Tag Archives: oil

Tesla, the Auto Industry, and the Oil Industry, Nov. 2021

Tesla, with a market capitalization of $1.137 Trillion at the close of trading on Friday, November 19, 2021, is worth more than GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, BMW, Daimler Benz, VW COMBINED. 45% more.

Add in the value of Nisan, Hyundai, and Stellantis, which owns Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and other brands, and Tesla is still worth 25.8 % more than the rest of the major auto companies. See Table 1.

More surprising is that Tesla, is worth 39% more than Exxon Mobil, Shell, Conoco Philips, Chevron Texaco, and BP Amoco combined. See Table 2.

Arguably, Toyota set the stage for energy efficiency with the 1997 launch of the Prius (click here). And Fisker, launched in 2007, could have been Tesla. Coupled with the fact that other car companies are introducing electric vehicles, including the Chevy Bolt, the Ford Mustang Mach-e and the Ford F-150 Lightning, the Fisker Ocean, etc. it is clear that with Tesla, Elon Musk has changed the world.

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Energy Portfolios, 3 Years, 1 Month: Sustainable Energy Up 135.6, Fossil Fuel DOWN 42.8%

PLPort.1601 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.

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Atmospheric CO2: 400 PPM on May 9, 2013

Atmospheric CO2, Measured at Mauna Loa, 1960 – Present

Atmospheric CO2 hit 400 PPM on Thursday, May 9, 2013, as measured at the Koana Loa observatory. This is an increase of 85 ppm, 26.98%, from 1960. This is why Bill McKibben, of 350.org, calls our planet Eaarth. It’s weather, climate, and ecology are different than the one those of us who are over 30 – or over 12 – were born on. National Geographic, summed it up well, here:

“Greenhouse gas highest since the Pliocene, when sea levels were higher and the Earth was warmer.”

The scientists are taking the data – increased atmospheric carbon dioxide – and asking two questions:

Why is it increasing?
What are the likely effects?

The journalists and bloggers, like Geoffrey Lean, at the Telegraph, asks, here, “Did the contentious global warming ‘hockey stick’ graph get it right?” He could have asked “Did the scientists – and the environmentalists – get it right? And if so, shouldn’t we stop burning fossil fuels?”

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Earth Day, 2013. Oil Spills, Explosions, Fracking Business As Usual & The Stock Market Response

Wall St. NYC, April 26, 2013. Monday, April 22, 2013 was Earth Day. At the close of trading Thursday, April 25, 2013, as compared to my reference date of Dec. 21, 2012, the Dow Jones Industrials was up 12.3% , the S&P 500 closed up 10.84%, the “Popular Logistics Fossil Fuel Reference Portfolio was up 1.8% and the Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy portfolio was up 34.85%. (This is in line with the trend noted in my previous post, March 23, 2013., in the series that began Dec. 21, 2012.) And Shell Oil has temporarily suspended exploration and drilling operations in the Arctic. (Click here for Forbes). The stock portfolio data are summarized below, in Table 1. That’s the good news (unless you’re long on fossil fuels).

Here’s the bad news. “Fracking” is widespread and unregulated (click here). An oil spill dumped 500,000 gallons from Exxon pipeline onto Mayflower, Arkansas and into Lake Conway (click here). A fatal fire & explosion in West, Texas left 35 dead, probably including 16 firefighters and emergency responders (click here). A fire and multiple explosions on gasoline transport barges docked in Mobile, Alabama injured 3 (click here). Continue reading →

Mayflower Oil Spill – Economic Externalities

Image showing oil covering lake at Dawson’s Cove, Mayflower, Arkansas

Back in the mid-1970’s, Amory Lovins, currently with the Rocky Mountain Institute, said “The cheapest unit of energy is the one you don’t need to buy.” He called this the “Nega-Watt.” We now know that the Nega-Watt is also the cleanest unit of energy. And the second cheapest – and second cleanest – is the one which doesn’t need fuel and doesn’t create waste, which might be called the “Nega-Fuel-Watt” or “Nega-Waste-Watt.”

Edward McAllister, reported in Reuters, covered by Yahoo News,

Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter’s 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas, when his wife came inside and said something was wrong.

After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he immediately dialed 911.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got a river of oil coming down the street at me,” Andrews told the operator.

Five minutes later, the slick of noxious black crude spewing from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline was eight feet wide, six inches deep and growing fast.

We now know that an Exxon Mobil pipeline, like the proposed Keystone Pipeline, carrying Canadian crude oil ruptured on Friday, March 29, 2913, spilling an estimated 500,000 gallons of oil into the grounds of the town. 500,000 gallons is roughly 11,000 barrels.

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Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy Portfolio

This portfolio is composed of companies in the solar, biofuel and LED lighting industries.

I think these are disruptive technologies, like personal computers and workstations and client server software architecture in the 1980s and aircraft in the mid-20th and automobiles in the early 20th Century. We may be approaching, or may have recently crossed a “tipping point” in the Wind, Solar, LED lighting and Bio Fuel industries.

As points of reference, this “Sustainable Energy Portfolio” will be compared to an “UnSustainable Energy Portfolio,” composed of oil industry stocks, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.

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Gingrich: I’ve a ‘Secret Plan’ for $2.50 Gas

Newt Gingrich says, “I have a plan to set gasoline prices at $2.50 per gallon. We have 1.4 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil in the United States. Join us to make it happen.” on YouTube, here.

At a rally in Dalton, Georgia, reported here on CNN, he said, “Just tell all your friends we’re setting it up so you can go online at newt.org and you can give one Newt-gallon which is $2.50, or you can give 10 Newt gallons which is $25, or 100 Newt gallons which is $250 or a thousand Newt gallons which is $2500.”

I wonder who’s picture he wants on those “Newt Dollars.”

The Jane Dough blog describes “Today in Improbable Campaign Promises: Gingrich Bus Advertises $2.50/Gallon Gas,” here.

Talking Points Memo, here, says “Newt Gingrich Running On Bitterness and $2.50 Gas.”

Newt doesn’t offer the details, which brings to mind the so-called “investment strategies” of Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford, recently convicted of the largest Ponzi schemes in history. Both consistently refused to explain how they made money; “It’s complicated,” they said, “You wouldn’t understand. But I guarantee that I will make you money. And look at these pictures of me with important people”

In “How to Smell A Rat,” Ken Fisher, of Ken Fisher Investments, with co-author Lara Hoffmans, says, “If a so-called ‘Investment Strategy’ is ‘too complicated to explain’ it’s probably a scam.”

The Chairman of the Communist Party in China can set the value of the currency and price of any commodities in China – because China has a command economy not free markets. The President of the United States, who’s authority, responsibilities, and limits are described in the Constitution, has a lot of power. As Commander In Chief, the President can wage war. But the President can not set the price of commodities traded on free markets.

I don’t believe that Mr. Gingrich has a realistic plan to set the price of gas to $2.50 per gallon. However, I can think of several ways to appear to cut the price of gasoline from $3.73 to $2.50 per gallon:

Devalue the dollar by about 1/3, so that $2.50 “new dollars,” or “Newt Dollars,” as Mr. Gingrich calls them, buys $3.73 worth of gasoline, or other stuff.
Use tax subsidies to pay people the difference between $2.50 and the price at the pump. Then, of course, you would have to raise taxes by $1.23 per gallon.
Drill Baby Drill.
Ration gasoline to artificially cut the demand.

The first two are smoke and mirrors. The third requires massive amounts of clean water and would create massive amounts of toxic by-products. The fourth would work in time of war or disaster. All require what might be termed “Big Government.” All would pour tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to mile winters such as the winter of 2012, climate change, storms like Hurricanes Katrina and Irene, and acidification of the oceans.

There’s one other thing we could try:

Develop fuels derived from sustainably grown plants to legitimately cut demand on fossil fuels.

While this would require “Big Government” to fund research this seems to me to make sense. It is also the mid-term to long term plan of Continental / United, Virgin, Alaska Air, Horizon Air, other carriers, and Boeing (click here for Gizmag or here for Bio-JetFuel Blog). Solazyme (SZYM) and General Electric (GE) are working on the technology. The US Navy is also working with Solazyme for fuels derived from algae (Business Wire). However, based on Mr. Gingrich’s statement that “We have 1.4 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil in the United States,” I suspect that he is playing fast and loose with facts and ginning up support for “Drill, Baby, Drill.”

Strait of Hormuz: oil supply chokepoint

Another example of the risk of petroleum supply interruption: the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz. While it’s hard to imagine that United States military forces wouldn’t prevail in a conflict with Iran, that confrontation might easily escalate.

Excerpted from Oil Price Would Skyrocket if Iran Closed the Strait of Hormuz by Clifford Krauss at NYTimes.com:

HOUSTON — If Iran were to follow through with its threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit route for almost one-fifth of the oil traded globally, the impact would be immediate: Energy analysts say the price of oil would start to soar and could rise 50 percent or more within days.

An Iranian blockade by means of mining, airstrikes or sabotage is logistically well within Tehran’s military capabilities. But despite rising tensions with the West, including a tentative ban on European imports of Iranian oil announced Wednesday, Iran is unlikely to take such hostile action, according tomost Middle East political experts.

United States officials say the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in nearby Bahrain, stands ready to defend the shipping route and, if necessary, retaliate militarily against Iran.

Iran’s own shaky economy relies on exporting at least two million barrels of oil a day through the strait, which is the only sea route from the Persian Gulf and “the world’s most important oil choke point,” according to Energy Department analyst

What does this mean? We think it’s most important in understanding how fragile our dependence on oil is – particularly because protecting requires us to ask our military personnel to put themselves in harm’s way. Petroleum dependence – energy policy – shouldn’t be a casus belli. We have other choices – conservation and renewable energy sources. If we reduce our dependence on oil, we win in many ways: reducing risk to our armed forces; cheaper energy, and better environmental and health outcomes.

Reducing the power of the current Iranian ruling elite is a bonus.

The World Will Not End & Other Predictions for 2012

Here are my top 10 predictions for 2012. These are less readings of the tea leaves or the entrails of goats and chickens and more simple extrapolations of patterns in progress. Altho that may be the way effective oracles. They just masked their observations with hocus pocus, mumbo-jumbo, and guts.

This list runs a gamut from business and technology to energy, instability in the Middle East, micro-economics in the United States, politics, and not-yet-pop culture.

Apple and IBM will continue to thrive. Microsoft will grow, slightly. Dell and HP will thrash. A share of Apple, which sold for $11 in December, 2001, and $380 in Dec. 2011, will sell for $480 in Dec. 2012.
The Price of oil will be at $150 to $170 per barrel in Dec., 2012. The price of gasoline will hit $6.00 per gallon in NYC and California.
There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die.
There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea.
Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance co-ops and Food co-ops, however, will grow 10% to 25%.
The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase.
The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall.
Foreclosures will continue in the United States.
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will resign. Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from matters involving his wife’s clients will become louder, but Justice Thomas will ignore them. A prominent politician who says “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” or her husband, will be “outed” as gay. President Obama will be re-elected.
The authors of Vapor Trails will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. They will not win a “MacArthur Genius Award.” Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project.

Here are the details … Continue reading →

Beyond Fuel – for the 21st Century – Cocoa Beach, Sept. 17

Tweet I will be presenting Beyond Fuel: From Consuming Natural Resources to Harnessing Natural Processes at the Space Coast Green Living Festival, Cocoa Beach, Florida, Sept 17, 2011. The festival is sponsored by the Cocoa Beach Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club Turtle Coast Group. It will be at the Cocoa Beach Courtyard by Marriott. Haley Sales, (Website / Facebook / Youtube),a local singer / songwriter, will perform.

Hayley Sales

Our current energy paradigm today is to fuel based. We burn oceans of oil and methane mountains of coal. And there are consequences. We suffer oil spills, polluted water, mercury, coal mine disasters, nuclear power plant melt-downs, we fight wars …

According to the DoE, in 2010 we burned 1,085,281 thousand short tons of coal and 15,022 thousand short tons of coke (here).

Wind and solar don’t burn fuel. The winds blow, the sun shines, you put a widget in the path of those moving particles in the air or those photons of light and you get electricity – without greenhouse gases, radioactive wastes, toxic wastes, and it costs less. So the question is not ‘Can we meet our energy needs with clean, sustainable renewable energy technologies?” The real question are How? How Much? And How quickly?

100% Clean Energy
100 Gigawatts Wind	$300 Billion
100 GW Marine Hydro	$300 B
50 GW Solar	$200 B
50 GW Geothermal	$200 B
200 GW Equiv Efficiency	$200 B
A Smart Grid	$100 B
500 GW or GW Equiv.	$1.3 Trillion

And we could do it within 25 Years if we wanted to.

Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, coined the term “Negawatt” to mean energy you don’t need to buy, as in “The cheapest unit of energy is the one you don’t have to buy.” The next cheapest, the “nega-fuel-watt” is the unit of energy that doesn’t require fuel.

"Beyond Fuel" at the Space Coast Green Living Festival

Green Living Festival

Tweet I am presenting “Beyond Fuel: From Consuming Natural Resources to Harnessing Natural Processes,” a discussion of the hidden costs, or “economic externalities,” of nuclear power, coal, and oil, and the non-obvious benefits of wind, solar, marine hydro and efficiency at the Sp ace Coast Green Living Festival, Cocoa Beach, Florida, Sept 17, 2011.

The festival is sponsored by the Cocoa Beach Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club Turtle Coast Group. It will be at the Cocoa Beach Courtyard by Marriott.

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Clean Energy, Good Jobs, and a Vibrant Economy … But

courtesy NASA (our tax dollars at work)

Tweet It sounds too good to be true:

*   100 gigawatts of offshore wind, $300 Billion,
*   100 gw of landbased wind, $200 Billion,
*   75 gw of solar, $300 Billion,
*   75 gw of geothermal, $200 Billion.
*   200 gigawatt equivalents of efficiency – $200 Billion.
*   100 & Clean, Renewable, Sustaianble Energy: 1.2 Trillion.
*   2.7 Million New Jobs and a Healthy Economy: Priceless!

This is happening, slowly, inexorably, by the “invisible hand of the market.” But it will happen faster if the “invisible mind of the community” acts. This means the government!

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Would Ayn Rand be Concerned about Climate Change? You Betcha!

Tweet On Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Climate Change

Ayn Rand would not “believe” in climate change. She would try to objectively determine whether the theory correctly modeled the data. While it is legitimate to question both the conclusions of scientists and the methodologies by which data are gathered, denying objective validity of the data, which people who call themselves “Objectivists” are doing with respect to climate science, is well, in a word, anti-Objectivist, at least as described by Ayn Rand in 1962.

“The essence of my philosophy” she said, is:

Metaphysics Objective Reality
Epistemology Reason
Ethics Self-interest
Politics Capitalism

“Translated into simple language, ” she continued, “it would read:

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.”
“You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”
“Man is an end in himself.”
“Give me liberty or give me death.” Continue reading →

Why Cape Wind Still Matters

Tweet On May 25, 1961 President John Kennedy said, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” (Kennedy library and NASA)

Ten years ago, before Sept. 11, Jim Gordon and his team set out to build a small wind farm on the waters on which the young President, his wife, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews sailed. Size is relative. It’s small compared to a large coal or nuclear power complex. The wind farm will be composed of 130 turbines and produce up to 430 megawatts of power (here).

In 2010 Jim Gordon and Cape Wind, LLC, finally, got their permits to build the wind farm. For a variety of reasons it took longer for Cape Wind, LLC to get the permits to build the wind farm than it took this nation to land a man on the moon and bring him home safely. Had the wind farm been built by the winter of 2004, Cape Wind would have provided power during the bitter January of ’04, the heat wave of ’05, and every day, especially the coldest days of winter and the hottest days of summer – when the winds are strongest and New Englander’s electricity needs are highest.

It’s also clear, from reading Cape Wind, by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, that the alliance to “Save Our Sound,” created an anti-wind rogue’s gallery, a bipartisan coalition of moneyed special interests which led Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, Governor Willard Mitt Romney, R-MA, Senator Ted Stevens, R-AK, Representative Dan Young, R-AK, Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, Sen. John Warner, R-VA, and very wealthy residents of Cape Cod, including Bill Koch, the late Richard Egan, Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon (Sen. Warner’s ex-mother-in-law), professional environmentalist Robert F Kennedy, Jr. to obstruct the regulatory and the legislative processes and which slowed the development of Cape Wind and offshore wind farms off of the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere.

For them to oppose this project or say “I favor wind power, as long as it’s somewhere else,” was and remains cynical. Given that we have combat troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, that Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006 described the mission in Iraq as a war for oil, was unpatriotic, perhaps traitorous.

Yet another bipartisan coalition rose up to challenge them and support Cape Wind: Ted Roosevelt, IV, who lives on the Cape, Rep. Jim Bass, R-NH, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, Matt Patrick, Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick, Greenpeace, unions, Fox News’ Sean Hannity. What these politicians have in common is an understanding of the values of energy independence and renewable energy.

Popular Logistics is a policy blog, not a politics blog. However, it’s worth noting that several political campaigns were won in Massachusetts by Democrats who supported Cape Wind, including Matt Patrick, the 5-term Democratic Representative of the 3rd District of Barnstable, Cape Cod, and Deval Patrick who started his 2006 Gubenatorial campaign in front of the Hull, MA, wind turbine.

Mitt Romney, who signed Ted Kennedy’s health care plan into law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, (also known as Obamacare 1.0) appears to be running for President in 2012. He lost in the 2008 Primary to John McCain. Mr. Romney signed on to the Kennedy-Koch-Egan-Mellon anti-Cape Wind jihad. Americans favor wind power. Will they support Romney in 2012?

Scott “Mitt-Lite” Brown, said (here) “While I support the concept of wind power as an alternative source of energy, Nantucket Sound is a national treasure.” Massachusetts voters favor Cape Wind 70 to 30. Will they support Brown in his re-election campaign in 2012? The Statue of Liberty is a “National Treasure,” as is the Constitution. I last visited Cape Cod when I was 7. Nantucket Sound is not a “National Treasure.” Getting America off coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power, moving to clean, renewable, sustainable energy means our children and grandchildren will enjoy our national treasures.

In their book Williams and Whitcomb suggest that Senator Kennedy may have realized that he had made a bad decision in opposing Cape Wind, but that for a variety of reasons he refused to back down. They may be right. While I think Kennedy was wrong, I can’t speak to whether he came to that understanding. As I noted on this blog, back in August, 2009, (here) President Obama said of Ted Kennedy,”His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives: in seniors who know new dignity; in families who know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including myself.”

Obama said “More equal and more just,” but he didn’t say “perfect.” America is not perfect. It is nation of men and women governed by the rule of law. The laws are not perfect, and neither are the men and women who make, enforce and interpret the laws.

Our energy policy is electricity flows when people flip a switch. Most of that electricity comes from burning fossil fuels and harnessing nuclear fission. We can pretend that the carbon we are pumping into the oceans and the atmosphere will have no effect, that we have unlimited supplies of fossil fuels, and uranium, that all the waste from coal mining, processing, transporting, and burning, and all the radiation leaks from nuclear plants (and radioactive waste from coal) are trivial or routine. Or we can get real. The choice is between coal, oil, methane, and nuclear, or wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. I choose wind, solar, tidal and geothermal; for myself, for my backyard, not just for people who are my equal in the eyes of the law, whether they have more or less money than me.

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Index to the series that explores Offshore Wind and Politics:

Cape Wind, Leadership and Vision, here.
Why Cape Wind Still Matters, here.
Ted Roosevelt, IV, on Cape Wind (coming soon).

Matthew L. Wald/NYTimes.com: Obama Administration consider opening strategic energy reserve

Regular readers know that when Matthew L. Wald‘s byline appears in The New York Times, we pay attention. In “Obama Considers Tapping Oil Reserve, ” we suspect that space considerations forced the omission of certain important background details. First, excerpts from Mr. Wald’s piece:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to rapidly rising gasoline prices brought on by turmoil in the Middle East, the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, said on Sunday.

“It’s something that only has been done on very rare occasions,” Mr. Daley said on “Meet the Press” on

Image by Infrogmation via Wikimedia Commons.

NBC, adding, “It’s something we’re considering.”

Administration officials have sent mixed signals about the possibility of opening the reserve, which would add supply to the domestic oil market and tend to push down prices.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Friday that the administration was monitoring prices, but he has been reluctant to endorse more aggressive steps.

“We don’t want to be totally reactive so that when the price goes up, everybody panics, and when it goes back down, everybody goes back to sleep,” he said.

A few days earlier, Mr. Chu said the administration was watching the situation closely, but it expected oil production that had been lost in Libya would be made up by production elsewhere.

Administration officials continue to emphasize the critical need for long-term steps to reduce oil use, like improving the fuel economy of cars and promoting battery-powered vehicles.

But recently, five Senate Democrats have called for opening the reserve, which is stored in four salt domes in Texas and Louisiana. And on Feb. 24, three House Democrats from New England, where oil is used to heat homes, wrote to Mr. Obama saying that while exporters could increase production, “they also profit from oil price spikes and therefore have little incentive to quickly respond with the increased supply needed to calm markets.”

“We don’t want to be totally reactive so that when the price goes up, everybody panics, and when it goes back down, everybody goes back to sleep,” he said.

A few days earlier, Mr. Chu said the administration was watching the situation closely, but it expected oil production that had been lost in Libya would be made up by production elsewhere.

Administration officials continue to emphasize the critical need for long-term steps to reduce oil use, like improving the fuel economy of cars and promoting battery-powered vehicles.

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