Like everyone else I will be baking a turkey in the oven next week. My biggest concern: when will I know it's done if that little thermometer fails to pop out?
Never fear -- there's a Plan B.
From this site:
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
It's That Time Of The Season Again -- New England Burning Oil To Stay Warm -- November 17, 2020
I would have completely missed it but a reader brought it to my attention. Comment at this post:
New England's big problem is methane. Not enough pipelines for import. I'll be watching ISO-NE for the next few days for price during demand peaks. Burning oil today to make electricity.
Checking ISO-NE for past few days, it turns out New England has been burning oil at least since last week -- not much but enough -- not on weekends but during the week. It's already started.
Sempra's Mexico LNG Export Terminal -- Biggest LNG Story This Year? -- Update -- November 17, 2020
Locator: 10010COSTAAZUL.
Updates
April 14, 2024: to come on line in 2025 if "Biden's pause" doesn't affect it.
December 10, 2020: RBN Energy update.
December 9, 2020: Total takes stake.
Later, 9:53 p.m. CT: from a reader --
This particular project is intriguing on so many levels.
The initial Phase 1 will produce a modest ~3 mtpa (million tonnes per annum), but the total project - which includes Phase 2 - will produce almost 15 mtpa when completed.The 'clock' will start with today's FID and it will be instructive to the entire LNG industry at just how quickly this plant will start producing.
They are employing the same modular concept that Calcasieu Pass is using with great effect.
Unlike Calcasieu Pass, this ECA project already has berthing and storage facilities as it has been an LNG import terminal for years.
While pipelines already exist, some midstream outfit embarked upon huge capacity upgrades out of West Texas to the Mexican (Baja) border several months ago. [Comment from blog author: this I find most interesting.]Biggest attribute of ECA is its location, being on the Pacific coast. [Comment: because of its location, I almost consider this an American LNG export terminal. My hunch is that SRE knew it would be close to impossible to get a greenfield LNG export terminal off the coast of US-California. Baja-California works out just fine. LOL.]
Not only will this bypass the need for using the Panama Canal and its fees, the trip to Asia will be very short.This could be about the most profitable LNG project extant IF things play out as expected. [Comment: wow, that is very, very interesting ... I bet every LNG export operator was scrambling to find a west coast terminal and SRE pulled it off. Very, very interesting. Wow, this is fascinating.]
Note how fast SRE announced the contractor -- one day after the permit issued.
November 17, 2020, from SeekingAlpha:
- Sempra Energy says it reached a final investment decision to build the Costa Azul liquefied natural gas export project in Baja California, Mexico, making it the only LNG export project in the world to reach FID this year.
- ECA Liquefaction, the joint venture
between Sempra and its IEnova Mexico subsidiary, will build the plant at
the existing Costa Azul LNG import plant at an estimated ~$2B capital
cost, with production of first LNG expected in late 2024. [Cameron was forecast to cost $8 - $10 billion.]
- The plant, which will have a nameplate capacity to produce 3.25M metric tons/year of LNG, already has 20-year agreements with units of Mitsui and Total for the purchase of ~2.5M mt/year from the project's first phase.
- Mexico's President Lopez Obrador (AMLO) said last week that the government would give the project an export permit as long as the company helped to offset an oversupply of gas in the area.
Original Post
Just the other day, November 13, 2020:
SRE: Mexico will give LNG conditional export permit -- AMLO! Link here.
- Sempra Energy's local IEnova unit likely will receive an export permit for a proposed liquefied natural gas facility in northwest Mexico, as long as the company helps offset an oversupply of gas in the area, Mexican Pres. Lopez Obrador says.
- The President says he is inclined to approve the permit but stresses what he considers excess natural gas in the area around the northern Pacific coast, given that state-owned power company Comision Federal de Electricidad does not use the fuel to generate electricity.
- Lopez Obrador says supply contracts signed by the previous government obliged CFE to buy natural gas that is not needed.
- The
comments appear to walk back the government's interest in requiring
IEnova to build a second LNG export facility before approving the
pending plant in Ensenada, which was reported in August.
Today: TechnipFMC wins $1-billion-plus contract for Sempra's Mexico LNG plant. Link here.
- TechnipFMC after-hours on news it received a notice to proceed for a major Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract by Sempra Energy and IENova at the Energía Costa Azul liquefied natural gas facility in Mexico; for TechnipFMC, a "major" contract exceeds $1B.
- The Costa Azul project, which won a final investment decision today, will add a natural gas liquefaction facility with nameplate capacity of 3.25M metric tons/year to the existing regasification terminal using a compact and high efficiency mid-scale LNG design.
- TechnipFMC has been involved in the project since 2017, including the delivery of the front end engineering design.
- Earlier this month, TechnipFMC reportedly was set to win a "huge" offshore engineering contract from Qatargas.
In its press release, Sempra refers to the Costa Azul (blue coast) project as a "landmark" project.
Note: Costa Azul LNG is a sea port and natural gas processing center, located 15 miles north of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. Ensenada is about 50 miles due south of Tijuana along the west coast of Baja.
Apparently Covid-19 Does Provide Immunity -- Now That The Election Is Over -- A Most Unique Virus -- November 17, 2020
This is really cool and why a change in administration was desperately needed.
Under the Trump administration, the NY Times was reporting that "immunity" to Covid-19 was fleeting and it appeared that despite having Covid-19 once, it was likely that you were still highly susceptible to follow-on infections. That, of course, would make this an extremely unique virus. "Seasonal flu" virus seems to be quite unique in migrating strains year-after-year, but that's another story for another time.
But now, with a change in administration looming, the NY Times is reporting that, in fact, once you've had Covid-19, it's likely you will have immunity for many years. Well, how 'bout that?
It seems unhealthy here.
It's just a party.
From social media earlier today:
************************
And this from Dr Faust earlier today ....
...or masks and social distancing, like, forever.
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The Literature Page
I'm in my Nabokov Lolita phase. It started when I saw "Lolita" on TCM some weeks ago, starring James Mason, Shelley WInters, and Sue Lyon, directed by Stanley Kubrick. As mentioned earlier I had tried reading the novel but couldn't understand it and found it tedious. I don't think I got past the first five pages.
But after seeing the movie, my curiosity was piqued again. I read about 25% of the novel before I got side-tracked. I came across a review of a book written about the "real" Lolita. I found it on Amazon, available through a third party seller, ordered it and after a delay of about two weeks, it arrived today. I had forgotten I had ordered it.
It is a hardcover, obviously "used" but it doesn't appear to ever having been read.
I normally don't go in for this genre, "crime stories," but this looks to be absolutely fascinating.
The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World, Sarah Weinman, c. 2018.
Yes, that current, just two years ago.
From the introduction:
I tell crime stories for a living. That means I read a great deal about, and immerse myself in, bad things happening to people, good or otherwise. Crime stories grapple with what causes people to topple over from sanity to madness, from decency to psychopathy, from love to rage. They ignite within me the twinned sense of obsession and compulsion. If these feelings persist, I know the story is mine to tell.
Several years ago I stumbled upon what happened to Sally Horner while looking for a new story to tell. It was my habit then, and remains so now, to plumb obscure corners of the Internet for ideas. I gravitate toward the mid-twentieth century because that period is well documented by newspapers, radio, even early television, yet just outside the bounds of memory. Court records still exist, but require extra rounds of effort to uncover. There are people still alive who remember what happened, but few enough that their recollections are on the cusp of vanishing. Here, in that liminal space where the contemporary meets the past, are stories crying out for greater context and understanding.
Sally Horner caught my attention with particular urgency. Here was a young girl, victimized over a twenty-one-month odyssey from new Jersey to California, by an opportunistic child molester. Here was a girl who figured out a way to survive away from home against her will, who acted in ways that baffled her friends and relatives of the time. We better comprehend those means of survival now because of more recent accounts of girls and women in captivity. Here was a girl who survived her ordeal when so many others, snatched away from their lives, do not. Then for her to die so soon after her rescue, her story subsumed by a novel, of of the most iconic, important works of the twentieth century? Sally Horner got under my skin in a way that few stores ever have.
I dug for the details of Sally's life and its connections to Lolita throughout 2014 for a feature published that fall by the Canadian online magazine Hazlitt. Even after chasing down court documents, taking to family members, visiting some of the places she had lived -- and some of the places where La Salle took her -- and writing the piece, I knew I wasn't finished with Sally Horner. Or, more accurately, she was not finished with me.
I am hooked.
Sally Horner was kidnapped at age twelve. Rescued about two years later, she died two years after her rescue.
North Dakota Chinese Flu Stats -- November 17, 2020
North Dakota health officials on Tuesday reported big drops in active COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations but 26 new coronavirus-related deaths, including six in the Bismarck-Mandan region.
Four deaths were reported in Burleigh County and two in Morton County. All of the victims were in their 80s and 90s. Other deaths of people ranging in age from their 50s to their 90s were scattered over nine other counties, including Ward (Minot, ND), which had eight new deaths reported.
The Department of Health reported 1,091 new COVID-19 cases, including 131 in Burleigh and 49 in Morton, raising the state total to 65,967. Active cases statewide dropped by nearly 900, to 10,022, including 1,937 in Burleigh-Morton. Active cases dropped for a third consecutive day in the state. They've remained relatively stable in Burleigh-Morton the past couple of weeks.
Coronavirus-related hospitalizations dropped by 28 from Monday's all-time high, to 304. Statewide, there were 16 staffed intensive care beds open and 179 non-ICU beds, according to the most recent state data. In Bismarck, Sanford Health had one staffed ICU bed available and CHI St. Alexius Health had none. Both had six non-ICU staffed beds open.
For newbies:
- Morton County (Mandan):
- population: 32,000
- deaths related to Chinese flu: 64
- Williams County (Williston, the Bakken):
- population: 38,000
- deaths related to Chinese flu: 22
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