Detachment 201 -- August 13, 2025

Locator: 48849MILITARY.

Link here.

In a ceremony in June at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va., four current and former executives from Meta, OpenAI and Palantir lined up onstage to swear an oath to support and defend the United States.

The U.S. Army had just created a technical innovation unit for the executives, who were dressed in combat gear and boots. At the event, they were pronounced lieutenant colonels in the new unit, Detachment 201, which will advise the Army on new technologies for potential combat.

“We desperately need what they are good at,” Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll said of the tech executives, who have since undergone basic training. “It’s an understatement how grateful we are that they are taking this risk to come and try to build this out with us.”

EV Update: Class 8 Trucks And Pick-Up Trucks -- August 13, 2025

Locator: 48848EVS.

Updates

Later, 7:52 p.m. CT: I wrote the original post earlier today. Late this afternoon, this article:

The Trump administration is proposing nearly $1 billion in funding to speed the development of U.S. critical minerals and materials, used in everything from electric vehicle batteries to semiconductors, the Energy Department said on Wednesday.

The department intends to offer funding to advance and scale up mining, processing and manufacturing technologies in the critical minerals and materials supply chains, sectors that have been dominated by China and other countries, the statement said.

Original Post

Earlier today as a one-off, I posted the following:

I'm not at liberty to reveal the source, but the EV truck industry in the US is dead.

One large Class 8 truck manufacturer, at one location, a year ago, before Trump, was producing as many as twelve Class 8 EV trucks DAILY.

That same facility is now manufacturing as few as two such trucks every MONTH. 

Now, this, talk about a coincidence. I read this late this afternoon:

This was from the Bloomberg Technology interview with FORD CEO Jim Farley on April 26, 2022: 

Bloomberg's Sonali Basak, "Jim, look out into the future for a second here, can you see all the F-150s going electric? And what would it take for that to happen?"

Farley: "No way. I don't see that happening. If yor're towing a fifth wheel in Wyoming (Rocky Mountains), or you know with a horse trailer, there is no way.

An electric vehicle is not a good solution for super duty customers.

We're 50% of all commercial light duty vehicles in the US so we know. And the technology is not right for that. For the retail customer who is doing some light towing or commuting to work, it's perfect.

For for heavy duty usage customer, it's not the right solution So you're going to see a mix of ICE and BEV."

So, why feature towing so prominently in commercials?

Fast forward, August, 2025: Ford announces a $30K-pickup truck for real urban cowboys.

Four New Permits; Eight Permits Renewed; Eleven Permits Canceled; Seven DUCs Reported As Completed -- August 13, 2025

Locator: 48847B.

WTI: $62.65.

Active rigs: 35.

Four new permits, #42210 - #42213, inclusive:

• Operator: Hess
• Field: Beaver Lodge (Williams)
• Comments:
• Hess has permits for four BL-Svor wells, lot 4, section 4-156-95, 
• to be sited 389 / 488 FNL and 891 FWL.

Eight permits renewed:

• Summit Carbon Storage (6): all wildcats; BK Fischer (2); KJ Hintz (1); TB Leingang (2); Mercer and Oliver counties;
• KODA Resources (2): two Stout permits in Divide County; Fertile Valley oil field.

Eleven permits canceled:

• WPX (7): seven FBIR MHA permits in Dunn County;
• CLR (4): two Charleston permits and two Olympia permits, all in Williams County.

Seven producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 41011, 926, Oasis, Sawtooth Federal 5202 24-20 4B,
• 41118, 955, Oasis, Sawtooth Federal 5202 24-20 3B,
• 41200, 1,296, MRO, Alverson 24-32H,
• 41462, 1,090, Boxcar 4-9-16 2H,
• 41463, 1,282, Boxcar 4-9-16-3H,
• 41464, 1,311, Boxcar 4-9-16 4H,
• 41465, 705,Boxcar 4-9-16 5H,

Whiting Oil acquired a couple of wells from White Rock Oil & Gas, LLC.

• old wells in McKenzie County.

AMD -- August 13, 2025

Locator: 48846INVESTING.

Chart of the day:

That 15% tariff story -- pure gold?

******************************
Cisco Systems

If Oracle is the poor man's Palantir, then Cisco is the poor man's Oracle.

Link here.

AAPL: what a difference a month makes --

Owns "no" tech:

New Jersey -- Taking A Page From Germany's Net-Zero Goal Goal -- WSJ - August 10, 2025

Locator: 48845ELECTRICITY_STATE_RATES.

This was posted on a "sister" blog over the weekend, but now the story is starting to get legs. "They" say the sharp surge in electricity rates in New Jersey take effect in June, 2025, yet to be reported. Most recent EIA data is through May, 2025. See below. Posting this now to compare with new data when it's released next month. Some residents are complaining that their rates will go up 17 - 20% in June. We'll see what the EIA reports. 

From The WSJ, opinion:

Despite flat electricity demand for the past two decades—and some of the lowest energy usage per capita among the 50 states—New Jersey residents pay some of the highest retail power prices in the country. As of April 2025, the Garden State ranked No. 12 in the nation, with prices more than 15% above the U.S. average. This gap has widened further in the wake of the recent decision by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to approve an additional 17% to 20% rate increase for most utility customers starting in June.

A decade ago, the outlook for New Jersey electricity prices was much brighter. The state was adding natural-gas generation capacity to take advantage of abundant, low-cost Marcellus Shale gas located next door in Pennsylvania. By 2016, New Jersey achieved energy independence by supplying all its power needs with in-state generation for the first time in its history, partially fueled by Pennsylvania gas.

Then the state threw it all away. Since electing Gov. Phil Murphy in November 2017, New Jersey has shut down all its coal plants, reduced its natural gas-generation capacity, and increased its reliance on intermittent wind and solar power. Trenton is on a quixotic quest to achieve 100% “clean” electricity production by 2035.

Under Mr. Murphy’s leadership, New Jersey has tilted at offshore windmills—none of which have been completed to date, mainly due to cost overruns, despite the state’s generous financial incentives. New Jersey has also subsidized the rollout of solar power (mostly nonutility scale) even though the state experiences only 94 days with less than 30% cloud cover in an average year. The state ranks seventh in the country for small-scale solar power generation, with rooftop and utility-pole solar panels now ubiquitous.

Such supply-side mismanagement has led to a 12% decrease in New Jersey’s electric-generating capacity since 2016. Over the same period, average residential power prices increased by almost a third even as consumption declined slightly. The shale revolution has led to a significant drop in U.S. natural-gas prices since the 2000s, but New Jersey electricity customers have seen no benefit in their monthly bills.

Much more at the link.

So, let's see electricity rates for New Jersey compared to the rest of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

Link here.