The Canadian Ghost Town That Tesla Is Bringing Back to Life Renewed demand for cobalt, the metal, is breathing new life into Cobalt, the town.Ironically, Cobalt, Ontario—population 1,100—was built on silver.If you can't get to the story due to a paywall, here's another story from CBC News:
There's an old school gold rush underway in northern Ontario, but the demand is for a special metal that is used in everything from smart phones to electric cars.
More than a dozen mining companies are staking out claims in Cobalt, Ont. as price of the mineral with the same name rises, according to the Northern Prospectors Association.
"The whole situation is a cobalt-style rush, just like an old fashioned staking rush," said Gino Chitaroni, president of the Northern Prospectors Association and a geologist from the area.
The town of Cobalt is located along the Quebec border, near Temiskaming Shores in northern Ontario, and is best known for the massive amounts of silver that were extracted a century ago.
Every few months, Robert Mitchell travels from his office near Portland, Ore., to a Connecticut warehouse and checks in on his biggest investment.
Mr. Mitchell’s fund owns millions of dollars worth of cobalt. He is so confident that its use in electric-car batteries will cause demand to surge that he has been buying and storing more than a thousand metric tons of the stuff—worth more than $56 million at current prices.
He feels he has little choice but to hold physical metal, since acquiring a cobalt position in financial markets is so hard.
“There’s a lot of money looking for a home in cobalt,” Mr. Mitchell said. “They really don’t have a great way to play it.”
Cobalt has long been a component in tires, magnets and smartphones. Now, it is the latest material, along with lithium and copper, to benefit from its use in the lithium ion-batteries that power electric vehicles.
Slightly more than half of all cobalt bought or sold last year went toward rechargeable batteries, up from 20% in 2006, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Battery manufacturers’ soaring demand for the hard, silvery metal has propelled cobalt’s value to its highest level since 2008. Prices are up 70% this year through Wednesday to $56,500 a metric ton, making it the top-performing commodity traded on a major futures exchange.
The number of earthquakes in Oklahoma has fallen 25% in 2016 compared with a year earlier, a decline attributed in part to actions by state regulators to police the oil and gas industry’s practice of pumping wastewater from its operations deep underground.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees the state’s oil and gas industry, earlier this year stepped up efforts to get companies to reduce the amount of wastewater they inject into hundreds of disposal wells, which have been blamed for a surge in earthquake activity in the state over the past decade.
More than 2,700 temblors of magnitude 2.5 or higher occurred in Oklahoma last year, up from 3 in 2005, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey. So far this year, Oklahoma has had 1,098 quakes of that magnitude—strong enough to be felt by humans— down from about 1,400 over the same period in 2015.It's a fine distinction, but an important distinction, it's not fracking per se that has been associated with earthquakes. It is the disposal of "salt water" that is associated with earthquakes.
More than five years after Oklahoma first saw a startling spike in earthquakes linked to the disposal of huge volumes of wastewater created by hydraulic fracturing for oil, the state continues to shake at an unprecedented rate and the number of strong quakes is increasing. In 2009, there were 20 quakes of magnitude 3.0 or higher, according to the United States Geological Survey. Last year, there were 890. In 2009, no quake measured 4.0 or greater. Last year, 30 did.
Now, however, after quakes have shaken the homes of some top elected officials — and those of the worried constituents who vote for them — the state is taking new steps to address the problem, even as critics say it is too little, too late.
Last month, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, asked oil producers operating in the northwest part of the state to reduce the amount of wastewater they are disposing of deep underground by 40%.
Scientists say natural faults in the area are being stirred by billions of gallons of water injected deep into the ground after it is used for hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. Water and chemicals are used to break oil and gas free from rock formations. A large amount of the water returns to the surface and, under federal law, must be disposed of in a way that does not affect freshwater supplies.
On Feb. 13, a quake northwest of Fairview, about two hours away, registered a magnitude of 5.1, making it the third-strongest quake in the state's recorded history. The strongest was in 2011. The second-strongest was in 1952; and scientists now say it, too, may have been induced by nearby oil production.February 20, 2016: KOCO.com is reporting -- at least not quite as many (LOL):
Since January 1 of 2016 until February 19 Oklahoma has recorded 339 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater.
Through the same period last year the state had recorded 389 quakes.
This year, seven earthquakes of 4.0 magnitude or greater have occurred in the state.
Through the same time last year, four earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 occurred.
The strongest earthquake this year was a 5.1 that occurred February 13 in northern Oklahoma.
The paper makes a compelling case for stopping the issuance of high denomination notes like the 500 euro note and $100 bill or even withdrawing them from circulation.With regard to the earlier question, how negative rates relate to a cashless society, Business Insider provides this article from last autumn: People are hiding cash in their microwaves as Sweden gets closer to being the first cashless society with negative interest rates.
I remember that when the euro was being designed in the late 1990s, I argued with my European G7 colleagues that skirmishing over seigniorage by issuing a 500 euro note was highly irresponsible and mostly would be a boon to corruption and crime. Since the crime and corruption in significant part would happen outside European borders, I suggested that, to paraphrase John Connally, it was their currency, but would be everyone’s problem. And I made clear that in the context of an international agreement, the U.S. would consider policy regarding the $100 bill. But because the Germans were committed to having a high denomination note, the issue was never seriously debated in international forums.
The fact that — as Sands points out — in certain circles the 500 euro note is known as the “Bin Laden” confirms the arguments against it. Sands’ extensive analysis is totally convincing on the linkage between high denomination notes and crime. He is surely right that illicit activities are facilitated when a million dollars weighs 2.2 pounds as with the 500 euro note rather than more than 50 pounds as would be the case if the $20 bill was the high denomination note. And he is equally correct in arguing that technology is obviating whatever need there may ever have been for high denomination notes in legal commerce.
What should happen next? I’d guess the idea of removing existing notes is a step too far. But a moratorium on printing new high denomination notes would make the world a better place. In terms of unilateral steps, the most important actor by far is the European Union. The €500 is almost six times as valuable as the $100. Some actors in Europe, notably the European Commission, have shown sympathy for the idea and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi has shown interest as well. If Europe moved, pressure could likely be brought on others, notably Switzerland.
Sweden is shaping up to be the first country to plunge its citizens into a fascinating — and terrifying — economic experiment: negative interest rates in a cashless society.The dots are still hard to connect (counterintuitive, might be a better word) but I think I understand what the "expert" on CNBC was suggesting.
The Swedish central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, on Wednesday held its benchmark interest rate at -0.35%, the level it has been at since July.
Though retail banks have yet to pass that negative rate on to Swedish consumers, they face increased pressure to do so as long as the rates remain where they are. That's a problem, because Sweden is the closest country on the planet to becoming an all-electronic cashless society.
Remember, Sweden is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks call the police because they think you might be a terrorist or a criminal. Swedish banks have started removing cash ATMs from rural areas, annoying old people and farmers. Credit Suisse says the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong."
So two trends are converging on Sweden at the same time:
- Sweden is using less and less cash. Sweden is an environment of negative interest rates.
- And that means many Swedes have no way to "hide" their money.
So Sweden may become the first country whose citizens may have to accept negative interest rates (probably in the form of higher bank charges or fees) or be forced to spend their money to "save" it from those rates.
A resistance is forming, and some people are protesting the impending extinction of cash.For an even more up-to-date article, the Renegade Tribune, three days ago, posted this article:
Events are moving very quickly in the world of money and banking. One tectonic shift that is being reported on in the alternative media, but very conveniently ignored by the mainstream media is the link between the elimination of cash and negative interest rates. Introducing these two conditions into our economy will bring crushing financial hardship onto the ordinary citizen – yet few understand the critical link between the two.That linked article led to a zerohedge article.
The real reason the war on cash is gearing up now is political: Politicians and central bankers fear that holders of currency could undermine their brave new monetary world of negative interest rates. Japan and Europe are already deep into negative territory, and U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said last week the U.S. should be prepared for the possibility. Translation: That’s where the Fed is going in the next recession.
Negative rates are a tax on deposits with banks, with the goal of prodding depositors to remove their cash and spend it to increase economic demand. But that goal will be undermined if citizens hoard cash. And hoarding cash is easier if you can take your deposits out in large-denomination bills you can stick in a safe. It’s harder to keep cash if you can only hold small bills.
So, presto, ban cash. This theme has been pushed by the likes of Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, who wrote in the Financial Times that eliminating paper currency would be “by far the simplest” way to “get around” the zero interest-rate bound “that has handcuffed central banks since the financial crisis.” If the benighted peasants won’t spend on their own, well, make it that much harder for them to save money even in their own mattresses.One of my least favorite songs:
Oklahomans don’t blink when they hear warnings about tornadoes, drought or ice-storms. Earthquakes, however, catch their attention.
Increasingly tied to tremors shaking the west, fracking for natural gas is creating alarm and division around western states that until recently enjoyed a boom in jobs and revenue.
In Oklahoma, seismologists have warned that significant temblors last week could signal a larger, more dangerous earthquake to come in a state where drilling is destabilizing the bedrock.
Last Wednesday night two earthquakes, measuring 4.7 and 4.8 on the Richter scale, struck rural northern Oklahoma, beneath a major oil and gas producing area. The state historically experiences two shakes a year registering above level three.That's probably a bit of hyperbole that "Oklahomans don’t blink when they hear warnings about tornadoes, drought or ice-storms" but the Oklahoma oil and gas industry has cause to worry. There is a bit of irony in that fracking itself is not associated with earthquakes, but rather the disposal of all that waste water in deep salt-water disposal wells.
Studies released this year have highlighted the likely link between oil and gas wastewater injection and earthquakes. In April 2015, Southern Methodist University released a study reporting that a string of earthquakes near Azle, Texas were likely caused by high volumes of wastewater injection combined with saltwater extraction from natural gas wells. And a study published in the June 2015 issue of Science Magazine found that high-rate injection wells in the U.S. Midcontinent, or wells injected with more than 300,000 barrels of wastewater a month, are much more likely to be associated with earthquakes than lower-rate wells.
Although only a very small fraction of injection and extraction activities at hundreds of thousands of energy development sites in the United States have induced seismicity at levels that are noticeable to the public, seismic events caused by or likely related to energy development have been measured and felt in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, according to a 2013 National Academies Press (NAM) report.
Parts of North Texas just experienced the most powerful earthquake so far to rumble through this part of the world: a 4.0-magnitude temblor in Venus, just south of Mansfield and west of Midlothian. According to the U.S. Geological Survey — and countless reports on Twitter and via email — it occurred at 5:58 p.m.
No surprise: The USGS confirms that’s the largest quake to strike North Texas. And, it was a shallow temblor, occurring about two miles deep. The most recent quake reported in that part of Johnson County was a 3.4M in November. Dallas and Irving haven’t experience a quake larger than 3.6M, which occurred during a day of shaking in early January.
The largest quake ever recorded in Texas occurred in 1931 — a 5.8M near Valentine in far West Texas. There was a 5.7M near Alpine in 1995, and a 4.1M in far East Texas in 2013.Venus, TX, is about 40 miles south of us, on the southeast side of Ft Worth.
Expanded oil and gas operations in the central and eastern United States have triggered earthquakes as large as magnitude 5.7, as drillers inject wastewater back into the ground. But seismologists now report a bit of good news: such 'induced' quakes appear to shake the ground less than a naturally occurring earthquake of the same magnitude would.
That is good news because less shaking means less damage. “Maybe induced earthquakes aren’t quite as fearsome as they may seem,” says Susan Hough, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Pasadena, California, whose work is published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.
“The hazard from induced quakes is going to be down a notch relative to tectonic quakes.”
But the observation holds only for areas more than 10 kilometres from the earthquake’s epicentre. Anyone close to the drilling would still feel as much shaking as a natural quake would bring. “This might lead to a recommendation that deep injection wells should be kept 10 kilometres away from population centres,” says Hough.And ten kilometres from the New York State border. No doubt.
In 1999, the feverish rise in Earth's surface temperatures suddenly slowed, even as greenhouse gas emissions escalated. This unexpected slowdown has been called a global warming hiatus or global warming pause. Most climate scientists don't think this hiatus means global warming went kaput, but the reason (or reasons) for the slowdown has scientists flummoxed. Researchers have offered more than two dozen ideas to explain the missing heat.
I'm going to have to put thermometers in the ocean now, along with my popsicle sticks with millimeter hash marks. Does this mean the oceans are still rising? Warm oceans, and yet sea ice is expanding, setting new records in the Antarctic? Hard for all this to be reconciled. If nothing else, a new avenue for research grants. I think a good spot to do this research is off the big island of Hawaii. Just saying.Now, a study published today (Aug. 21) in the journal Science suggests a natural climate cycle in the North Atlantic Ocean gobbled Earth's extra heat. While the study is unlikely to settle the scientific debate, it does support the idea that Earth's global warming continues in the ocean, even when air temperatures stay flat.
About half a million earthquakes are thought to occur around the world annually. However, the majority of earthquakes are too small to be perceptible; only about one in five earthquakes can be felt, and the rest can be detected only by sensitive instruments.
In the United States, there are recognized areas along fault lines where earthquakes occur with some frequency. There are also areas, such as the state of Texas, where earthquakes large enough to be perceptible are relatively rare. The link between fracking and earthquakes is indirect.
The most common method of fracking in use today typically involves the use of a mixture made of sand, chemicals and water that is injected at high pressure into the surrounding rock. The amount of water used can vary with each well, but a typical well in the Eagle Ford might use 7 million gallons of water, according to the Texas Water Development Board.
When a well has been hydraulically fractured, about 20 percent of the water used returns to the surface, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. This water, which is called flowback or produced water, must be disposed of.
It is the process of injecting this water into the underground storage wells, and not the actual fracking of the well, that is most often linked to earthquakes.Related posts:
The decrease in operating income was due to lower refining throughput margins caused by lower gasoline and diesel margins as well as lower light sweet and sour crude oil discounts. Also contributing to the decline in operating income were higher costs for Renewable Identification Numbers to comply with the U.S. federal Renewable Fuel Standard. Strong performance in the ethanol business partially offset the decline in operating income. -- Yahoo!In-PlayApple Inc: Apple's net profit drops but earnings beat forecasts. Apple's (AAPL) FQ4 net profit fell to $7.5B from $8.2B a year earlier, although revenue rose 4% to $37.5B and beat consensus, as did EPS of $8.26. iPhone volumes rose sharply following the introduction of new models in September, although iPad shipments were flat and those for the Mac fell. On the earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will announce any changes to its capital allocation early next year. The comments come as Carl Icahn clamors for a new $150B buyback. Shares were +0.2% premarket after slipping late yesterday. -- SeekingAlpha, October 29, 2013; earnings transcript;
The geothermal power plants at Southern California's Salton Sea don't just produce electricity, they also trigger thousands of temblors not far from one of the West Coast's most dangerous earthquake faults, a new study says.
Research published online Thursday in the journal Science found that as production rose at the Imperial County geothermal field, so did the number of earthquakes. From 1981 through 2012, more than 10,000 earthquakes above magnitude 1.75 were recorded in the area.
"That group of earthquakes …. is connected to the production," said Emily Brodsky, a UC Santa Cruz geophysicist and the paper's lead author.US Santa Cruz is one of the more avant garde universities in the UC system. We probably won't hear from Emily again, any time soon. Smile.
The largest quake during the three-decade study period was magnitude 5.1. The vast majority of quakes were small. But they are occurring about 12 miles from the southern end of the San Andreas fault, which seismologists predict will eventually rock the Southland with a devastating temblor.
Researchers wonder if the many small quakes could trigger larger ones on the nearby fault.And, folks have known this "for decades."
Geothermal power production began in the Salton Sea field, on the sea's southeastern edge, in 1982 and includes one of the largest and hottest geothermal wells in the world. Plants extract superheated water from thousands of feet beneath the Earth's surface and use it to produce steam that drives turbines to generate electricity. The remaining brine is then injected back into the ground.
It has been known for decades that injecting fluids into the Earth can lead to seismic activity. Previous studies have also linked earthquakes to geothermal production.
New research has found that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is "not significant" in causing earth tremors. Released Wednesday by the UK's Durham University, the results of a study of hundreds of thousands of fracking operations showed that the process only caused earth tremors that could be felt on the surface in three cases.
The research, titled Induced Seismicity and the Hydraulic Fracturing of Low Permeability Sedimentary Rocks, found that almost all of the resultant seismic activity was on such a small scale that only geoscientists would be able to detect it. It also discovered that the size and number of tremors is low compared to other manmade triggers such as mining, geothermal activity or reservoir water storage.And if you can't believe the Brits, who can you believe?
"By comparison, most fracking-related events release a negligible amount of energy roughly equivalent to or even less than someone jumping off a ladder onto the floor. Of the three fracking-related quakes that could be felt, even the largest ever, in the Horn River Basin in Canada in 2011 had a magnitude of only 3.8. That is at the lower end of the range that could be felt by people. The widely-reported quake at Preese Hall near Blackpool in 2011 had a magnitude of 2.3."
Hydraulic fracturing has a low risk for inducing earthquakes that can be felt by people but underground injection of wastewater produced by fracing and other energy technologies has a higher risk of causing earthquakes ....Others may see some irony in this part of the report:
Carbon capture and storage may have the potential for inducing seismic events because significant volumes of fluids are injected underground over long periods of time ...