The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog): 08/16/26

Sunday, August 16, 2026

It Never Quits -- Federal Judge Allows Wall To Be Built -- August 15, 2026

Locator: 51427WALL.

Population: those living on the reservation -- 10,500.

At least two issues here

sovereignty ; and,
immigration control.

State Tax Collections Per Capita -- IRS Data -- August 16, 2026

Locator: 51426TAXES.

Link here.

This obviously is a function of "Bakken millionaires" and not taxes per se. This may be the most recent data available.

Texas is #47.

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The Taxman

Link here.

This Is What US Bonds Have To Compete With -- August 16, 2026

Locator: 51425EPD.

The opportunities in today's market for traders and investors are unrelenting. So many choice.

Carbon Emissions, Fossil Fuel Use, LDCs, And AI Demand -- An Update -- August 16, 2026

Locator: 51424LCDS.

Link here: oilprice.

AI's energy footprint is out of control. Hyperscalers are building out data centers faster than the energy industry can keep up with, pushing for the rapid buildout of any form of energy we have at our disposal, clean or dirty. Silicon Valley's leadership in the decarbonization movement and bold net-zero pledges are a thing of the past. But a new study warns that the biggest issue with AI's carbon footprint may not even be its own energy consumption, but rather the industries it is used to support and expand.

Instead of reducing emissions, Big Tech is seeing its carbon footprint expand by double-digit rates driven almost entirely by the AI boom. According to official company figures, the total carbon emissions of Google and Microsoft each skyrocketed by 25% year-over-year from 2025 to 2026, while Amazon's increased by 16%. Altogether, in the last fiscal year, these three companies emitted as much carbon dioxide as a third of France, at 19 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

And those numbers are set to keep climbing in the coming years. Amazon made headlines across the globe this week when it was revealed that the firm is investing in a large-scale natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a massive data center development in South Texas that is set to be the single biggest-emitting power plant in the country. If built to currently planned specifications, the facility would be permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

The gap between the US and the EU will continue to widen.

The Future Of LCDs Rests In Virginia, Ohio, And Texas -- August 16, 2026

Locator: 51423LCDS.

Which two states are in the wings to become part of the top five?

Project Horizon -- Texas -- Fort Stockton -- A Reminder -- August 16, 2026

Locator: 51422AMAZON.

Query:

Amazon is backing a natural-gas power plant in South Texas that would become the single biggest-emitting power plant in the country, releasing 33 million tons of CO2 a year. What / where is that LDC?

Reply:

Previously posted, link here:

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Disclaimer

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.
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. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.
Longer version here.

The "Achilles Heel" Of Neoclouds And Why They Might Be Short-Time Plays -- August 16, 2026

Locator: 51421NEOCLOUDS.

Query:

I think yesterday you mentioned the weakness of a neocloud like Coreweave - something to do with the risks if the hyperscalers have cash problems. What is the "Achilles heel" of neoclouds?

Reply:

The "Achilles heel" of neoclouds like CoreWeave is their heavy, debt-fueled business model that depends entirely on continuous hardware scarcity and uninterrupted multi-year tenant payments to service massive financial liabilities.

Core Vulnerabilities of Neoclouds

• The Leverage Trap: Neoclouds typically finance billions in expensive NVIDIA GPUS and data center builds by taking on massive asset-backed debt and delayed-draw loans, using future contract revenues as collateral. If a major tenant delays payments, defaults, or scales back demand, servicing this debt becomes an immediate crisis.
• The "Conduit" Limitation: Critics like veteran investor Jim Chanos note that neoclouds function more as financial conduits or capacity bridges than traditional technology companies. They buy hardware from a single dominant supplier (NVIDIA) and rent it out, leaving them vulnerable if hardware prices shift, allocation policies change, or hyperscalers build enough internal capacity to bypass them.
• Rapid Depreciation & Obsolescence: Al hardware cycles move fast. If the market shifts from heavy frontier-model training to more efficient inference workloads-or if newer, cheaper chips render older GPU clusters less profitable-the underlying assets may rapidly lose value before debts are fully paid.
• Customer Concentration: A massive share of a neocloud's revenue often relies on just a handful of major Al labs or hyperscalers, creating extreme exposure if thosep rimary customers hit budgetary constraints or pivot to alternative providers.

This suggests to me that "neoclouds" are short-term plays.