Monday, November 9, 2015

Supreme Court gives cops using deadly force more immunity. The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

The Supreme Court made it harder Monday to sue police for using deadly force against fleeing suspects, ruling that officers are immune from lawsuits unless it is "beyond debate" that a shooting was unjustified and clearly unreasonable.

By an 8-1 vote, the justices tossed out an excessive force suit against a Texas police officer who ignored his supervisor's warning and took a high-powered rifle to a highway overpass to shoot at an approaching car. The officer said he hoped to stop the car but instead shot and killed the driver.

The high court said the benefit of the doubt in such cases always goes to the police officer who sees a potentially dangerous situation. The court has "never found the use of deadly force in connection with a dangerous car chase to violate the 4th Amendment," the justices said in an unsigned 12-page opinion.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor faulted the majority for "sanctioning a 'shoot first, think later' approach to policing."

The one dissenting voice is concerning, of course. 8 - 1. The decision was about as short as I've ever seen reported, 12 pages. Seems Sonia is out of her element. Even Ms Ginsberg was among the eight.

Again, The Los Angeles Times showing its bias: headline was that the Supreme Court was giving cops using deadly force more immunity. Sounds like they simply maintained the status quo. According to the decision, the court has "never found the use of deadly force in connection with a dangerous car chase to violate the 4th Amendment," the justices said in an unsigned 12-page opinion. What additional immunity were the cops given? Immunity if firing from a bridge?

Newfangled Energy Stocks -- The Yieldcos -- DIsappoint -- November 9, 2015

From a post back on October 12, 2015:

Now we have this story from The New York Times: intermittent energy financing has hit a snag (if you hit a paywall, google renewable energy financing hits a snag).

Only a few months ago, it seemed that the renewable energy sector could do little wrong: Stock prices were soaring and money was pouring in as investors flocked to get in on the action.

That is no longer the case. Low oil and gas prices have roiled the energy markets, and the specter of rising interest rates has rattled investors’ confidence in the industry’s returns. Although energy and financial experts say that the basics of the business remain sound, the lofty stock prices have tumbled, leading renewable energy companies to scramble for new approaches to their businesses.

Nowhere has the retrenchment been more acute than in a newfangled financing mechanism called a yieldco. Yieldcos, public companies conceived by renewable energy companies as a way to raise cheaper capital for project development, have attracted billions in new investments.

The yieldcos buy and operate power plants, mainly those that their parent companies develop. The yieldcos then collect the contracted electricity fees and pay the bulk of them out as dividends. With investors hungry for stable returns, energy yieldcos were greeted with enthusiasm through initial public offerings of their stocks over the last year and a half.

Last week, though, one of the most aggressive companies in the sector called a timeout.

SunEdison, which has bought several companies in recent months in a bid to become the world’s largest renewable energy developer, told investors it would not sell any more projects to its yieldcos, TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global, until conditions change.

The company said it would trim expenses and streamline operations, including reducing project development by 20 percent, withdrawing from Britain and cutting roughly 15 percent of its work force.

I bring that up because The Wall Street Journal has a very similar story today:

When they were first launched, “yieldcos” lit up the stock market like fireworks with their impressive dividends and the prospect of even higher yields to come. But these new renewable-energy stocks flamed out as dramatically as they appeared, and it now looks as though many may fall short of the hopes of yield-seeking investors.

Then someone thought of "yieldcos."

For a decade or more before yieldcos came along, it was one of the biggest enigmas on Wall Street: The world’s largest economies were shifting their electricity grids to renewable-energy sources, but investors and corporations, with rare exceptions, couldn’t seem to make a buck on the energy revolution.

In theory, yieldcos combined the safety of a steady revenue stream and the sexiness of a fast-growing company, in an era when these companies’ 5%-plus yields have been almost impossible to find elsewhere. In the 30 months following NRG Yield’s launch, about $28 billion was raised in yieldco IPOs, according to Bloomberg research.
But in the time-honored tradition of Wall Street, yieldcos sounded too good to be true precisely because they were.

Investors who piled in saw share prices drop in recent months as the answers to some questions about yieldcos emerged. Namely, who was going to pay for the new projects after the IPO money dried up? (Answer: the investors, whose stakes would be diluted by new offerings of yieldco stock.) What would happen to the construction costs for solar-panel complexes and wind farms when billions of dollars of newly raised capital started chasing the builders? (Answer: They would shoot higher.) Would yieldco investors sit tight as interest-rate increases loomed or flee like many other utility investors? (Answer: They ran for the hills.) 

Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations At 400 PPM Are Still Dangerously Low For Life On Earth -- November 9, 2015

I don't have time to really go into this but these two stories to explain why global warming is a scam.

In the first story, Bill Nye, the science guy, says global warming is apocalyptic -- that at current trends the world will be self-destruct by 2025 or something to that effect -- and yet he talks about cost of wind coming down from 2.1 cents to 1.8 cents. If things are as apocalyptic as Bill suggests, we all better quit using ALL fossil fuel energy immediately. Talking about wind going from 2.1 cents to 1.8 cents is not going to prevent an apocalypse. Oh, did I mention that Bill Nye is promoting a new book? Everyone is getting in on the act. I assume Dr Oz will start talking about global warming, if he hasn't already begun.

And the UN knows it. The second story is that the UN -- after telling us for years that we face an apocalypse at 400 ppm CO2 (where we are now) -- has just raised the ceiling for CO2 emissions it will accept.

I didn't read the entire article, mostly just the headline and a bit of the lede. The UN raised the ceiling in the hope that it could bring on more countries to sign a new commitment to transfer billions of dollars from the US and Germany to South Pacific islands that might go under rising seas. Of course, the money would be transferred via the UN and slightly less would leave the UN than would come in. Management fees, no doubt. The Clinton Foundation would be second line behind the UN collecting some of those fees, followed closely by Bill Gates (not his foundation, just Bill Gates).

From The Washington Post story, the newspaper that broke the Watergate story decades ago:

The U.N.’s environmental authority has quietly raised its assessment of the level at which global greenhouse gas emissions must peak to avoid dangerous climate change, as governments seek a new accord to fight global warming.

In its first four annual emissions reports in 2010-2013, the United Nations Environment Program said emissions must not exceed 44 billion tons in 2020 for the world to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F).

But with real-world emissions rising far beyond that level, UNEP has since last year downplayed its focus on 2020 as a make-or-break year for emissions reductions.

Some years ago when the global warming "thing" came up I asked the questions:

• what is the "right" temperature for the world; and,
• who sets the thermostat?

Those two questions have never been answered.

A reader send me an excellent link that addresses that very question. I don't have time to go into it now, but it's an incredibly interesting article: Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations At 400 PPM Are Still Dangerously Low For Life On Earth.

How's That War On Coal Going? Update From India -- November 9, 2015

I don't know the best way to handle this. It's been a problem from the start. I hate to clutter the blog with a lot of unrelated, non-Bakken energy stories, but those stories are critically important (at least to me) to help put the Bakken into perspective. [If I had not been following these other stories, based on what I read in The Los Angeles Times I would have thought that the entire world had gone to intermittent energy (wind and solar) and that the oil companies had converted their rigs to wind turbines/towers and solar panel supports.]

I track these unrelated, non-Bakken energy stories elsewhere, but if I just provide a link, there is risk that the link will break some months down the road, and the gist of the story will be gone; on the other hand, if I post excerpts of the story at the site where I track such things, the one page would become excessively long.

So, until something better comes along, I will continue to clutter the blog with these unrelated, non-Bakken energy stories, and then link them at the page where I track such events.

Tracking these stories begins over at "the big stories." One of the big stories I track is natural gas and coal in the post-nuclear world.  I break that subject into countries or regions of interest, for example India, which leads me to this story sent to my be Don early this morning, from SeekingAlpha:
GE will invest $200 million in Indian Railways --

India GE announced today it will invest $200 million to develop and supply Indian Railways with 1,000 diesel locomotives.

The company received a Letter of Award from the Ministry of Railways for a locomotive supply and maintenance contract, worth approximately $2.6 billion over 11 years.

The deal advances the Make in India initiative and reinforces Indias position as a global manufacturing destination. The largest deal in GEs 100-year history in India, the company will build a diesel locomotive manufacturing facility in Marhowra district in the Indian state of Bihar, as well as maintenance sheds at Bhatinda in Punjab and Gandhidham in Gujarat. This effort is a major boost to Indias railway modernization efforts, and will provide skill development opportunities for local talent.

I always love how some very important details always seem to be buried in the story. Dollar amounts seem not to catch my interest but that 's the lede in so many of these stories. For me the big story was that this is the largest deal in GE's 100-year history in India.

There are so many story lines.

First, and foremost, less than five years ago, in the energy business, GE seemed to be all about wind turbines. I assume that's still a big part of GE (I don't know; I don't follow GE very closely; and don't write me about GE and wind turbines; I don't have the time; I have my myth, my world view, and I don't want facts to confuse me) but some years ago GE made a strategic shift from intermittent energy to dependable energy. See two stories on GE's recent move into Europe: from The Wall Street Journal and from Forbes.

The Indian story above does not say what the locomotive story is all about, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to suggest that it's all about coal. From the blog back in September, 2014, the same link as one of the links above:

Blackouts in India widened as inadequate coal supplies forced plants to shut down, after increased industrial activity and a monsoon deficit boosted electricity demand from factories and households.

The national peak shortage yesterday expanded to more than 6 percent from the 3.9 percent average in July, according to data from the Power Ministry and Power System Operation Corp., a unit of Power Grid Corp. of India. Stocks at power stations run on local coal plunged. Equipment breakdowns or maintenance also caused other plants to be under shutdown, including ones operated by Tata Power Co. and Adani Power Ltd.

A surge in economic activity has led to higher demand for the fuel, exacerbating supply bottlenecks caused by heavy rains at some mines and slow railway transport in places. India’s economy grew at the fastest pace in more than two years, the Central Statistical Office said in a statement in New Delhi yesterday. Slow economic activity had caused coal stocks at power plants to swell last year.

******************************

Earnings

Reporting today:

• Arch Coal (ACI), forecast a loss of $5.45; much, much better -- only a loss of $3.38/share; Arch Coal soars after earnings beat; up as much as 10%; Revenue decreased to $688.5 million, down from $742.2 million for the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed at Zacks were expecting the company to report a wider loss of $5.79 per share on revenue of $688.29 million.

I guess that's it; nothing else, unless I missed something, interests me.

Monday, November 9, 2015; Increased Volumes of Fracking Sand Being Ordered From Suppliers?

Active rigs:

	11/9/2015	11/09/2014	11/09/2013	11/09/2012	11/09/2011
Active Rigs	64	193	182	192	198

RBN Energy: Storage Surplus Threatens Winter Natural Gas Prices Part 2.

Last Thursday, November 5, 2015, the Energy Information Administration reported the U.S. natural gas storage inventory is 3,877 Bcf as of October 23, 2015, which is above the 5-year maximum for this week and within striking distance of breaching the all-time record high of 3,929 Bcf (November 2, 2012) by the end of the traditional storage injection season on October 31.

And, while the production growth rate has slowed compared to recent years, and even dipped a bit over the past couple of weeks, total gas production is still near record levels and about 2.0 Bcf/d higher than last year.

Now the gas market is about to flip to withdrawal season, when winter heating demand typically exceeds available local production, leading to storage drawdowns. The combination of high storage and production levels sets up a bearish dynamic for the winter market.  Today, we take a look at the supply and demand balance going into the winter gas market.

Our last update on the natural gas supply and demand balance was at the end of August 2015. At that time the market had worked off some of the supply surplus it started with back in April. At the start of the summer injection season in April there was 600 Bcf more gas in storage and production was 4.0 Bcf/d higher than last year. By August end, near-record demand from power generators and flattening production helped to whittle down the year-over-year storage overhang to just under 500 Bcf. Since then, demand has maintained record highs each month. And, while average production set a new record in September, year-over-year increases continued to flatten out.

Increasing sand being ordered? I generally don't pay attention to this site, for various reasons, but I happened to check in on "Emergent Group" this morning, and their lead story:

The Q3 investors reports are coming in with U.S. Silica and Hi-Crush reporting volume increases, at 32% and 14% respectively, compared to Q1. We expect more and more proppant and sand companies to begin working closely with E&P's to reduce costs and gain efficiencies. Other companies, such as Unimin are showing record breaking deliveries to Eagle Ford and Marcellus.