Category Archives: Connecting the Dots

Energy Portfolios: 3 Years, 7 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 125.2%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 25.98%

PLPort.1607 On Dec. 21, 2012, I imagined $16 Million dollars in equal investments in 16 real energy companies; eight Sustainable Energy companies and eight fossil fuel companies. 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 July 21, 2016:

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio went from $8.0 Million to $5.94 Million, down 25.63% overall, down 7.2% on an annualized basis.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio went from $8 Million to $17.98 Million, up 124.764%, overall and 34.8% on an annualized basis.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 41.45% overall and 11.57% on an annualized basis, went from 13.091 on 12/21/12 to 18,517 on 7/21/16.
  • The S&P 500 is up 51.4% overall and 14.3% on an annualized basis, from 1,430 on 12/21/12 to close at 2,165 on 7/21/16.

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Energy Portfolios: 3 Years, 6 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 125.2%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 25.98%

PLPort.1606

On Dec. 21, 2012, I imagined $16 Million dollars in equal investments in 16 real energy companies; $1.0 M in each company in each of eight companies in the Sustainable Energy space and $1.0 M each of eight companies in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of various companies in the sustainable energy space and coal industry.

As of the close of trading on June 21, 2016:

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio went from $8.0 Million to $5.92 Million, down 25.98% overall, and 7.4% on an annualized basis.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio went from $8 Million to $18.019 Million, up 125.24%, overall and 35.8% on an annualized basis.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 36.2% overall and 10.3% on an annualized basis, went from 13.091 on 12/21/12 to 17,501 on 6/21/16.
  • The S&P 500 is up 446.08% overall and 13.2% on an annualized basis, from 1,430 on 12/21/12 to close at 2089 on 6/21/16.

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The Spectacular Failure of the Kemper Coal Carbon Sequestration Plant

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Kemper Coal & Natural Gas Facility, photo courtesy Mississippi Power Co.

The Kemper coal and natural gas facility is a 582 MW electric power plant that was supposed to cost $2.2 Billion and open in May, 2014. It hasn’t opened yet, and is now projected to cost $6.6 Billion, triple the original budget. According to Power Mag, here,

The most recent filing pushes the bill to $6.66 billion. The plant was originally estimated to cost $2.2 billion in 2004, but costs began spiraling out of control almost immediately, especially once construction began in 2010 and the company discovered that many of the original designs needed major changes. Those problems appear to be continuing, as Mississippi Power said the April 1 update is “related to operational readiness and challenges in start-up and commissioning activities which includes the cost of repairs and modification to the refractory lining inside the gasifiers.”

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Floods, Oil, Climate Change

Image of Louis Marquez carries his dog, Dallas, through floodwaters after rescuing the dog from his flooded apartment Tuesday in Houston. A FedEx van is in water up to middle of the headlights (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Louis Marquez carries his dog, Dallas, through floodwaters after rescuing the dog from his flooded apartment Tuesday in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

In the spring of this year, the news media reported floods in Texas, Oklahoma, Mexico, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Australia and elsewhere.

  • 9 US soldiers were lost in floods around Fort Hood in Texas.
  • Other Americans have died in the flooding in Oklahoma.
  • The Louve and Orsay museums in Paris are closed and moving priceless art to higher ground to protect it from the floods.

What’s going on?

Elementary chemistry. Continue reading →

Energy Portfolios, 3 Years, 5 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 122.2%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 30.26%

 

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, and Peabody Coal.

As of the close of trading on May 20, 2016:

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio went from $8.0 Million to $5.53 Million, down 30.8% overall, down 8.9% on an annualized basis.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio went from $8 Million to $17.778 Million, up 122.22%, overall and 35.774% on an annualized basis.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 33.69% overall and 9.86% on an annualized basis, went from 13.091 on 12/21/12 to 17,501 on 5/21/16.
  • The S&P 500 is up 43.52% overall and 12.74% on an annualized basis, from 1,430 on 12/21/12 to close at 2051 on 1/21/16.

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Canada’s Oil Industry Going Up In Smoke

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Fort McMurray, Alberta Canada. The tar sands boom is going down in flames; going up in smoke. The fire, which started May 1, 2016, has burned 156,000 hectares, which is 15.6 million acres, 602 square miles or 1,560 square kilometers.

As is evident in the image the flames are taller than the trees.  Continue reading →

Energy Portfolios, 3 Years, 4 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 139%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 29.3%

PL_Port.40On 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, and one company in the fossil fuel space.

The big news this month is the bankruptcy filing of Peabody Coal (Bloomberg, here). Continue reading →

Energy Portfolios, 3 Years, 3 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 159.7%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 33.2%

PLPort.1603

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,

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Energy Portfolios, 3 Years, 2 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 139.5%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 40.7%

PLPort.1602

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 …

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BEIJING, CHINA - JANUARY 23: A tourist and her daughter wearing the masks visit the Tiananmen Square at dangerous levels of air pollution on January 23, 2013 in Beijing, China. The air quality in Beijing on Wednesday hit serious levels again, as smog blanketed the city. (Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

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.”)

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Industrialization in China: Side Effects can Kill

Airpocalypse

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 

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The Art of Gerrymandering – Part III

The State of Gerrymandering in these United States

1. The State of Gerrymandering in these United States

In our last post, we wrote about how to compute the Gerrymander Index of shapes, including Congressional districts. Since then we’ve fetched the U. S. Census Bureau tl_2014_us_cd114 Esri shapefile data set of the 435 Congressional Districts for the current 114th Congress, which includes the nine non-voting districts that send delegates to Congress. If you are terminally curious, download the comma-separated value text file of our results, based on Census Bureau dataset. We’re not going to discuss all 444 maps; restricting our attention to the best and the worst, the state of gerrymandering in these United States, and how the States of California and Texas are gerrymandering these days.

Of the four hundred forty four records in tl_2014_us_cd114, the most gerrymandered district is North Carolina Congressional District 12, with a Gerrymander Index of 0.0291, this based on its cartographic boundary as defined in the Census Bureau shape file.

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COP 21 – the Future Began Yesterday

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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.

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Energy Portfolios, 2 Years 11 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 129.5%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 29.6%

PLPort.1511On 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:

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio was worth $5.63 Million, down 29.57% overall, down 10.44% on an annualized basis.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio was worth $18.0 Million, up 129.50%, overall and 45.71% on an annualized basis.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 36.15% overall and 10.44% on an annualized basis, from 13,091 on 12/21/12 to close at 17,824 on 10/21/15.
  • The S&P 500 is up 46.10% overall and 16.27% on an annualized basis, from 1,430 on 12/21/12 to close at 2,089 on 10/21/15.

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.

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Energy Portfolios, 2 Years 10 Months: Sustainable Energy Up 125%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 27%

PLPort.1510On 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:

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio was worth $5.82 Million, down 27.3% overall, down 9.64% on an annualized basis.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio was worth $18.0 Million, up 125.0%, overall and 44.13% on an annualized basis.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 31.15% overall and 10.99% on an annualized basis, from 13,091 on 12/21/12 to close at 17,169 on 10/21/15.
  • The S&P 500 is up 41.19% overall and 14.54% on an annualized basis, from 1,430 on 12/21/12 to close at 2,019 on 10/21/15.

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