On Dec. 21, 2012, drying off from Sandy, after the lights came back on, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $1.0 Million in each of eight companies in the Sustainable Energy space and another $1.0 in each of eight companies in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space,
On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space …
Deepwater Drilling Offshore of the US yields oil at $57 per barrel (see note 1) and, according to Forbes, the Break-Even price is $65 per barrel. It makes no sense to drill deepwater wells offshore of the US with WTI crude oil under $35 per barrel And given that the costs to produce a barrel of oil in the Middle East, range from $8.50 in Kuwait to $9.90 in Saudi Arabia, to $12.60 in Iran WE CAN’T COMPETE!
But we shouldn’t bother. We should move to a post fossil fuel economy.
BEIJING, CHINA – Tiananmen Square, January 23, 2013 (Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)
Forbes, here, and reports that China is building a 200 MW solar farm in the Gobi Desert (Clean Technica, here, IFL Science, here.
However, Chinese authorities plan for carbon emissions to peak in 2030 – that is to keep increasing until 2030. Bellona, here, reported that Chinese authorities plan to increase renewables to 20% by 2030. This will include 200 GW of Wind, 100 GW of Solar. The plan is also to increase burning of Natural Gas to 10% of their electricity capacity, and to focus on coal with carbon capture. (Apparently the Chinese authorities don’t seem to realize how much carbon sequestration really costs. It is, as they say in New England, “wicked expensive.”)
Wall St. 1/21/16. On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space.
Today it is worth an imaginary $23.48 Million because while the Fossil Fuel portfolio dropped 42.8% of it’s total value, the Sustainable Energy portfolio increased 135.6%.
This excludes the value of dividends and transaction costs, but includes the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space.
This month’s post was delayed due to preparations for and digging out from Blizzard Jonas.
Airpocalypse Beijing.
副作用可以杀死 Fùzuòyòng kěyǐ shā sǐ Side Effects Can Kill
China, since 1947, has become an economic powerhouse. But back in 2007, National Geographic reported, here, on a World Health Organization, WHO, report, that 656,000 people died in China in 2006 from air pollution. National Geographic also reported that polluted drinking water killed at the rate of 95,000 people per year in China in 2006. In 2012, The Guardian reported, here, that in 2010, 1.2 million people died in China and North Korea from air pollution.
Side Effects can kill. 副作用可以杀死 Fùzuòyòng kěyǐ shā sǐ
On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space.
As of the close of trading on December 21, 2015:
Earth, The Blue Marble, courtesy NASA
COP 21 is, perhaps, the most important international effort in history. It concluded with an agreement by 196 nations to limit CO2 emissions to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Centigrade or 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit (NPR).
The only way to do this is to phase out fossil fuels, quickly, and replace them with efficient use of sustainable energy systems, i.e., solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and insulation.
December 2, 2015, 19 Americans were killed and 21 wounded in four incidents, one dead, three wounded in Georgia (Atlanta Journal Constitution), two dead in Texas in two incidents (ABC News) and 14 killed and 17 wounded in San Bernardino, California (NPR). In addition, two of the alleged shooters in California were killed and a police officer was wounded in a subsequent shoot-out with police.
As President Obama said, “We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.” (NY Daily News, ABC News, CBS News.)
A total of 12,209 Americans were shot to death in 350 incidents in the USA thus far in 2015, according to Gun Violence Archive. In 2014 the US population was 318.9 million. So the odds are 0.0038285% – 38.285 in a Million or 1 in 26 thousand (26,119.9) that YOU – or I – will be shot to death in America. That’s better that the one in 175 million chance of winning the Powerball Lottery (Ronald Wasserstein, Huffington Post, here).
Americans are 6,700 times more likely of being shot dead than winning Powerball.
On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space,
As of the close of trading on November 20, 2015:
It’s not a war on coal. It’s a paradigm shift.Think about it. We don’t use whale oil or kerosene for street lamps. We did, 100 years ago.
This of course, has geopolitical ramifications. It’s not just carbon dioxide, which is changing the climate and acidifying the oceans. Like Al Queda, Hamas and Hezbollah, ISIS finances its operations with petrodollars. (The difference is that Hamas is supported by Emirates and Kuwait, Hezbollah by Iran, Al Queda by our friends the Saudis, while ISIS has its own oil wells.) Earlier this year NJ’s Honorable Governor Chris Christie, a candidate for President, gave Exxon a $9 Billion gift (which is being challenged in the courts). BP was the beneficiary of the 1953 coup by the US under President Eisenhower and the UK which toppled the democratically elected government led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossagedgh of Iran and propped up the Shah until the revolution in 1979. Shell has spent something like $12 Billion in failed attempts to drill the Arctic. BP, Transocean and Halliburton brought us the Deepwater Horizon; Halliburton also profited from the US Led war in Iraq.
On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space.
As of the close of trading on October 21, 2015:
Identity thieves want Social Security numbers matched with names, addresses and birthdays.
And they have them. By the Millions!
On 90 Million Americans! Possibly 200 Million!
They used Experian to get information on 15 million T-Mobile customers – and threaten everyone in Experian’s databases. They stole information on 90 million people whos health insurance is provided by Anthem Blue Cross or Excellus Blue Cross. And 22 Million current and former employees of the U. S. government, by hacking Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Plus 58 million customers of Home Depot and 70 million customers of Target. The problem is growing. They are also targeting parking services such as Book 2 Park, Park N Fly, and One Stop Parking.
The sets intersect – it is likely many Home Depot customers also shop Target, work for the government and or have health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield. But it’s also likely that very few of the 10 million customers of Excellus Blue Cross are also customers of Anthem Blue Cross so we are looking at a problem for at least 90 Million Americans, 28% of the country. That’s almost one out of three. And 200 million? That’s 2 out of 3.
On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space,
As of the close of trading on Sept. 21, 2015:
When stocks on the Shanghai Securities Exchange, the SSE, “corrected” on August 24, 2015, stocks in US and other markets followed. But nothing has fundamentally changed. None of the “Fundamentals” on any publicly traded U.S. or European companies have significantly changed (other than the Market Capitalization and Price Earnings ratios, which are, of course, functions of the stock price). Earnings per Share, EPS, the existence or lack thereof of what Warren Buffett calls a “moat,” debt to asset ratios, return on income, other financial ratios, were and remain unaffected by day to day fluctuations of stock price.
Charging Bull, by Arturo Di Monica
Stocks that were fundamentally bad investments on Friday, August 21, 2015 were likely to have been bad investments on Tuesday. August 25, 2015. Stocks that were good investments on Friday, August 21, 2015, were fundamentally somewhat better investments on Tuesday. August 25, 2015.
Dancing on the Charging Bull
The SSE Composite is not the S&P 500, or even the Dow. While there are frequent scandals involving insider trading and other financial improprieties, they are the exception and there are regulations designed to keep them that way. China, on the other hand …
The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite index, the SSE Composite, looks kind of like the S&P 500. However, there are key differences between the indices.
According to Adam Haigh, Bloomberg Business the current stock market valuation “Correction” may be complete. Meanwhile, in the microeconomic world of energy, as illustrated above, the Sustainable Energy portfolio” I created in December, 2012, here, rose slightly above the close of trading Friday, August 21, 2015, while the Fossil Fuel portfolio, the S&P 500 index and the Dow Jones Industrial average closed below their values at the close of trading on 21 August, 2015.
Mr. Haigh, in Asian Stocks Rise as U.S. Equity Rout Halted; China Futures Gain, wrote,
Asian stocks rose for a second day after U.S. shares halted a six-day rout.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.9 percent to 127.93 as of 9:05 a.m. in Tokyo. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index jumped 3.9 percent, the most since 2011. Two things that have supported U.S. stocks in the past, dovish words from the Federal Reserve and improved economic data, halted a plunge that erased $2.2 trillion from equity values.
But the long term trend in energy stocks, first reported by me here in February, 2013, appears to be persistent. Solar and Wind stocks may be continuing to climb; Fossil fuel stocks may be continuing to decline. Either or both of these trends could, of course, reverse.
The data are summarized beginning in Table 1, below. Continue reading