Locator: 48528CALIFORNIA.
Money is fungible. Whatever money California might receive from the Federal government to help re-build after the fires, a significant amount of that money will be carved out for illegally documented criminals and sanctuary cities. They might even use a bit of that money for the Bullet Train.
Locator: 46373EVS.
This story posted yesterday in the Netherlands Times:
Map of the area affected is pretty much all the Dutch provinces that border the North Sea, or perhaps as much as one-third of the Netherlands, stretching from The Hague to Groningen. Amsterdam is on the main road between these two cities / provinces.
From the article:
ASML: is the only company in the world that currently produces extreme ultraviolet (EUV) orthography machines, which are used to produce cutting-edge semiconductor chips that companies like Apple rely upon.
The company is located in Veldhoven, Netherlands, a suburb on the southwest side of Eindhoven.
From wiki:
ASML, from Investopedia:
Locator: 45600CA.
Bullet train: 202 / 128,000 = 0.16%. But enough to pay workers. A reminder: active duty military in California won't be paid if the federal government shuts down.
California gasoline prices: less expensive than one year ago, but average price back over $6 / gallon, summer/winter blend switch-over, link to AAA:
Court rules XOM can't truck oil over US Highway 101 and State Route166 -- this "battle" has been going on since 2015. Link here. This is a pretty lousy article; I'm sure there are better ones out there. I have little interest in the story.
From August 18, 2021:
"We are going to enter our third year of COVID with record numbers of cases but please remember that all of the measures we've taken to fight COVID have totally worked and we should keep doing the same thing indefinitely."
Einstein's definition of insanity.
The Israeli vaccine, link here:
Japan update:
US update:
And, of course that will lead to an increase in oil demand:
Across China, a whopping 148GW of coal-fired plants are either being built or are about to begin construction, according to a report from Global Energy Monitor, a non-profit group that monitors coal stations. Putting that number in context, the current capacity of the entire EU coal fleet is 149GW, or the same as what China is about to add.I pride myself in taking a deeper look when given numbers I can't get my arms around, but in this case I blew it. I never thought about what 148GW of coal-fired plants meant. Yes, I saw that was the "current capacity of the entire EU coal fleet" but I blew that off -- thinking that the EU coal fleet had significantly declined over the past decade.
I have found, over the years, that simply providing raw numbers is not so impactful as charts and/or relative context.
So ... 150 Gigawatts... If one took a massive, single 1,000 Megawatt coal fired plant ... then took 150 of them ... one would arrive at that 150 Gw figure.
That is, if each state in the US - right now - started building THREE massive coal plants, the Chinese equivalent would be realized.
(The Navajo-operated Four Corners plant - now shutting down - is rated at ~2,000 Mw).
For further context/comparison, take the two (2) massive offshore wind projects proposed off New York state - Empire and Sunrise. At an effective output of just over 800 Megawatts (1,700 namplate at 48% capacity factor), these $10 BILLION boondoggles will not even equal the output of a single, 1,000 new Chinese coal plant.
Pure insanity.My first thought: the off-shore wind lobby is certainly very, very powerful.
The winter of 1776-1777 and the early spring at Morristown (NJ), though less famous than the ordeal at Valley Forge the following year, were a time of similar privation and suffering for the Continental Army.
However, Washington had chosen a naturally strong position surrounded by hills and forest, and by sending his men out to ambush and rob British foraging parties, he kept his greatly diminished force alive while Cornwallis remained nervously on the defensive. By spreading false reports about his troop strength, Washington also duped the British into believing he had far more than the five incomplete regiments at his disposal.
With 10,000 fully equipped professional troops only a day's march from the American camp, the British might have wiped out Washington's forces. Instead, Alexander Hamilton confirmed in more elegant prose the "extraordinary spectacle of a powerful army straitened within narrow limits by the phantom of a military force and never permitted to transgress those limits with impunity."Guerilla warfare.
"Brooklyn" is the anglicized spelling and pronunciation of breukelen, a Dutch word meaning "marshland" [or swamp]. Soft and spongy because it was the bed of a valley, the ground received the runoff from the surrounding hills. Gowanus Creek was a snaking tidal inlet that penetrated the peninsula from Gowanus Cove and was surrounded by an extensive marsh. Local farmers supplemented their diet and incomes by harvesting oysters from the creek, and the otion of the tieds worked the ills that were built along its course.The reason I bought this book was because I wanted to learn more about the geography -- particularly the waterways in and around NYC. It has turned out to be an incredible book. It might be a bit drier reading than Nathaniel Philbrick who covered the same history in Valiant Ambition but Barnet Schecter certainly was much more comprehensive. If one has time to read both, read Philbrick first and then Schecter. Philbrick's Valiant Ambition was a biography of Benedict Arnold. Schecter's book was a biography of NYC during the Revolutionary War.
Spuyten Duyvil Creek is a short tidal estuary in New York City connecting the Hudson River to the Harlem River Ship Canal and then on to the Harlem River. The confluence of the three water bodies separate the island of Manhattan from the Bronx and the rest of the mainland.Wiki with nice maps.
South Australia plans to roll out solar panels and Tesla Inc. batteries to at least 50,000 homes to form what its government says will be the world’s largest virtual power plant.If you encounter a paywall, the story is also at The Guardian:
The South Australian premier said a trial was already under way to install solar panels and Tesla batteries on 1,100 Housing Trust homes. The cost would be financed by the sale of electricity. The power generated by the solar panels and the batteries would not be owned directly by the households.
The program would later be rolled out to another 24,000 public housing properties and also offered to other households with a view to having at least 50,000 Adelaide homes connected.Not even gonna comment.
The tanker carrying Russian natural gas that’s been sitting outside of Boston Harbor for days will probably land over the weekend, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Gaselys carries liquefied natural gas originally produced in Siberia, according to vessel tracking data. The ship, poised to dock at Engie SA’s Everett import terminal, would be the first LNG shipment from anywhere other than Trinidad and Tobago in about three years.
“It is expected to be in the port over the weekend,” Luke Pinneo, chief petty officer at the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston, said in a telephone interview.
The delay in bringing the ship into the harbor “is not unusual,’’ according to Pinneo. Inspections can take as long as three days, depending on the time line for getting a Coast Guard boat with a boarding team to it and the specific safety concerns being addressed.What's unusual is importing natural gas from Siberia when there is ample supply just a few miles to the west.
The vessel named Gaselys was set to land at a terminal outside Boston on Saturday and changed its course to delay the date of its arrival, according Engie SA, the French utility that owns the cargo.
The ship turned east last night and listed its destination as Algeciras near Gibraltar, and that entry still remains on a ship-tracking database compiled by Bloomberg.
The route seems a bit convoluted. This graphic helps explain it:“The final destination of the cargo did not change,” Damien de Gaulejac, a spokesman for Engie, said by email. “It is still Everett, but the date of delivery has been adjusted, in particular for weather reasons.”
I find this whole thing ridiculous.
Sanctions against our "arch" enemy and we import their natural gas even though we have such a glut of natural gas, we are exporting it.
For all one knows, natural gas being fungible (a commodity), that LNG in the Russian tanker originated in the US.
Putin, the Russians, and the French must all be laughing all the way to the bank.Even if it "technically" did not originate in the US, for all "practical reasons" it did. So instead of a short pipeline from the natural gas fields in the Marcellus, Boston is getting their natural gas via this route:
- Pennsylvania Marcellus natural gas to Dominion Energy Cove Point
- tanker from DE Cove Point to Rotterdam (the Netherlands)
- tanker from Rotterdam (the Netherlands) to Novatek PAO's Yamal facility, Russia's second LNG export terminal
- from Yamal, Russia, back to the US, specifically Everett, MA (Boston)
104 F degrees in Adelaide now, expected to be 103 F as the sun goes down in a few hours which will neutralize extensive rooftop solar in the region.
Tomorrow looks to be equally hot.
Grid operator AEMO, has taken steps to obfuscate easy data gathering from site.
For those folks who want to see where California is headed with its most recent order affecting PG&E, just look at these charts.These folks are just crazy to go down this path (renewable energy -- solar).
The Golden State is ramping up renewable energy as it pledges to be a bulwark against the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel policies. But first, it has to figure out what to do with all the excess power it generates when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.
California's solar farms create so much power during daylight hours that they often drive real-time wholesale prices in the state to zero. Meanwhile, the need for electricity can spike after sunset, sometimes sending real-time prices as high as $1,000 a megawatt-hour.And that, folks is the problem with non-dispatchable energy, also known as fool's gold, or solar energy. It takes a lot of "daytime FREE solar energy" to offset electricity that costs $1,000 a megawatt-hour at night. Hey, by the way, when do Tesla owners charge their coal-powered cars? Yup, at night. When do kids work on their computers at home? Yup, at night.
The Trans-Dniester region split from Moldova around 1990 and made a failed attempt at independence in 2006, when it held a referendum that was unrecognized internationally.
The region did not want to split from the Soviet Union at the time of its collapse and has now requested unity with Russia.
Absolutely quiet out there today. I do have to agree with the lead story over at Yahoo!Finance right now -- that the markets yesterday over-reacted to the Fed's/Ms Yellin's testimony. I agree with you that rates (mortgages) will be going up, but for the general market to drop 150 points yesterday with her remarks was a bit crazy.
First, everyone knew she was going to continue tapering. And she didn't taper by much in the big scheme of things, certainly not more than expected. Second, I think she sounded pretty dovish -- if the unemployment rate drops to 6 or 6.5, under the "old rules" the Fed was going to raise rates.
Yellin is not going to box herself in; she says she will look at everything before raising rates (I think she's telling us she also knows the unemployment numbers are "managed." LOL).
So, for the moment at least, the market is back up; oil down slightly. I think with the Crimean thing (and everything that looks like might follow), the price of oil will go up, all other things staying the same.
After the official retirement of California’s largest nuclear plant last June, many in the environmental community there were celebrating. Now that the state’s public utility commissioners have said that the state’s utilities can use natural gas to replace a portion of that lost power, they are far less sanguine. [And it's more than just a portion; I think the split was about 80/20, natural gas/renewables.]
The closure of Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in June 2013 opened up a whole other debate, which is how to supplant a carbon-free electricity source in a state that has caps on how much carbon pollution utilities can emit. As expected, natural gas will be the primary fuel to do so, given that it is abundant and relatively affordable — and it’s also a fuel that can run around-the-clock.Bloomberg notes that SRE and Con Edison will share five (5) solar farms:
Sempra Energy (SRE) and Consolidated Edison Inc. agreed to jointly own and operate five solar farms in California and Nevada that will have a total capacity of 360 megawatts.
Each company will own 50 percent of the power plants, which all have long-term contracts to sell the electricity, San Diego-based Sempra said today in a statement.
The deal comprises Sempra’s 250-megawatt Copper Mountain Solar 3 plant that’s under construction near Las Vegas and four Con Edison sites the went into operation in 2012, the largest of which has 50 megawatts of capacity.
Terms weren’t disclosed. [Unfortunately, probably because of the cost.]SRE is trading near its 52-week highs, and could hit a new high today. Again.
SunEdison, a leading solar technology manufacturer and provider of solar energy services announced today that it has completed construction of a 24 MW (megawatt) DC (direct current) solar power plant located in the California Desert.
The Cascade solar power plant is supplying renewable electricity to San Diego Gas & Electric through a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement. Wells Fargo & Company provided tax equity financing following completion of the solar power plant.
The press release did not say how much a 24MW solar power plant costs. So, how much does a 24MW solar plant cost? In Italy, quite a bit.PV-Tech reported last year:
Dubai-based investment company Adenium Capital has purchased a 24MW solar farm in Italy.
The €52 million (US$69 million) acquisition, in partnership with ForVEI, almost doubles the capacity of its solar portfolio.
The Calabria solar park is one of the ten largest in Italy and was originally built by Talesun Solar Switzerland.$70 million / 24MW = $2.9 million / MW.
EPD was the beneficiary of an analyst upgrade at Credit Suisse on Wednesday. The firm’s John Edwards raised Enterprise Products to Outperform from Neutral, and the target was raised to $78, versus a $68.80 close.
This upgrade is significant for several reasons. First is that Enterprise is the largest standalone entity in the land of master limited partnerships (MLPs). Second is that the MLP sector has been battered with concerns about lower distributions (yield equivalents). A third reason this upgrade stands out so much is because this $78 price target represents upside of more than 13%, plus that 4.1% distribution yield. Lastly, the $78 price target is only $2 shy of the street high price target, and it is more than $5 above the consensus price target.
So, what does Credit Suisse’s John Edwards see here that is above and beyond most other analysts after an analyst meeting update?
Edwards shows a 1.5 times distribution coverage at its current distribution growth trajectory, as well as an investment of three to four times the capital to sustain that growth trajectory, which should allow Enterprise to grow the distribution faster than most MLPs.
