Category Archives: big coal

Oil And Gas Speculators Are 15-30 % Of The Price

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Everyonce in awhile the Peak Oil website finds a real gem of an economic analysis or some other thing related to energy markets and energy consumption. The following is a dandy with the source website as well.

http://peakoil.com/

http://www.econmatters.com/2011/05/speculation-does-not-explain-high-oil.html

Friday, May 6, 2011

Speculation Does Not Explain High Oil and Gasoline Prices? Please!!

By EconMatters

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) Crude Oil futures traded at its lowest in almost two months in New York on Thursday, May 5 in its biggest selloff in two years, plunging 8.6% on the day to below the $100 mark (Fig. 1).  Brent crude on ICE also dropped as much as $12.17, or 10%, which was the largest in percentage terms not seen since the Lehman Brothers financial crisis, and the largest ever in absolute terms, according to FT.

The epic waterfall was partly due to the combination of a strengthening dollar after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said he wouldn’t raise interest rates, and a surging U.S. first time jobless claim that sent oil, silver and other commodities plunging.

Big Speculators Moving Out

There has been a long debate about how much of a role speculators play in the oil market.  However, this latest big price move in one day strongly suggests something more than fundamentals is at work.

That is, some big players (i.e. speculators) decided to move out of commodities, either to take profits, or for risk off trades, as crude and gasoline market fundamentals have not changed much since the start of the year to warrant such a run-up of prices in recent months (Fig. 1).

Link Between Oil Storage & Speculation??

Some, like Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, and Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren, senior fellows at the Cato Institute, have suggested that speculators are not the ones causing high oil and gasoline prices.

For example, in this article, Klein partly quoted Michael Greenstone, an energy economist at MIT, and concluded that:

“Speculators make money by pulling oil off the market, putting it in inventory, and selling it later…So if you’re seeing speculation, you should be seeing a massive run-up in inventory. And we are seeing a bit of an inventory bump, particularly in recent weeks. But not enough of one.”

Taylor and Van Doren also drew a similar conclusion in an article at Forbes stating that since there’s not a massive increase in oil storage to cause a physical supply shortage, so do ‘put away the torches and pitchforks’ as speculators are not to blame for the rise in oil and gasoline price.

Reality Check – Shorts & Paper Barrels

I guess all four gentlemen live right next door to the U.S. Fed in the ivory tower and just as detached from reality.

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More tomorrow.

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Power Plant Rewarded For Doing The Right Thing

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Povse, Nadel, and the entire press room have disappeared from my newspaper. But they still have one of their best writers left. Tim Landis wrote this article and it is pretty good.

http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x1225333763/Company-head-lauds-power-plant-upgrade

Company head lauds power plant upgrade

Posted Apr 19, 2011 @ 11:00 PM
Last update Apr 20, 2011 @ 06:25 AM
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COFFEEN — The head of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp. welcomes the creation of 400 temporary construction jobs during a major upgrade of the Coffeen Power Station.

The fact that owner Ameren Energy Resources announced this week it would upgrade a nearly 40-year-old, coal-fired boiler at the plant is even better news for the long term, Heather Hampton-Knodle said.
“They are one of our largest private employers,” Knodle said. “It’s a good sign of their ongoing commitment to that plant.”
The Coffeen facility is about 60 miles southeast of Springfield.
Even as state and national unemployment has fallen, Montgomery County joblessness has remained high. The 13.9 percent rate in February compared with 8.9 percent statewide and nationally, and 8.1 percent in Sangamon County.
Much like neighboring Macoupin County, where the February unemployment rate was 11.4 percent, Montgomery County has been hurt by job losses in manufacturing and the coal industry in the past decade.
Crews at Coffeen Power Station are replacing 14 “cyclones” used to pulverize coal for the Unit 2 boiler, said Ameren spokeswoman Susan Gallagher. She added that the 400 contract jobs are in addition to a regular work force of nearly 180.
Gallagher said the company has not put a timetable on completion of the work or how long the contract workers would be on the job.
“They are working around-the-clock, I’m told,” she said.

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More tomorrow.

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Mercury Is Good For Us – Just like the other coal pollution

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There are times when I wonder WHY is this a story? I have been leery about running articles about the environment because the state of it is so bad that any comments would be dreary. What with the Gulf Spew, Russia catching on fire and the nuclear accident in Japan, is there anything left to say? I saw this article earlier this morning and I thought, Ok this is a little different and I love Albatrosses. They are such  magnificent birds. Then I read the article and could not grasp the point of it. The headline seems pretty clear, but the body of the article seems not to support it. Read the whole thing at the site below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13121088

18 April 2011 Last updated at 17:07 ET

Feathers tell century-plus tale of mercury pollution

Richard Black By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Albatross feathers from museum specimens have allowed scientists to construct a record of mercury pollution dating back more than 100 years.

The feathers, from the black-footed albatross, contain traces of mercury that the birds picked up when they fed.

The species is endangered; and although fishing is the main cause, the team suggests mercury levels may have been high enough to impair breeding.

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team analysed feathers from 54 birds kept in museums at Harvard University and the University of Washington in Seattle, US.

The oldest samples are 120 years old.

There was no trend in overall mercury concentrations over time.

But the level of methylmercury – a toxic form of the metal, formed often by bacteria, did show a rise.

Methylmercury is easily absorbed by marine lifeforms such as small fish; and predators of those lifeforms, such as birds, can end up with big concentrations in their tissue.

It can cause developmental defects in humans, and there is evidence that it can damage reproduction in birds and fish.

“People have looked at mercury levels using museum specimens before, but mostly in the Atlantic,” said Scott Edwards, a biology professor at Harvard who also curates the university museum’s ornithology collection.

“Ours is one of the first to look at patterns in the Pacific basin; this has the largest number of seabird colonies, has the most endangered colonies, and is under severe threat from mercury emissions from Asia.”

“They’re fantastic birds, and a very tractable species to study” Scott Edwards Harvard University

About half of the mercury going into the atmosphere comes from natural sources such as volcanoes.

Of the other half, the biggest source is coal-burning, with mercury ocurring as a trace element in many coal deposits.

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More tomorrow.

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CWLP Does Not Make Its Financial Predictions – Sooner or later someone must take charge

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For years Springfield’s CWLP Department has been a black hole. No matter what the form of government, NO Mayor has ever understood the city owned utility’s finances. As a result mysterious things are always going on there. The 50 million $$$ power buying contract that went belly up came as a complete surprise to everyone in the 1990s. The coal contracts in the 1980s were even more questionable. Now they are saying “because of the depressed economy” we will never make our own budget surpluses for the year. Give me a break. People are using less energy it is true. But that is gasoline not electricity. Something ain’t right.

http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x1608503929/CWLP-Engineer-Future-depends-on-economy

CWLP engineer: Future of utility depends on economy

Posted Mar 29, 2011 @ 11:00 PM
Last update Mar 30, 2011 @ 05:46 AM

City Water, Light and Power’s chief engineer Tuesday described the state of the city-owned utility as stable, with its future largely dependent on the overall economy.

“With the economic conditions if they return, power prices will go up, and some of those revenues that we had lost and anticipated having, hopefully those will return, and that will improve the economic stability of the utility,” said Eric Hobbie, after an update on the utility to aldermen.

The new, 200-megawatt Dallman 4 was expected to generate millions of dollars annually from selling surplus power. But revenues have fallen far short of projections largely because of a depressed energy market.

CWLP’s spending plan for the fiscal year that began March 1 totals about $352 million, an increase of 10.8 percent over the previous year. Projected electric fund expenses total $295.6 million, an increase of 8 percent. Water fund expenses total $56.6 million, an increase of 27 percent, although that can largely be attributed to capital improvements that will be paid for with prior water rate hikes.

CWLP faces its share of challenges in the years ahead, including an aging work force and new federal laws and regulations, Hobbie and other CWLP officials said. Aging equipment is another concern.

Hobbie, who took over as chief engineer in 2009, said about 25 percent of CWLP’s 700 employees are over the age of 50 and have more than 20 years of experience. He said the utility tries to promote from within, but noted there is a “big gap” between younger employees and those on the verge of retirement.

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More tomorrow.

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SB 1821 Is Dangerous – Carbon dioxiode sequestration is wrong

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I know. Barack Obama, Dick Durbin and every other person on this planet is in favor of this Clean Coal technology. But how advanced is it to use a process created in the late 1800s in 2011. The easy answer is it ain’t. Please call your representative to protest.

http://www.riverbender.com/news/wbgz/rfullstory.cfm?newsfile=2011-03-20-20_FutureGen%20Pipeline%20Issues

FutureGen Pipeline Issues

WBGZ Radio | Mar 18, 2011

The pipeline that’s going to carry carbon dioxide from one place to another as part of the FutureGen clean-coal project is the subject of a bill which has passed a Senate committee.  The bill writes a process for Illinois to oversee the construction and operation of such a pipeline.

“This bill is patterned after what the Illinois Commerce Commission currently does with regard to petroleum pipelines, crude oil, water utility lines, and electric transmission lines,” said sponsoring State Sen. John Sullivan (D-Rushville). Opponents include farmers in Morgan County, where the pipeline would be built.  They say the property owners who do want it are the ones who don’t live there.  FutureGen would use a former Ameren plant in Meredosia to convert coal into carbon dioxide, which would be stored near Alexander.  SB 1821 has passed the Senate Executive Committee.

(Illinois Radio Network)

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More tomorrow.

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Howard Fineman And Energy Policy – The right wing loves coal

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The Left wing hates coal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36132029/ns/politics-howard_fineman/

Obama’s energy challenge is coal, not oil

45 percent of the nation’s electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants

By Howard Fineman

msnbc.com msnbc.com
updated 4/14/2010 10:09:22 AM ET 2010-04-14T14:09:22
ANALYSIS

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama touched off a new environmental skirmish with his decision to open vast new areas of the American coastline to offshore oil drilling. But as loud as that battle is going to get, it is nothing compared with the real energy war to come.

I speak, of course, of the Coal War.

Forget whatever else you hear about energy policy, the real fight — and the real political problem — this year in Congress will be how to deal with our nagging reliance on the most abundant component of our carbon-based patrimony.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about offshore drilling, wind power, natural gas, and energy conservation … but the short-term drift of history still dictates a heavy reliance on the dirtiest and deadliest of all fuels: coal.

The big question in the energy bill — if there is one — is how and whether Congress will ask the American people to pay for the cost of controlling the environmental consequences of that reliance.

At its core, the president’s energy vision calls for switching our transportation system from oil to plug-in electricity. But 45 percent of all electricity in the country is still generated by coal-fired power plants. In other words, we run the real risk of merely replacing one polluting and increasingly scarce fuel, petroleum, with an abundant but even more environmentally troublesome one, coal.

An energy bill that, among other things, would tax pollution caused by burning fossil fuels was passed by the House last year. It’s gotten nowhere in the Senate. Obama’s drilling announcement was designed to get the Senate’s attention — and garner some Republican support.

But opening up offshore drilling prospects is politically, the easy part. I think the president can get that piece of the puzzle.

The hard part is going to be convincing senators from coal-producing and/or electricity-exporting states to go along with any sort of carbon tax.

States with power plants that generate electricity from coal read like a roster of presidential swing states. Among them: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri and North Carolina. And other states with major coal commitments include: Georgia, Arizona, Kentucky and Wyoming.

Getting 60 votes for some kind of carbon-pollution tax, even if it’s in the most attenuated “cap-and-trade” form, will be next to impossible.

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Go read the rest. It is pretty good. Everyone have a great weekend. More next week.

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Michael Barone And Energy Policy – We are addicted to coal so get over it

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Apparently Mike Barone believes the tautology that we use a lot of coal now, so we always will. He believes that politicians are gutless when it comes to environmental damage. We shall see.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/barone/2009/03/25/obama-cap-and-trade-will-meet-coal-fired-energy-political-opposition

Michael Barone

Obama Cap-and-Trade Will Meet Coal-Fired Energy Political Opposition

By Michael Barone

Posted: March 25, 2009

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Bill Galston at the New Republic‘s blog provides some clear thinking on the prospects for the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade legislation. His conclusion: ain’t gonna happen. Galston notes that national polls show that on the question of balancing economic against environmental considerations, voters have switched and are now more concerned about the economy—as in holding down utility costs—and less concerned about the environment.

And, as Galston points out, a cap-and-trade system would substantially increase the price of electricity produced by coal. Nationally, we get 49 percent of our energy by coal (these are 2006 figures, from the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States), but reliance on coal varies widely by state. The following table may help you to understand the political implications. It shows the percentage of electricity produced by coal in each state above the national average and the number of Democratic senators and representatives from each of those states.

% of electricity produced by coal in each state above the national average senators representatives
Alabama 55 0 2
Colorado 71 2 5
Delaware 69 2 0
Georgia 63 0 6
Indiana 95 1 5
Iowa 76 1 3
Kansas 73 0 1
Kentucky 92 0 2
Maryland 60 2 7
Michigan 60 2 8
Minnesota 62 1 5
Missouri 84 1 4
Montana 60 2 0
Nebraska 65 1 0
New Mexico 80 2 3
North Carolina 60 1 8
North Dakota 93 2 1
Ohio 86 1 10
Oklahoma 50 0 1
Pennsylvania 56 1 12
Tennessee 65 0 5
Utah 89 0 1
West Virginia 97 2 2
Wisconsin 65 2 5
Wyoming 94 0 0
TOTAL 26 96

Do the math. That leaves only 32 Democratic senators from less-than-average coal-reliant states and only 157 Democratic House members from less-than-average coal-reliant states. Now I’m not saying that every member from such states will vote against cap-and-trade, but I think an awful lot would. And I don’t think many Republicans are going to vote for cap-and-trade. In his press conference last night, Barack Obama seemed to accept the Senate Budget Committee’s Democrats’ decision to jettison the money for cap-and-trade and expressed a wistful hope that something might be done later. But even in better economic times, the numbers tend to work against any such proposal.

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More tomorrow.

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John Stossel And Energy Policy – He fosters the misuse of the word independence

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All right wing conservatives have to pick there own facts or their own definitions to win arguments. Winning on the merits is never an issue. Family values of course has nothing to do with modern families. It is only about modern christian families. In this Stossel piece, independence is replaced by dependence on the cheapest source. What he side steps is the idea that a country with a balanced portfolio of wind, solar, geothermal, micro hydro, bio and natural gas energy sources is both its own producer, so it is independent from foriegn manipulation and independent in that it is not overly depended on one source of energy, thus insulated from natural interruptions.

August 20, 2008

The Idiocy of Energy Independence

By John Stossel

It’s amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good.

Most every politician and pundit says “energy independence” is a great idea. Presidents have promised it for 35 years. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were self-sufficient, protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations?

The hitch is that even if the United States were energy independent, it would be protected from none of those things. To think otherwise is to misunderstand basic economics and the global marketplace.

To be for “energy independence” is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop destruction from this summer’s floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves. Achieving “energy independence” would expose us to unnecessary risks — such as storms that knock out oil refineries or droughts that create corn — and ethanol — shortages.

Trade also saves us money. “We import energy for a reason,” says the Cato Institute’s energy expert, Jerry Taylor, “It’s cheaper than producing it here at home. A governmental war on energy imports will, by definition, raise energy prices”.

Anyway, a “domestic energy only” policy (call it “Drain America First”?) is a fantasy. America’s demand for oil is too great for us to supply ourselves. Electricity we could provide. Not with windmills and solar panels — they are not yet close to providing enough — but coal and nuclear power could produce America’s electricity.

But cars need oil. We don’t have nearly enough.

That doesn’t keep the presidential candidates from preying on the public’s economic ignorance.

“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lexington Project — named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before,” John McCain said. “This nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025”.

Barack Obama, promising to “set America on path to energy independence,” is upset that we send millions to other countries. “They get our money because we need their oil”

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Wonder who is picking up his tab. More tomorrow.

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Ann Coulter And Energy Policy – Ann supports just about everything that is wrong with this country’s energy policy

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Poor Ann. She has ranted a raved for so long that she, like Sarah Palin, has become a parody of herself. She once said that , “when the democrats talk about new forms of energy they don’t actually create any new form of energys, they talk about old forms of enenrgy like solar power, wind power and barley power”. Did she miss physics in college or what?

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=262

THIS IS NOT A DRILL
by Ann Coulter
July 16, 2008

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, “the worst speaker in the history of Congress,” explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: “We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect.”

Yes, that would explain why the price of oral sex, cigars and Hustler magazine skyrocketed during the Clinton years. Also, I note that Speaker Pelosi is a hotelier … and the price of a hotel room in New York is $1,000 a night! I think she might be onto something.

Is that why a barrel of oil costs mere pennies in all those other countries in the world that are not run by “oilmen”? Wait — it doesn’t cost pennies to them? That’s weird.

In response to the 2003 blackout throughout the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada, Pelosi blamed: “President Bush and Rep. Tom DeLay’s oil-company interests.” The blackout was a failure of humans operating electric power; it had nothing to do with oil. And I’m not even “an oilman.”

But yes — good point: What a disaster having people in government who haven’t spent their entire lives in politics! That explains everything. A government official with relevant experience or knowledge about an issue is obviously a crisis of gargantuan proportions.

This must be why the Democrats are nominating B. Hussein Obama, who finished middle school three days ago and has less experience than a person one might choose at random from the audience of “American Idol.”

Announcing the Democrats’ bold new “plan” on energy last week, Pelosi said breaking into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “is one alternative.” That’s not an energy plan. It’s using what we already have — much like “conservation,” which is also part of the Democrats’ plan.

Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It’s as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: “Just eat a little less every day.” Great! We’ll die a little more slowly. That’s not what we call a “plan.” We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death.

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She claims to be a comedian. But she declared that an attempt to toss a pie in her face, an age old comedic twist was attempted assault. Soupy Sales where are you? More tomorrow.

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Victor Hanson – Man made climate change does not exist

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Look, the argument goes Weather refutes Climate. But really, did Russia burn last summer. Isn’t Climate change about Climate Instability. Aren’t the Russian, USA and Canadian Militaries gearing up to patrol a nearly naked Alaska during the summer. And what about oil there? Oh wait is that why they want the warming to continue because it will reveal more oil…

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson122710.html

December, 27 2010

The Obamaites’ About-Face

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Californians have been experiencing ten days of the wettest, snowiest weather in recent memory. In the usually arid San Joaquin Valley, flooding is ubiquitous. The high Sierra passes are locked in snow well before the first of the year. If the United Kingdom is dealing with the irony of its elites’ recently warning of an end to snow on a now snowy island, out here our version of that embarrassment is water everywhere after Energy Secretary Chu warned us that our farms would blow away and that he could envision an end altogether of California agriculture — logically, he asserted, given that 90 percent of the annual Sierra snowpack would soon disappear.

While the state struggles with flooding and blizzards, Governor Schwarzenegger is advertising himself to the Obama administration as a possible post–Van Jones green czar, to regulate energy for the country as he has done for a now insolvent California. But then, once global warming morphed into climate change, too much rain, snow, and cold could become as symptomatic of too much man-made carbon being released as too little rain, snow, and cold once were. Start that engine, and thou shalt both burn and freeze in hell.

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dot dot dot as they say

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When one loses one’s faith, the aftermath can be startling. As gas hits $3 a gallon at Christmas, with fears of $4 by summer-vacation time, expect suddenly to hear of plans to tap more natural gas, build more nuclear reactors, and lift the suppression of offshore drilling — all beneath a loudly trumpeted but very thin wind and solar veneer. What are we to expect next — a few windmills fastened atop a drilling rig in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, some solar panels on the domes of new nuclear-power plants, a supercharger as an upgrade on the Chevy Volt?

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About Face. Forward harch. More tomorrow.

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