The Green Energy Debacle In Germany In Clean, Concise, And Compelling English

Regular readers are well aware of this story; I can't begin to count the number of times I've talked about it. What is "unique," is how early this blog started talking about it. Now, mainstream media is about ready to start talking about it. Renewable energy has been a debacle for the Germans, and now they are going back to coal. The debacle is reported in clear and compelling English (my first language) over at The Daily Caller. How bad is it? Residential electricity is now called a "luxury good" by many media outlets. Not only has the direct cost to Hans and Agnethe increased (more than double), indirect costs through subsidies have also spiked:

Consumer energy bills have been spiking for years to the point where electricity in the country has been called a “luxury good” by major media outlets. German households have seen electricity prices more than double in the last decade “increasing from €0.14/kilowatt hour (kWh) ($0.18) in 2000 to more than €0.29/kWh ($0.38) in 2013,” according to FAA. This is compared to U.S. household prices, which have been stable at $0.13 per kilowatt hour over the last decade.

FAA also reports that German consumers will pay $31.1 billion for energy subsidies this year alone. Furthermore, in the past five years Germany has suffered $67.6 billion in net export losses from high energy costs — a huge blow to an export-led economy like Germany.

The good news: coal is so cheap, it will more than make up for the "luxury tax" Germans are paying for their electricity. Remember this rule of thumb: for every 1 megawatt of "green energy," public utilities need to install a half megawatt of coal-energy as backup when the sun ain't shining; and the wind ain't blowin'. Just another inconvenient truth.

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Global Warming Records Shattered

IceAgeNow is reporting more than 2,070 cold records were broken in the United States in the past seven (7) days.

At some point, all these weather reports will coalesce into a climate report. Until then, it's just a reminder that there has been no global warming for the past 18 years.

"Bouvert Island is running 40 degrees below normal...."

"Northern Portugal records coldest July in decades ..."

Bouvert Island is a Norwegian dependency located about a thousand miles off the north coast of Antarctica. Portugal is .... well, if I need to explain that....

The "Bakken" Is Changing American Cities -- July 21, 2014

Market Wired is reporting:

Shale zone communities have discovered yet another benefit from their surging economic growth: more of everything. Small towns like Williston, North Dakota, which has relatively little retail, are now catching the eye of major brands like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

With $80 billion expected in annual investments over the next six years and rapid population expansion, local infrastructure construction and real estate development in shale formation areas like the Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas are turning small outposts into genuine boom towns.

According to JLL's new 2014 North American Energy Outlook, major metropolitan areas are benefitting too, with "surge cities" fuelled by oil and natural gas production -- growing at more than twice the pace of their peers. 

This is really quite a story. It's a must-read; must bookmark, or at least archive.

• Boom Town: WIlliston, ND -- Bakken
• Surge City: Denver, CO -- Bakken
• Surge City: Houston, TX -- Eagle Ford
• Surge City: Pittsburgh, PA -- Marcellus
• Surge City: Dallas-Ft Worth -- Barnett

A huge "thanks" to a reader for sending the link to this article.

Trader Joe's in Williston? If that happens, I will eat my safari hat.

Delta Airlines Strikes New Deal For Bakken Crude Oil For Its Pennsylvania Refinery; July 21, 2014; New Poll

OMG! Delta Airlines still using jet fuel refined from highly volatile Bakken oil!

AJC is reporting:

Monroe Energy LLC, the subsidiary of Delta that operates its refinery in Trainer, PA, announced Monday that it struck a five-year supply deal with energy logistics firm Bridger LLC.

Bridger will supply 65,000 barrels of domestic crude oil to Delta’s refinery, or about one-third of the crude oil refined by the facility.

The domestic crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota costs less than the crude oil shipped to the refinery from overseas, reducing the overall cost of fuel for Delta.

Delta had been working to address the problem of how to transport the Bakken oil to the refinery. Bridger recently invested in $200 million to buy 1,300 new rail cars to add to its fleet, which will be used to transport oil to the Trainer refinery.

Time for a new poll. But first the results of the current poll in which we asked residents of Dickinson where they would like to live:

• 0% want to live in Dickinson for just five more years
• almost 20% want to live in Dickinson for the rest of their lives
• almost 20% want to move to Williston, the heart of the Bakken
• very few, only 6% want to move to Tioga, the oil capital of North Dakota
• no one wants to move to Rugby, the geographical center of North America
• slightly more than 20% want to move to Bismarck, the state capital
• more than a third would like to move to Fargo, where there are a lot of big-box stores, if they could.

So, more than 50% of Dickinson folks would like to move to Bismarck or Fargo, if they could.

Even as many as 20% of folks currently living in Dickinson would consider moving to Williston if they could.

So, now on to the next poll.

Would you fly on any airline that admits to using jet fuel refined from highly volatile Bakken crude oil? Yes (as long as smoking was not allowed on the aircraft) or no. Pretty simple.

A big "thanks" to a reader for sending me the link to the article. It's a great article, by the way.

Active Rigs Near 200; News For Tuesday, July 22, 2014

 Active rigs:

	7/22/2014	07/22/2012	07/22/2011	07/22/2010	07/22/2009
Active Rigs	197	207	182	138	41

RBN Energy: refineries in PADD IV region.

Refineries in the Rocky Mountains region, defined by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) EIA as Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) IV, are smaller and less complex than they are in the rest of the U.S. The region is landlocked and the 16 refineries – average size only 42 Mb/d - rely on U.S. light sweet crude produced locally or in North Dakota as well as Western Canadian heavy crude. The combination of rich supplies of crude and increased demand for refined products such as diesel means that refinery margins are high. These healthy economics are encouraging refinery expansions.

Miscellaneous Energy News

SeaCoastOn-Line confirms that Public Service of New Hampshire does indeed buy coal from Russia, as well as from Venezuela. Activists in New Hampshire, of course, do not want Canadian oil, however. I can't make this stuff up.

This is a pretty cool article; timing is everything. Coming on the heels of increased sanctions on Russia and the recently signed Russian-Chinese natural gas deal, four huge multi-national companies request permission to export LNG from Alaska: BP, Exxon, TransCanada (think Keystone), and COP. Bizjournals is reporting:

The application to the U.S. Department of Energy requests authorization to export up to 20 million metric tons per year of LNG for 30 years. It includes countries that have free trade agreements with the U.S. and non-FTA countries.

The proposed project facilities include a liquefaction plant and terminal on the Kenai Peninsula; an 800-mile, 42-inch pipeline; up to eight compression stations; at least five take-off points for in-state gas delivery; and a gas-treatment plant on the North Slope.

The Wall Street Journal

Getting too hot for the Obama administration? One's country is under attack, and the US demands an immediate Gaza cease-fire. I believe Israel already declared a unilateral cease-fire. We saw how that went.

Apple orders massive number of bigger iPhones -- Apple is preparing for its largest production run of iPhones this year.

Good. "The friend" of the Boston Marathon bombers was found guilty of obstruction.

EU set to approve new Russian sanctions. Game on.

Mobile-ad spending leaps.

Allergan to cut 13% of its workforce.

Natural-gas prices fall to near eight-month low.

Orange-juice sales fall to record low. Due to price; OJ is very, very expensive. Demand destruction?

The Los Angeles Times

Ukraine separatists allow access to Malaysian jet crash site. I assume all the "good" stuff has been taken.

Earnings: Reporting Tuesday

• AAPL, $1.23, after market closes
• CMCSA, $0.72, before market opens
• MSFT, $0.60, after market closes
• NBR, $0.23, after market closes
• BTU, a loss of 29 cents, before market opens
• KO, 63 cents, before market opens
• VZ, 90 cents, 6:30 a.m. ET (T reports one day later, after market close, Wednesday)
• XLNX, 61 cents, after market close

Newfield To Report A Gusher Tuesday; Fourteen (14) New Permits -- North Dakota; July 21, 2014

Oil (WTI): $104.50

Wells coming off confidential list Tuesday:

• 26349, 167, Corinthian, Corinthian Starleaf 12-32 1H, Northeast Landa, a Spearfish/Madison well; t2/14; cum 17K 5/14;
• 26489, 1,808, Newfield, Wahus State 152-97-12-1-4H, Westberg, t5/14; cum 27K 5/14;
• 26861, drl, XTO, Ruby State Federal 34X-36F, Grinnell, no production data,
• 27499, drl, Slawson, Alamo 8-19-18TF2H, Big Bend, no production data,

Active rigs:

	7/21/2014	07/21/2012	07/21/2011	07/21/2010	07/21/2009
Active Rigs	196	207	180	137	40

Fourteen (14) new permits --

• Operators: Slawson (4), Legacy (4), QEP (3), CLR, Sinclair, KOG
• Fields: Big Bend (Mountrail), North Souris (Bottineau), Spotted Horn (McKenzie),  Antelope (McKenzie), Sanish (Mountrail), Truax (Williams)
• Comments:

Wells coming off the confidential list over the weekend, today were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.