Heat Wave In Texas, California -- July 23, 2018

If Texas hit 73,000 MW, it would be a new record. So, how did Texas do today?

Yup, set a new record and no hysteria about the grid failing. Just good ol' American "know-how" and a "can-do" attitude. Whoo-hoo!

California, meanwhile, sending out the alarm, "not enough electricity! Save energy! The sky is falling!" And was the sky falling? You be the judge:

From what I can tell, Texas set a new "demand" record and didn't miss a beat. California didn't even come close to setting a record.

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Lawrence of Arabia -- The DVD

I have just watched the desert scene in which the camels start dying after 20 days without water.

Sort of puts things into perspective.

104 degrees in Texas, and I don't need air conditioning. Ceiling fans, keeping windows draped, having a ground floor apartment, swimming during hottest part of the day, etc., etc, one can survive without air conditioning. Not particularly pleasant, but not particularly difficult.

I forget now, which summer it was, but about three years ago, I went the entire south Texas summer (we lived in San Antonio then where it is even hotter than the DFW area) with no air conditioning just to prove it could be done.

By the way, I'm seeing things in "Lawrence of Arabia" I had not "caught" before and this must be the tenth time I've watched it.

Cool Water, Hank Williams
From nine of the worst power outages in US history:

#7. Southwest Blackout of (2011)  -- human error

This blackout is considered to be the largest in California?s history.

It occurred mainly because of the state’s dependence on power imports from Arizona at the time.

At the end of their summer season that year, the continued hot weather caused California’s engineering schedule to conflict with planned outages (for maintenance).

This then left the grid vulnerable to human error.

A technician switched major equipment, which caused the power to fail for around 12 hours and affect 2.7 million Americans.

The impact to restaurants and grocery stores was devastating. Due to the length of time the power was out they were forced to throw away food at an estimated cost of $12 to $18 million. Several sewage pumping stations also failed, causing the potential for unsafe water in many areas.

Since this time, diesel generators were installed at 5 pumping stations.

Had Hillary and Elon been in charge, the solution would have been windmills and batteries. 

Ten New Permits; XTO Has Permits For A 6-Well Zane Federal Pad In Siverston Oil Field -- July 23, 2018

Active rigs:

$67.80→	7/23/2018	07/23/2017	07/23/2016	07/23/2015	07/23/2014
Active Rigs	66	58	32	70	194

Ten new permits:

• Operators: XTO (6); Whiting (4)
• Fields: Siverston (McKenzie); East Fork (Williams)
• Comments: XTO has permits for a 6-well Zane Federal permit on lot 3, section 6-149-97; Whiting has permits for a 3-well Jackman pad in SWSE 11-156-100; its fourth permit was for a Tarpon Federal well in SWSE 20-153-96; Tarpon Federal wells are tracked here;

One producing well (a DUC) was reported as completed:

• 34193, n/d, CLR, Radermecher 11-22H2, Camel Butte, 4 sections, reported as A, but no further data; FracFocus, API - 33-053-08251, has no data to suggest this well was fracked; it looks like a DUC, it quacks like a DUC, it waddles like a DUC;

Operator transfer:

• SM Energy transfer 93 more wells to Petro-Hunt; all in Divide County; recall that SM Energy transferred 130 Divide County wells to Petro-Hunt on July 20, 2018;

Why I Love To Blog -- Helps Me To Put Things Into Perspective -- July 23, 2018

Pardon the interruption: I was watching President Trump on CNBC. They cut away after 60 seconds. I had to go to Fox News to get the full speech. Amazing.

Now, where was I -- oh, here it is -- 

According to this tweet, Exxon could be producing 750,000 bopd from Guyana by 2025. Is 750,000 bopd a lot? Ten years ago I would not have been able to say one way or another; I certainly would not have been able to put it into perspective.

Right now, North Dakota is producing about 1.2 million bopd. XTO, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Exxon is producing 2.4 million bbls/month or about 80,000 bopd, assuming I did the math correctly.

Disclaimer: I often simple arithmetic errors. If this information is important to you, go to the source.

Apparently, currently Exxon produces about 5.3 million bopd. One million bopd from Guyana represents about 20% of Exxon's total production. Wow.

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Iran Imploding

Trudeau's Immigration Policy Advil Headache -- July 23, 2018

I never know when to simply "update" earlier posts, or start a new post on a subject already being discussed. Whatever.

Bloomberg is reporting that Trudeau's immigration policy is giving him one huge Advil headache. I decided to give this a stand-alone post because I was frustrated that Bloomberg talked about the "ditch," but failed to provide a map of the "ditch's" location. From the linked article:

The issue is most prominent in Quebec, where it’s been percolating for 18 months. A makeshift processing center has even been built in the French-speaking province, at a border crossing that had been little more than a dirt path through a ditch.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested waves of people as they exited taxis, dragged out luggage and crossed over from New York state. Last August, more than 5,700 people were arrested crossing illegally into Canada -- nearly all in Quebec, where at one point Montreal’s Olympic Stadium was commandeered to help handle the influx.

But this year, the arrest average has been about 1,800 per month nationwide. The province has nonetheless asked Ottawa to speed up processing times for asylum claims and warned it won’t ensure housing to an unlimited number of migrants.

What frustrates me more is that Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have not yet appeared at the "ditch" for a photo op (at least that I am aware). Surely this is must be a manifestation of a Trump immigration policy failure. Maybe they're waiting for the dead of winter when it's really, really harsh on infants being forced to crawl across the border.

Previous posts:

• June 28, 2018: see Trudeau graphic below
• May 22, 2018:
• January 30, 2017:
• January 30, 2017:
• August 9, 2017: see map below

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Canadian Defense Dollars Spent On Refugees From USA
August 9, 2017

Meager as their defense budget may be (previously posted), Canada will use soldiers, not for security, but for reception, housing, processing of Haitian refugees streaming across the US border.

Of course, this will only encourage the stream.

Hopefully.

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A Deer Caught In The Headlights

June 28, 2018

Too many asylum seekers -- illegal immigrants -- and not enough pipeline. What next?

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Lake Champlain

The map above reminded me of a great book on the US Revolutionary War:

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution

Nathaniel Philbrick

c. 2016

DDS: 973.4 PHI

I wish I had the book in my personal library but I simply have no more shelf space. Back to the library.

Chapter 1: link here.

Chapter 7
Chapter 6
Chapter 5
Chapter 4
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
The origin of the submarine.
Chapter 1
First mention: nothing transcribed. 

Chapter 8: link here.

Chapter 9: link here.

Chapter 10: link here.

Chapter 11: link here.

Chapter 12: link here.

Chapter 13: link here.

Epilogue: link here.

The Next Big Thing -- Making Money / Losing Money On EV Batteries -- July 23, 2018

Winners: entrepreneurs; agile retailers; Waste Management; shysters/scam artists
Losers: automobile manufacturers; early adopters; EV owners

Links:

• where three million EV batteries will go when they retire
• the rise of EVs could leave us with a big battery waste problem
• rise of EVs pose battery recycling challenge 

These were the data points from the first link that caught my attention:

• over time, EVs will need to be re-charged more often
• over time, EV's mileage range on a charge will decrease
• the average EV family car will need battery change at 10 years
• EV taxis and buses will need to be change at four years

Replacing batteries in EVs is not a trivial issue, both in time and cost.