Energy

Missouri's a pretty tough place to grow most crops. But there's one thing they've got plenty of: wind. So a small town, Rock Port, has decided to use the powerful breezes to its advantage, building four wind turbines to provide power to their town.

As wind energy continues to expand across the U.S. heartland, rural America is likely to experience a revitalization not experienced since the homestead land grabs of the 19th century. Green jobs - high-quality employment for environmentally sustainable industries - and related spin-off opportunities are proliferating across West Texas. Local leaders predict that the economic growth has only just begun.

Awareness is low, but 63 percent of those who had a view on it favor a California ballot measure that would require half the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025, a Field poll issued on Tuesday shows. Voter awareness of Proposition 7 on the November ballot is extremely low -- 82 percent of those interviewed said they did not know of the measure. Phone interviews of 672 likely voters were conducted last week, Field Research said. Voters were asked opinions on several issues on the statewide ballot this November. On the renewable energy measure, 24 percent said they were likely to vote against it and 13 percent said they were undecided.

Oil prices will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years if the United States fails to reduce its dependence on foreign imports, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.

Stephen Leeb makes the interesting suggestion that we re-think "BRIC" - Brazil, Russia, India and China and substitute "BRAC" - Brazil, Russia, Australia and Canada, i.e. substitute emerging countries with resource rich countries.

I like the idea for diversification as well. You never can tell who's about to nationalize, seize, go carbon-bonkers, or drink themselves silly (that would be the Australians, though come to think of it the Russians also qualify).

There are some well run, resource rich stocks in BRAC, among them Petrobras, Lukoil, Woodside Petroleum, Santos, Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources, Imperial Oil, or, as the article highlights, the country ETFs: EWZ, RSX, EWA and EWC.

istockanalyst: Changing BRIC for BRAC.

Quotes:

"The currencies of countries rich in essential resources—oil and other fuels, metals, agricultural products—are in strong demand," says long-standing market expert Stephen Leeb.

The editor of The Complete Investor explains, "Brazil, Russia, Australia, and Canada are awash in natural resources. And in a world of growing shortages, these countries can't miss."

"The acronym 'BRIC—standing for Brazil, Russia, India, and China—is in vogue as shorthand for the emergence of the developing world.

"But we’re herewith proposing an emended version: 'BRAC'—standing for Brazil, Russia, Australia, and Canada.

"That’s because these four countries are the ones most brimming over with essential natural resource, with each one a net exporter of fuels and other natural products. In a world where resource shortages will only get worse, these countries will stand out from the pack.

"Don’t get us wrong. China and India remain the largest and fastest growing emerging economies and still face exceptional futures.

"But their major resources are cheap labor, which will become less cheap as their economies keep growing. Indeed, labor costs in these countries already have begun to rise relative to the rest of the world.

"Meanwhile, continued gains in commodities mean that Australia and Canada are gaining relative to the rest of the world. It’s hard to overstate just how important relative resource independence is in a world where resources are becoming ever more scarce and expensive.

Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are still 15 years away from becoming a viable business for automakers even if they overcome remaining technical hurdles and the U.S. government provides massive subsidies, a government-funded report said on Thursday.

MIT researchers have announced that they have created “organic solar concentrators” that could make windows become powerful solar panels in as little as three years.

Al Gore, the Nobel Prize-winning crusader on climate change, challenged the United States on Thursday to commit to producing all U.S. electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind power in 10 years. "Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges -- the economic, environmental and national security crises," the former Democratic vice president and presidential candidate in 2000 told a meeting in Washington.

We need a massive increase in electricity generated from alternative energy.

Here's Al Gore's vision:



Here's one way to achieve 100% Carbon Free Electricity

Thoughts?

CNBC: Oil's Biggest 3-Day Drop In 5 years.

I'm surprised there was little mention in this video of the supply and demand factor. Yesterday we saw a big build in crude and today a decent build in natural gas. The huge move in oil and natural gas that started early this year was about supply and demand, as a colder than average winter cut into natural gas supplies and pulled on heating oil supplies, which, combined with demand for diesel, pulled up crude prices.

We are now facing the other side of the supply demand equation, the one where supply is starting to build instead of declining. And price wise, neither natural gas nor crude looks like it's ready to make a stand today, they look like they have further to drop. Chart wise, I'm guessing natural gas could pull back to $9.50 and oil to $120, though crude at $110 wouldn't shock me at all. On the other hand, looking ahead further, if we get another cold winter, I think we revisit the highs.

This summer feels like a mild one, and I think back to this quote from a few posts ago:

The question Coxe raises, and one we cannot answer, is whether the lack of sunspot activity in this cycle portends a trend to cooler weather, shorter growing seasons, and increased space heating demands – or is it just a statistical fluke?

Investment Implications

Coxe argues that if the lack of solar activity is not a statistical fluke natural gas would be a ‘pure play' on this event due to the huge amount of natural gas used for space heating in North America . Natural gas is a very efficient and non-polluting heating fuel.

We would tend to agree with his assessment, but note that the incremental use of natural gas as a summer electrical generation ‘peaker plant' fuel may decline if air conditioner loads are significantly reduced.


Pure play natural gas and oil E&Ps are bearing the brunt right now, while big oil (XOM, CVX, COP) and big service (SLB, HAL, WFT) have paused. That suggests people are shedding excess exposure, but holding the core.

SLB reports tomorrow, apparently. How the market trades it will probably be a significant tell.

To answer the title question, while I don't think the bull market is dead, I do think that the huge move this year ate up a lot of our bull's "energy", and was a little too "easy". When it's that easy, it's often a sign that you're about to encounter trouble. Lesson learned.

Authorities will hold tests at all French nuclear power plants to ensure leaks like the one this month at Tricastin in southern France have not occurred, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told a newspaper.

As the world's eighth-largest crude oil producer at a time of all-time record high oil prices, Nigeria should by rights be a prosperous nation. But it is not, and more than half of its huge population lives in poverty. The problems facing those trying to conduct shipping-related business in the country are both extensive and complex.

In a special ceremony this morning on the steps of San Francisco landmark Grace Cathedral, it was announced that Pacific Gas and Electric will partner with the Cathedral by providing $65,000 for the installation of a new, state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic (PV) power system. Mayor Gavin Newsom told those assembled that this project helps advance the goal of making “San Francisco the greenest city in the country” adding “I commend PG&E for their vision of implementing renewable energy on a true San Francisco landmark. This project supports the City’s goals of increasing the use of clean, renewable power”.

Public support for biofuels is costly and has little impact in cutting greenhouse gas emissions so governments would do better promoting lower energy consumption to fight climate change, the OECD said on Wednesday. Governments should also boost the so-called second generation biofuels that do not use food crops, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report. The study comes as the latest blow to biofuels, made from grains, oilseeds and sugar, which were once hailed for providing a clean alternative to fossil fuels but are now blamed for a surge in food prices.

The leaders of Indonesia and Brazil agreed on Saturday that their developing nations, home to much of the world's remaining tropical forest, would cooperate on biofuels after talks covering climate change and food.

President George W. Bush on Monday lifted a White House ban on offshore drilling to try to drive down soaring energy prices, a largely symbolic bid unlikely to have any short-term impact on high gasoline costs. With prices at the pump over $4 a gallon, Bush pushed the Democratic-controlled Congress to expand offshore oil and natural gas drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and give oil companies access to the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge. High gasoline prices and soaring food prices have irked American consumers in a presidential election year, when Bush's Republicans are trying to keep the White House and wrest control of Congress back from Democrats.

I'm a bit of an agonistic on gold, but you can't bury your head in the sand and ignore it. Compounding financial crisis, inflation, printing money... gold is in.

CNBC: Commodities Explosion.

Environmental protesters in Australia brought the world's biggest coal terminal to a standstill on Sunday by blocking railway lines and chaining themselves to rail cars. Police said they arrested about 37 people who chained themselves to a train and rail tracks at the port in Newcastle, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Sydney to protest over the impact of burning coal on climate change. "This caused three trains scheduled for Sunday to stop before getting to the terminal, meaning about 20,000 tonnes of coal could not be unloaded," a spokesman for the port, Matthew Watson told Reuters.

A Kenyan court has temporarily halted a $370 million sugar and biofuels project in a coastal wetland that conservation groups warned would threaten wildlife and local livelihoods. The government and the country's biggest sugar miller, Mumias, wants to plant cane on 20,000 hectares in the Tana River Delta to create jobs and plug an annual 200,000-tonne sugar deficit.

A transition to renewable energy sources promises significant global job gains at a time when the coal industry has been hemorrhaging jobs for years.