sprawling campus, which began construction
in 2007 (see Google icon in the center of Figure 1 below). This is a
monster hub for Google’s cloud, AI and internet operations. MidAmerican
Energy, a utility with customers in several Midwest states, serves the
site, and Google has contracted for up to 407 MW of wind power through
public agreements with it. Google’s precise energized load is not
disclosed, but analysts speculate it falls within 500-600 MW. The entire
complex comprises two campuses, four buildings and an estimated 2.9
million square feet. The first facility near Lake Manawa became
operational in 2009, with a second major campus (Southlands) opened in
2013.
WBD - Netflix - Paramount: David "son of Larry" Ellison was interviewed on CNBC. He didn'tsound particularly convincing. Of course that was already known but Ellison, at least to me, was not at all convincing his deal would ultimately win. We'll know in two to three years. The meme is this: if the deal is allowed to go through, "no more movies will be made; it's the end of Hollywood." Seems to be a bit of hyperbole. LOL. And would that be so bad, if this was the end of Hollywood?
*************************************** Back to the Bakken
WTI: $59.21.
New wells reporting:
Tuesday, December 9, 2025: 19 for the month, 142 for the quarter, 726 for the year,
28514, conf, CLR, Berlain 5-30H,
Monday, December 8, 2025: 18 for the month, 141 for the quarter, 725 for the year,
41834, conf, BR, Muri 3C-UTFH,
Sunday, December 7, 2025: 17 for the month, 140 for the quarter, 724 for the year,
41492, conf, CLR, Boulder Federal 4-4HSL, Banks, link here.
41326, conf, Hess, EN-Rice-155-94-1102H-6,
28515, conf, CLR, Berlain 4-30HSL,
Saturday, December 6, 2025: 14 for the month, 137 for the quarter, 721 for the year,
All
the debate and speculation you hear about the future of the data center
industry comes with the promise of massive electricity — and natural
gas — usage down the line. But which data centers are using the most
grid power right now — no hype, no
future expansion plans, just actual performance? And how much
electricity are they actually using? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at
the largest U.S. data centers in operation today and the amount of grid
power they’re consuming.
Data centers and their need
for massive amounts of power have been a major topic in the RBN
blogosphere. The promise (and potential pitfalls) around data centers is
most notably seen in Virginia, which has more than 550 data centers in
operation, with some estimates well above that. But as we discussed
recently in Sweet Virginia,
some communities in the Old Dominion State are asserting greater
control over the approval process and seeking to slow development. As we
noted in Part 2
of that mini-series, Virginia remains a hot spot for data centers, with
dozens of new facilities under development, but Texas has also stepped
up its game, with more than 350 data centers in operation (see God Blessed Texas).
Its neighbor to the east, Louisiana, also has some massive projects
underway, including a $10 billion site being constructed by Meta (parent
company of Facebook and Instagram; see Louisiana Saturday Night) that could one day cover a stretch of land equal to one-seventh the size of Manhattan.
Data
centers are dominating the energy industry and long-term estimates for
power demand are thought by some to be overly optimistic, perhaps more
of a wish than reality. Indeed, suspicious minds wonder how many of
those data centers will become operational and how long it will take.
Operators often cite design capacity, which is what a facility would
pull if it ran 24/7, with every customer plugged in and all the cooling
kicked on. In reality, a data center may consume only a fraction of its
total capacity at a given point in time, depending on the stage of
buildout, the level of tenant activity and other factors. The question
we are discussing in today’s blog is simple: How much electricity are
the biggest U.S. data centers pulling from the grid right now?
Finding
an answer to that question isn’t simple or easy, and also note that we
said “pulling from the grid right now.” A challenge with facilities that
rely heavily on renewables and/or behind-the-meter systems is that they
don’t file the same public interconnection documents as grid-dependent
campuses. That means their actual power draw may be significant, but the
data isn’t publicly available, so it isn't easy to rank them alongside
fully grid-metered sites.
It’s also important to keep
in mind that hard data on power consumption is scarce. Utilities rarely
disclose site-specific load, so we generally rely on utility filings,
company updates and regulatory documents to track which facilities are
drawing power, which means that other data-center sites could be worthy
of inclusion here. The exact number of megawatts each site draws at any
given moment remains a gray area.
A key pattern stood
out in our analysis. Many of today’s largest data center consumers are
on large campuses built a decade or more ago and have undergone numerous
expansions along the way to reach their current state. Combined, the 11
sites discussed in today’s blog have about 3,000 MW of installed
capacity, enough to power more than 2.4 million U.S. homes. Below is our
list of the data centers using the most electricity, based on factors
including analysts' insights, publicly available information, and
companies' reports.
Google’s Council Bluffs, IA, data center complex is
first on our list with its sprawling campus, which began construction
in 2007 (see Google icon in the center of Figure 1 below). This is a
monster hub for Google’s cloud, AI and internet operations. MidAmerican
Energy, a utility with customers in several Midwest states, serves the
site, and Google has contracted for up to 407 MW of wind power through
public agreements with it. Google’s precise energized load is not
disclosed, but analysts speculate it falls within 500-600 MW. The entire
complex comprises two campuses, four buildings and an estimated 2.9
million square feet. The first facility near Lake Manawa became
operational in 2009, with a second major campus (Southlands) opened in
2013.
