The new version of my jacket (the back is still the same). More patches are coming soon fore replacements.

My battle jacket

It has been an interesting vacation week in the Hamptons (and 10 degrees cooler than NYC). My wife’s family have owned a beach house here since 1961. I spent summers in grad school on Fire Island; once we got engaged, summer weekends moved further east.

Some anecdotal observations:

The stores have not been jam packed. South Hampton was not particularly busy. The one crush was the town of West Hampton on July 4th — you can see most of the fireworks display walking through town. Sunday night was totally jammed.

The RE situation appears to be the same as last year. Dunno if you call that stabilization or something else. On our usual 2 mile route to the beach, we have seen 16 houses for sale; last year it was 14 for sale (2008 was also ugly). I also noticed a whole lot of rentals — 4th of July week is quite late for that many empty investment properties (or people who are renting out houses ’cause they need the income).

The party atmosphere remains . . . but it is different.

I’ll try to quantify this more before the week is over . . .

The US consumer continues to shed and incrementally use less debt. May Consumer Credit outstanding fell by $9.1b, almost $7b more than expected and April was revised to a decline of $14.9b from the initial report of a rise of $1b. The decline was led by a $7.3b fall in revolving credit outstanding while non revolving credit fell by $1.8b. The sharp downward revision to the April figure was led by a drop in the non revolving category. Overall consumer credit outstanding now stands at $2.415T, the lowest since March ‘07 and has fallen for 18 of the last 20 months. A combination of debt paydown, more savings and reduced credit access has the consumer doing the tough but rational thing of deleveraging. The resulting higher savings rate, while a crimp to consumer spending, is the seed of investment and is the long term offset to the short term economic impact to 70% of the US economy.

Original State of Euphoria Backpatch from 1988

The problem with vacations is that I don’t get to read everything I want to. The following is what i would be pouring over if I weren’t on the beach!

• Hedge Funds ‘Frozen in Headlights’ Cut Trading as Markets Swing (Bloomberg)

• Double-Dip Fears Are Overdone (WSJ)
• Could Japan Collapse? (The Diplomat)

• IMF Raises 2010 Growth Estimate, Sees Recovery Risk (Bloomberg)

• All in on Deflation Bet? (Barron’s)

• Ignore Generic Financial Advice (NYT Bucks)

• Dan Gross on Going Postal: Higher postal rates are good (Slate)

• Obama Decried, Then Used, Some Bush Drilling Policies (WSJ)

• Romeo and Juliets, here I come: Congress reviewing Cuban sanctions, may lift travel ban (Washington Post)

• Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How It Works (Wired)

What are you reading?

Working on it for almost 3 years. Have no fake or printed patche's on it.
Nocturnal, Anthrax (big) and DANGER Mosh Area are from T-shirts.

Jacket is coverd with Blood from Chainsaw and Sand from Graspop, it smels like Sweat Puke Beer and Coffee(from the blood)

oh and at the bottom my bloody shoe :P

Buttons on the Jacket are:
(Right)
Venom - Welcome to Hell
Merciless Death
Scheisse Minnelli - Exist to get piss't
Voivod
(Left)
Municipal Waste
Anthrax - Fistful of Metal
Scheisse Minnelli
D.R.I.

D.R.I. Back patch is not oficial but its not from a shirt

Rich Karlgaard gets all up in the grills of the “über bears” in this post. This alone would not be particularly noteworthy, except Karlgaard is quite charming and somewhat reserved in person.

He calls Robert Prechter “howling insanity,” noted that Paul Farrell is the new “apocalypse beat writer,” and saves particular vitriol for “the oddest of them all, a book writing blowhard Harry Dent.”

I’ll takes pop psychology for $100, Alex

“The howling insanity of Prechter and his fellow bears is rising. My theory about this is admittedly cynical. It could be called The Men Who Want to Be Roubini. The [NYU] econ professor and permabear, Nouriel Roubini, happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right call in September 2008. The result was that Roubini’s lecture fees zoomed from cab fare to $60K in seven seconds.

The Men Who Want to Be Roubini–which is to say rich and famous . . . “

Ouch . . .

He does have some nice things to say about Doug Kass and I. (Dougie — remind me never to piss Rich off!)

>

Source:
Insane Bulls And Bears
Rich Karlgaard
Digital Rules, July 7, 2010 – 3:21 pm

http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules/2010/07/insane-bulls-and-bears/

Taking the inflation/deflation debate to a whole new level, the National Inflation Association (I’ve never heard of them) that purports to “Preparing Americans for Hyperinflation,” is urging “Lebron James to consider signing a 3 yr contract with the NBA team of his choice, instead of a 5-6 yr contract, due to the threat of hyperinflation occurring in the US during the next 5 yrs. With all of the talk in the mainstream media about if Lebron will sign with the Cavs, Heat, Knicks, Bulls or Nets, nobody is talking about the threat of hyperinflation and what effect it could have on the real value of Lebron James’ next NBA contract.” Oh boy.

This is a follow up post to 'The Fake Fire Brigade - How We Cheat Ourselves about Our Energy Future', which gave an overview on how difficult it will be to maintain our current energy systems with renewable energy. The main authors are Hannes Kunz, President of Institute for Integrated Economic Research (IIER) and Stephen Balogh, a PhD student at SUNY-ESF and Senior Research Associate at IIER. IIER is a non-profit organization that integrates research from three different areas: the financial/economic system, energy and natural resources, and human behavior. Their objective is to aid policymakers in developing strategies that result in more benign trajectories after global growth ends. The authors wrote over a 10,000 word follow-up to the questions raised in the original posting and we've broken into 4 pieces for readability - the first installment is below the fold.

(The original post and other related content can be found on the IIER website).

This post follows up on the "Fake Fire Brigades", which sparked a large amount of scrutiny, but also received much positive feedback. We're grateful for both. One of the allegations made to our overview was that our claims were "unsubstantiated": we are afraid they are not, but in retrospect the post may have been misleading. When we wrote it we had a choice between two imperfect options:

• make our general case concerning the fact that we cannot expect energy systems to deliver what we're used to in the future with the technology we have available, irrespective of effort;
• analyze one of the “firemen” we consider "fake", and support our conclusions with all the necessary data, then continue with the next one, and so on.

We opted for #1 because the problem we face is a general one, with wide boundaries of analysis. When trying to understand an integrated system, we can’t just look at the parts but instead have to analyze it in its entirety. This is because we might easily find a solution for each individual problem, but may still fail on an aggregate level. This is why we decided to make this general statement about “fake fire brigades”. However, given the abundance of aspects and ideas involved in today’s energy debate, and the limited size of an individual TOD essay, we could only do this and provide a few examples, which made some of our statements rather generic.

This dilemma has gotten us into a position of being called out as propagandists, wanting to prove things that are irrelevant, or simply not doing our math properly. We can safely claim that the only propaganda we are trying to make is for one thing: that human societies should undergo extensive integrated analysis on alternative energy before we lull ourselves with the expectation that our energy future will somehow be at the same or higher level of today’s.

We offered a follow-up post with more detail, and here it is. It contains four elements:

• a few key aspects we consider relevant when understanding energy and its contribution to society
• an analysis of the potential of biomass as a future energy supply
• a close review of electricity delivery systems
• a Q&A section trying to address the concerns voiced after our original post.

Some people walked away from our post thinking that we are against renewables, against nuclear, or against any energy solution. That is not the case. After considerable analysis and effort, we are now simply against the predominant idea that we can more or less continue our fossil-fuel driven lifestyle by slowly replacing oil, coal and gas with other sources and technologies, just by managing them well – maybe coupled with some efficiency gains.

We instead claim that our current expectations for energy delivery systems cannot be maintained, as soon as we HAVE TO use flow-based renewable sources (i.e. almost everything nature provides besides dammed hydropower, biomass and maybe some geothermal power) at a rate of more than 20 or 30% of total consumption. The proposed future of energy delivery has three weak points: technical feasibility, cost, and the ability of us humans to act.

Our post also provided some reason for commenters to caution readers about overpopulation. We agree that we likely face a threat from more and more humans on this planet, particularly for our ecosystems. However, our topic is not really related to population, but rather to standard of living. The problems we describe in our post are confined to advanced economies, the countries with the highest population growth today don’t even have access to the stable and reliable energy services we are used to. And in most OECD countries, policy-makers today are more concerned about shrinking and aging populations. Ultimately, even if advanced economies – for whatever reasons – have to make do with 30 or 50% of today’s energy, this will still be enough to feed everybody, provide shelter, heat and other basic services.

One of the key challenges we see when looking at a systemic view, is that when thinking about future solutions, we engage in double-counting in two ways. First, most tend to ignore the problem that many renewable technologies are still heavily dependent on the application of relatively cheap fossil fuels when it comes to raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation and maintenance. Those inputs mostly come at relatively low cost. So if these alternative energy technologies (even nuclear plants) will have to be built with renewable sources of power in the future, or with higher priced fossil fuels, this would make these relatively expensive technologies even more expensive. Not taking this into account and banking on past experience about new things always becoming cheaper and cheaper might be a serious mistake.

Second, on societal level, we have a tendency to double-count the few available flexible solutions as problem-solvers for every input that does not deliver its outputs according to our energy demand. In almost every projection of future electricity systems, biomass and hydropower come up as general “fixes”, mostly ignoring the fact that someone else has already claimed the exact same resources for other purposes. That way, each individual system looks theoretically feasible, but when looking at the aggregate, things begin to fall apart, simply because those cure-alls are already spoken for elsewhere in the system, and therefore don’t scale as we would wish them to.

Before going back to that subject, we would like to talk a little bit about the cost of energy.

We want to introduce the aspect of energy pricing, which wasn’t done in our original post. People who commute by car understand that the cost of gasoline has a significant impact on their discretionary income. Someone with a take-home pay of $2’000 per month and a round trip commute of 50 miles each day will have to spend $100 or 5% of his or her income for gasoline bought at a price of $2 per gallon and used in a car that gets 20mpg. If gas prices go up to 4 dollars, suddenly 10% of that person’s budget has to be spent on transportation fuels, and at $6 (the norm in Europe) it becomes $300 (or 15%). What this does is reduce discretionary income that could be spent on other things. The cost of commuting reduces discretional spending and is the equivalent of up to three days’ worth of work (Table 1).


Table 1: discretionary income reductions from changing gas prices

Unfortunately, the methods to mitigate this growing cost incur costs of their own, for example by giving up the job (decreased income), buying a more fuel-efficient car (increased car payments), finding a house or a job involving a shorter commute (cost of moving/changing jobs), or taking public transportation/biking to work (increased time of commute).

What is relevant for individuals is also true for societies in aggregate. The higher the share of our effort that goes into retrieving the energy that keeps our world going, the smaller the share that is available for investment and consumption. Ultimately, this leads to a reduced standard of living (Hall, et al. 2008). To explain that a little better, we might have to go back in history.

When man began, what he used were his bare hands, plus soon some tools, to recover what he needed from his surroundings. With more humans being around, better ways of exploring nature were required, which led to agriculture as a first development. Introducing draft animals further extended the capabilities of humans, as they were able to convert previously unused energy (for example cellulosic biomass from grasses) into the useful energy from a strong ox. Over time, man added energy provided from water and wind, both for mechanical work and for transportation. These transitions basically followed a single concept: it always made sense to implement a new method once it safely returned more useful energy units than what humans had to invest in the technology. For example, building a windmill would make sense if the effort to haul the materials, to erect the structure, to maintain it and to operate it was significantly less than the effort to accomplish the objective of milling manually or with a simple treadmill or one driven by an ox.

The above is nothing but an early example of describing EROI (Energy Return on Energy Investment). The more of our effort goes towards retrieving the energy we (want to) use, the smaller our benefits from that energy.

The theoretical concept works as follows, as most readers of The Oil Drum know: If a person works one hour and – from a draft animal, a wind mill, or a power plant – gets work worth 10 hours back, a net gain of 9 hours can be directed at other things. The bigger that ratio is, the more available time, and the higher the standard of living becomes. In the example above, a farmer working one hour with an ox plowing the fields can do the equivalent of 5-7 hours of a human working alone. Therefore, the farmer can increase his productivity, or have that much more free time. Early grain farms, based primarily on human labor, required about 373 man hours per 100 bushels of wheat and 344 man-hours per 100 bushels of corn. By 1900, with draft animals and steel plows now an integral part of farming, the man-hours were reduced by more than half for corn, and nearly 70% for wheat, even though during that period yields remained steady. After WWII when mechanical tractors and synthetic fertilizers became prevalent, agriculture efficiency rose dramatically, with man-hours per 100 bushels reduced to 18 in 1955 for wheat, and to 22 for corn (Rasmussen 1962). In the same way a farmer employs an ox, modern humans employ cheap energetic sources of labor.

Let’s now spend some time understanding what this means today. A strong healthy human can deliver about 1 kWh of energy per day (on average it probably is closer to 600 W). Given a median household income of $52’029 in the US in 2008 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/acsbr08-2.pdf), the average price for one kWh of human labor is $260. Compared to that, the same amount of energy in oil at $20/barrel (the long-term inflation-corrected average) cost us 1.2 cents (today, at $75, it is 4.4 cents/kWh), and an equal amount energy from coal comes at 0.7 cents. The table below shows how different the price of energy is for many sources.


Table 2: cost per kWh, cost related the U.S. if not otherwise stated

The challenge is that we have built our Western lifestyles based on the lowest-cost items in the table, and even until very recently have continued to do so by moving almost all mass-production of key industrial goods to low-cost countries (for either lower energy or labor cost, or both).

Aluminum is one good example. Electricity is the single biggest cost parameter in its production. I.e. it matters greatly whether a smelter has to pay 3 cents, 5 cents or 10 cents per kWh, as it may decide between making a profit and incurring a loss (Figure 1).

Fig 1: relevance of electricity for aluminum production (Source: Energy Trader 02/09)

So, as energy inputs into all our activities have become more and more expensive, we simply have either reduced their use, or have moved their manufacturing to places where people care less about the side effects of cheap energy from coal (like China), or where they are lucky to have abundant low-cost hydropower (like Norway). Both countries have – for exactly that reason – become key places for aluminum production – even though they are quite far away from where most of the bauxite gets mined.

The biggest challenge is that when building our modern systems we never traded like for like. Transition to lower-cost energy usually came at the price of higher overall energy consumption for the same task, for it involves machinery, and buildings, and other infrastructure. And when we began to outsource to far-away countries, there were extra transaction and transportation costs involved, which further increased the energy used. But since it was cheaper, it did not seem to matter.

Fig 2: energy use for driving (1 passenger) and walking (Source: IIER)

For example, when we use a car driving one person around, total energy expended is 400-500 times higher when compared to walking, and that doesn’t even include the infrastructure required beyond the car itself, such as roads. If this system, which until recently operated at a ratio of 4730:1 ($2 gasoline), gets pushed towards 1586:1 ($6 gasoline), it becomes clear that benefits of driving a car are greatly reduced.

So when we designed the world we live in, we did it with energy cost of below 5 cents per kWh in mind. If that price goes to 10 or 15 cents, that might look like a small change, but in fact it cuts our benefits from the applied energy to half or a third of what they were in the beginning. This is like our landlord doubling or tripling the rent over a short period of time, or the interest rates of our mortgage doubling or tripling. In that case, we would have to move to a smaller place.

Fig 3: commercial application tolerance levels for energy prices (IIER calculations)

Figure 3 shows at what price levels certain energy sources become problematic for the key delivery systems they support. The green “comfort zone” is the range where our system runs without much trouble, where we can build and maintain our infrastructure, and keep our current lifestyle. The orange “risk zone” is where first applications start to get into trouble and get squeezed out, typically leading to recessions and significant shifts. The red “danger zone” is when it truly becomes problematic, as almost everything becomes unaffordable very quickly, particularly if all energy sources go up in price at the same time (like it happened in 2007 and 2008, in contrary to the 1973 energy crisis, where the price spike was limited to oil).

Important: The price ranges in Figure 3 don’t refer to private household use, but to the applications that produce whatever we need to live our lives, such as food (e.g. requiring natural gas for fertilizers), industrial goods (using coal and electricity from multiple sources), and transportation (mostly based on oil). The relatively significant differences shown in “acceptable” price levels are mostly related to the usability of individual sources, their energy quality and the ability to store and transport it. We will get to that in the next paragraph.

Other than by reducing our standards to a different, lower level, our current system cannot deal with energy prices in the order of 2, 3 or 5 times their long term averages when we built our societies. And energy efficiency brings, as many studies show, typically 20-30% total energy savings across the entire life cycle of a product. And for many industrial applications, this potential is already partly exhausted, particularly in areas with very high consumption. For example, nitrogen-based fertilizer production (from natural gas or hydrogen) using the Haber-Bosch process has a theoretical minimum energy input of 32 GJ to produce one ton of nitrogen, and most operations run at around 40 GJ per ton. Similar efficiencies are also common for steel, copper and aluminum production in Western societies.

Many people discuss energy economics referring to energy content and cost of primary inputs. In that view, a barrel of oil that costs $75 and has an energy content of 6.1 GJ, which translates to energy cost of $12.30 per GJ (or 4.4 cents per kWh in energy content).Coal , if we use a market price of $2.50 per MBTU, costs approximately $2.36 per GJ (or less than 0.9 cents per kWh). Natural gas that sells at a spot market price of $4 per tcbf (which on average contains about 1MMBTU), comes at a price per GJ of $3.79 (or 1.4 cents per kWh). Please note that the kWh is used for the raw energy, before being converted to anything else.

Unfortunately, this is only half of the truth, because what counts for us humans is not the pure energy content, but instead, the portion of the energy that can be converted to its intended use. A simple example* might illustrate that. Let’s consider our options for cooking food. Using charcoal or coal is a low-tech, but feasible solution. Coal and charcoal is easily transported and stored, but in an open fire only a small portion of the heat reaches the meat. The rest escapes as heat. Thus, maybe 2% or 5% of the BTUs we have paid for support the purpose of cooking our food. It is possible to improve that conversion efficiency by building a coal stove, but even the most efficient one will convert perhaps 10 or 15% of the heat from the burning coal; the rest simply heats up the stove and its surroundings, which is welcome in winter, but maybe not so much in summer. On top of that, the stove itself contains energy used during the extraction of raw materials, its manufacturing and its maintenance. If we assume an overall efficiency of 10% for this application, a kWh of “useful energy” now costs 8 cents.

If we instead choose to use a gas stove, heat can be much better regulated and directed to the surface of our pan or pot, which significantly increases the overall efficiency to maybe around 25%. Higher overall efficiency rates are unlikely due to the fact that we need quite some infrastructure to get the gas to its place of application, either in the form of pipes or an appropriate container. But still, the cost per applied kWh is 8 cents, so the finally usable energy unit has the same price as from coal. An oil stove might even give us a 30% overall conversion efficiency, as the heat can also be applied directly, but because oil is so much easier to store and transport than gas. However, given its high initial price, one applied kWh would cost us 14.7 cents (nearly twice that of natural gas).

*Please note that this is a theoretical example not aimed at being precise, but at illustrating the concept of delivering useful energy.

So in this context, it greatly matters what kind of energy we produce and when. If our output is 1 energy unit (measured in Joules, kWh, BTUs, etc.) worth of highly versatile crude oil, it has a very different value than 1 BTU in a pile of coal which can only be used for certain things in order to become valuable. And even within one system, things are not the same. 1 kWh of electricity from natural gas at a price of 8 cents that can be produced at our leisure is something very different from the same amount, equally produced for 8 cents, by a wind turbine, which gets delivered to us erratically, just when the wind blows. We will get back to this problem in part 2 and 3.

What we've tried to describe above are a few general concepts that tend to get overlooked while analyzing individual technologies. Typically the standard approach used to evaluate and compare energy technologies is EROI, life cycle analysis, or energy payback periods. However, usability and cost – important post-farm gate or post-mine mouth factors – play a decisive role.

Second, equally important, an industrial society is simply not able to provide the same benefits as today once energy inputs into key supplies pass a certain price threshold. Modern societies have been able to steer clear of that reality over the past decades by outsourcing to places where energy is still cheaper, but that potential is now nearly exhausted.

Third of the big mistakes we make when looking at energy cost is that we always talk about small numbers, like "a few cents" without realizing the implications of scale. If the key contributors to our societies suddenly cost 5-10 cents instead of 1-2 cents per kWh, which is (in the best case) where we are headed, this means that our benefits from applying energy to our lives get reduced to one-fifth of what we are used to. That will be a very different lifestyle and one that warrants considerable study.

Our next follow-up post will deal with the potential of biomass as a source for future energy systems.

Work on the relief well is going quite well, as I have been noting. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that BP is hoping to stop the oil spill through a relief well by July 27, ahead of its public target of mid-August.

Trying to work out exactly where the relief well has reached, relative to set target depths is slightly complicated by the difference between measured depth of the well, and true vertical depth. To use just a portion of the final slide that Kent Wells used in his last technical briefing

If one uses this as a reference to the remarks made by Admiral Allen Wednesday, he notes that the well is within 200 ft of the initial intersection point, which is about 50 ft below the end of the lined section of the original well, which had been cased with a 9 7/8 inch liner. Below that level the well contains the production casing that was inserted into the well, but which was only cemented into place at the lower end. (The Admiral calls this the drill pipe – which is not the right term to use and which can be a bit confusing if you don’t look at the construction of the well). So let me just try and recreate a rough sketch of the area we are talking about.

According to the Congressional testimony the bottom of the lined section of the original well ends at 17,168 ft, which is perhaps 100 ft below the level shown by Mr Wells. This is where the original well was lined with a steel casing, with concrete around and below it, as the original well was drilled. The gap between the steel of the casing and the rock is known as the annulus, and it is this that I show filled with cement in two places.

So if you look at the above sketch of a section through the hole at the end of the 9 7/8th inch segment, the lighter steel casing liner was installed first, then the cement was pushed down to the then bottom of the hole. The cement flowed out and back up the hole giving the sort of “L” shape that the top cement segment has in this section. The hole was thus lined with a cement and steel jacket, before the drill bit on the end of the drill pipe came down and drilled through the cement at the bottom of that section, and on down to the producing formation.

At this point BP could have continued a liner section for the bottom of the well, as they had just done for the segment of the well above, or they could install what is known as production casing. This latter is a long tube that will run from the bottom of the well up to the BOP. They chose to do the latter. Thus the production casing was lowered into place, and the casing section that I show runs the full length of the underground segment of the borehole.

However in installing that continuous tube, instead of filling the gap between the rock and the tube (the annulus) with cement all the way up to the cement above it, they only partially filled the gap, over the lower segment of the well. This left a gap of somewhat indeterminate length where there is no cement between the production casing (the Admiral’s drill pipe) and the rock wall.

With that situation in mind, let me return to the Admiral’s press conference Wednesday. In it, he said that the relief well is still around 15 ft from the original well and with about 200 ft to go to the point of intersection. At this point the well is being drilled in 10 – 15 ft lengths and then surveyed, so that the RW can hit the original well where intended.

The intention is

they'll go through a series of spaces, starting with what they call the annulus, and that's the area in the wellbore outside the casing, and then the casing is outside the well pipe.

They will check at each point on whether or not there is any hydrocarbons there and any pressure. And if there is none, they will attempt to actually apply mud to kill that portion of it. If they can go into the annulus and fill that with mud, and if that stops the problem, then they know the flow to the surface was to the annulus only. If that doesn't stop it and there's indications that there's product going up through the pipe, they will ultimately have to drill through the pipe and apply mud twice.

In other words, they will come into the well around the zone that I have shown with no cement in the annulus. If the well is flowing oil and gas into the space outside of the production casing, then it will be flowing up the outside until it reaches the bottom of the lined section of the well. The flow then moves into the gap between the production casing and the steel casing liner and works its way up to the BOP through that channel.

If that is the case, then the bottom of the production casing may be still sealed, and by just filling the channel from the point of intersection up to the BOP with mud, then the well might be killed.

On the other hand, if the bottom seal at the lower end of the production casing has failed (which might be why the initial negative pressure test showed flow) then oil and gas are flowing up the inside of the production casing, and filling the space outside the production casing with mud won’t stop the flow.

Thus the drill will then restart and drill through the production casing, to fill it, in turn with mud. Both operations will take time. As the Admiral noted

. . .if they have to pump mud up through the annulus and then go into the pipe and pump mud there, too, that's a period of seven, 10 days to accomplish both of those things. And if they have to be done in sequence because of the condition of the wellbore when they go in, it will probably take into August, . . .

And in the meantime, the seas are still not allowing the final connections to be made to the kill circuit on the BOP, to increase oil and gas collected, which in the last report was:

For the first 12 hours on July 7 (midnight to noon), approximately 8,330 barrels of oil were collected and approximately 3,925 barrels of oil and 28.8 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared.

• On July 6, total oil recovered was approx. 24,760 barrels:
• approx. 16,535 barrels of oil were collected,
• approx. 8,225 barrels of oil were flared,
• and approx. 57.5 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared.

Incidentally, it appears that the debate on changing the cap is still going on.

We are still reviewing the technical specifications that were provided to us by BP on not only that cap, but several other options. The procedures on how it would be done, the amount of time at which the well would be open for discharge of some amount of oil, and the weather window that it would take to do that, and that is all under review right now inside the administration, and I wouldn't want to attach a percentage right now.

Chuck Watson has an update on the weather situation, and in particular Tropical Depression 2. He reports:

The National Hurricane Center started formally tracking Tropical Depression #2 last night. This morning it it doesn't look like much, although it might technically reach tropical storm strength before landfall. It is on track to follow in Alex's footsteps, making landfall in northern Mexico or far south Texas.

More importantly for the Gulf, this system is a continuation of the disturbed weather that is keeping wave heights above 3 feet over the entire cleanup and response area. While waves don't interfere with relief well drilling until they are much higher (once in place, most platforms can function in waves over 20 feet, and some platforms can operate in up to 30 ft waves), the smaller waves severely restrict skimming operations and put a lot of stress on protective booms, breaking them, over toping them, and setting up longshore currents that move the oil in to previously untouched areas. In addition, the hookup of the Helix Producer to the existing capture equipment continues to be delayed due to weather.

It looks to be at least this weekend before things calm down.

I like this Googlemaps mash up with the Fortune 500 list; Its from their annual ranking of the world’s largest corporations:

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Its from the article

China stacks away more oil Sinopec Group has started building another crude reserve base of about 20 million barrels in eastern China and expects to complete it by the end of 2011, according to reports.

Groundbreaking for 3.2 million cubic metres of crude tanks has just begun at Rizhao, a port city in Shandong province, a company official said to Reuters.

The parent of Sinopec Corporation also plans to add a crude reserve base of a similar size in Beihai, in the southwestern Guangxi region, by September 2011.

Shell to end jet fuel supplies to Iran Air - source (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell will not renew its contracts to supply Iran Air with jet fuel in response to pressure from the U.S. to cease business with the Islamic republic, an industry source said on Thursday.

Obama Spill Investigator Sees Role for Oil Self-Policing Agency (Bloomberg) -- William Reilly, co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s commission investigating the BP Plc oil spill, said the oil industry could benefit from a self-policing agency similar to one that monitors the safety of nuclear power plants.

“I’m very interested in using that approach, as an addition, not as a substitute for regulation, but as a way to raise the bar,” Reilly, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in an interview today.

Hard Times Wash Up Before BP Oil in Gulf Coast Towns, Bayous May and June mark the peak of shrimp season here, says Griffith, but Lesso’s business is off about 65 percent. Federal and state authorities have shut fishing grounds, and hundreds of boats that would normally be hauling in shrimp have been hired by BP for its cleanup efforts. Lesso’s 35 employees have taken pay cuts as processing plunged from 72,000 pounds a day to 25,000.

Battlefield General: Is Bobby Jindal Making Sense? Bobby Jindal, a Rhodes scholar with a skeletal frame, doesn't look like a battlefield commander. But since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Louisiana's Republican governor has cast the fight to protect the state's coastline as a struggle for survival. "The war against the spill continues," Jindal wrote in a typical Twitter post June 21. "We will not wait on bureaucracy or wishful thinking, we will move forward."

Exxon sees greater scrutiny after spill (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp, the largest U.S. oil company, expects heightened government scrutiny for the industry following BP Plc's well rupture, but no measurable risk is seen longer-term for the company's natural gas exploration plans, CEO Rex Tillerson said on Thursday.

BP stake may help oil sovereign funds diversify A stake in BP PLC may seem like a curious purchase for sovereign wealth funds looking to diversify oil wealth, but it holds a definite allure: gas and renewable energy expertise and exposure to emerging economies.

BP push for Mideast investors may pose problems in U.S. Striking a deal with Abu Dhabi, which is part of the United Arab Emirates, could raise national security concerns.

Four years ago, Congress threatened to block Dubai, another emirate, from operating eight U.S. ports as part of the emirate's takeover of a British company. Dubai relented and agreed to transfer its stake in the facilities to a U.S. entity. And five years ago, Congress foiled China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s bid to buy oil company Unocal Corp. In both cases, lawmakers cited security concerns.

Phil Flynn, vice president and energy analyst with PFGBest Research, said increased Middle Eastern investment would only add to BP's image problems in the United States.

Owner of exploded rig exploits offshore status Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling company, but until its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, few Americans outside the energy business had heard of it. It is well known, however, in a number of other countries — for testing local laws and regulations.

Iran buys July gasoline from Turkey, Chinese sellers (Reuters) - Iran is buying around half of its gasoline imports in July from Turkey and the rest from Chinese sellers, oil traders said on Thursday.

Many gasoline sellers have stopped trading with Iran due to U.S. sanctions on those that supply the Islamic Republic, making it more expensive for Iran to meet its import needs.

Issuing of new U.S. drill ban over BP depends on case (Reuters) - The Obama administration said on Thursday it will immediately issue a revised ban on deepwater drilling if an appeals court does not allow it to reinstate the six-month moratorium it imposed in the wake of the BP oil spill.

However, it will not impose a new drilling ban if the federal court in New Orleans supports its initial moratorium, an Interior Department official told Reuters.

Giant skimmer gets another shot at Gulf oil spill NEW ORLEANS -- The giant Taiwanese oil skimmer known as 'A Whale' is getting another chance to prove its value in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP May Have Third Vessel Receiving Oil From Leaking Well in 2 to 3 Days BP Plc may start collecting oil aboard a third vessel near its leaking Gulf of Mexico well in two or three days, National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen said.

The Helix Producer I, which has the capacity to double the oil collected at the site, may be connected to the Macondo well in the next 48 hours if weather is good, Allen said today at a press conference in Theodore, Alabama.

Obama administration seeks BP plans on oil cap (Reuters) - The Obama administration has asked BP Plc for a detailed timeline and contingency plans for the latest effort to contain the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Egypt, Saudi Aramco to hold oil spill drill in Nov DUBAI (Reuters) - Egypt and Saudi state oil giant Aramco plan to launch an oil spill containment exercise in an Alexandria port in November, an Egyptian official said on Thursday.

The Choice: Drill, Baby, Drill or American Values. You can't Have Both Claiming that domestic drilling is a viable solution to America's energy crisis is dishonest and irresponsible. It is a policy that sows the wind and we are already reaping the whirlwind with human lives, with jobs lost and local economies destroyed, and with the shores of the Gulf. Drilling has a roll in our energy supply but is FAR from providing the answer to America's energy addiction.

Ex-offshore drilling regulator defends her tenure CASPER, Wyo. — The former director of the federal agency that regulates offshore drilling is defending her tenure in the wake of a disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, saying no safety rules were relaxed while she was in charge.

BP says no Gulf output shut by storm; restaffing (Reuters) - BP Plc said on Thursday that none of its crude oil production at the Atlantis, Holstein, Mad Dog and Thunder Horse platforms in the Gulf of Mexico was shut by a tropical disturbance, but nonessentials have been evacuated from those sites.

Iran says high oil price will offset sanctions High crude oil prices and better agricultural output will help accelerate Iran's economic growth this year, its Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini said today, partly offsetting the impact of sanctions.

Ghana sees 2010 flows Ghana will definitely pump its first barrel of oil in 2010 but it will take four to six months to reach its planned output of 120,000 barrels per day, Energy Minister Joe Oteng-Adjei said today.

Musings: Natural Gas Price Rebound Heat Driven; Supply Still Grows After peaking at $6.01 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) on January 6th, natural gas futures prices steadily fell until they bottomed at $3.84 on March 29. From that point gas prices rebounded to above $4/Mcf and traded in the low $4 range for the next month. Gas prices began to move higher in response to hotter than normal temperatures finally reaching a near-term peak at $5.19/Mcf in mid June. Since then, gas prices have fluctuated wildly but generally have remained in the upper $4/Mcf range as continued supply growth battled hotter weather and hurricane supply-disruption concerns. The weak U.S. economic figures recently reported have begun to weigh more heavily on gas prices.

PDVSA tracks down stolen goods Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA said it has recovered stolen oilfield equipment taken by thieves who caused a loss of production of some 60,000 barrels per day and oil spills in western Lake Maracaibo.

LNG terminal at Gwadar Port likely alternative Karachi — The much needed Iran Gas Pipeline project seems to be in hot waters international pressures and the UN sanctions against Iran it is learnt.

If the project fails to materialize the government is considering to set up an LNG Terminal at Gwadar port as an alternative to Iran gas pipeline project which is being considered as the savior in the persisting energy crisis in the country.

Energy still king in KSA There is talk of Saudi Aramco deploying over 100 exploration drilling rigs by the end of the first quarter next year, and major project awards have been forthcoming from Abu Dhabi. Companies which have ridden out a period in which collections, or rather payment for work done, has been a major problem should take some respite from the fact that, on the whole, energy has now normalised, and those payment strains should begin easing from the top down.

Has the Green Investment Bank selected the right target? The Green Investment Bank should boost struggling independents not hand public money to multinational utilities.

Wider Metro Manila water rationing looms Energy Secretary Jose Almendras has advised consumers that electricity prices may go up as suppliers are forced to use the more expensive bunker fuel and oil to operate power plants.

But he said: "Hopefully, when the rains are in full swing, and the dams are full, we should see improvement in generating costs."

John Michael Greer: Seeking the Gaianomicon The archetype I proposed as a model for an appropriate-technology revival in the age of peak oil – the archetype of the green wizard – comes with certain standard features in folklore and fantasy. One of them happens to be a full-blown archetype in its own right: the book of ancient and forgotten lore. Those of my readers who plan on becoming green wizards will need to provide themselves with the grimoires, literally “grammars,” of that art, and in this post I propose to explain how to do just that. Yes, it involves a quest; the details will follow in a bit.

Hurdles for a Natural Gas Transition Her calculation runs like this: coal-fired capacity comes to 335,000 megawatts today, and it produces an average of 72 percent of the electricity that would result from around-the-clock full-power operation. Doing that with modern, efficient natural gas plants would consume 39 billion cubic feet of gas a day, or 14.1 trillion cubic feet a year.

That is a rather large number given that today, national consumption of natural gas for all purposes is only a little over 20 trillion cubic feet a year.

Tropical Storm Warning Issued for South Texas, Mexico as Gulf System Forms Residents of south Texas and northeastern Mexico were warned to expect a tropical storm today after a weather depression formed in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Lawmakers Oppose Canadian Pipeline Facing a decision on a proposed pipeline to bring Canadian crude oil to the United States, the Obama administration is confronting growing resistance from politicians who oppose the project or, at the very least, urge further study before approval.

The massive pipeline, known as Keystone XL, would allow Canada to export an additional 1.1 million barrels a day of oil to the United States. The United States currently imports 1.9 million barrels a day from Canada. Canadian oil sands are expected to become America’s primary source of imported oil this year.

BP Investigates Resignation of 18 Traders, Singapore's Business Times Says BP Plc is probing the resignation of 18 traders mainly from its Singapore operations, the Business Times reported, citing an unidentified person.

The person declined to specify what BP was investigating, the Singapore-based newspaper reported. The report said the traders had made up almost its entire fuel oil trading team in Singapore.

BP may pay for wasted oil NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Adding to BP's problems in the Gulf, the company may have to pay the U.S. government royalties on all the uncollected oil currently spewing into the water.

Saudi Investors Have Limited Chance to Buy Stake in BP, Banque Saudi Says Saudi investors have a limited chance to buy a stake at troubled BP Plc, said John Sfakianakis, Chief Economist at Banque Saudi Fransi.

Saudi newspaper Al-Eqtisadiya said on July 7 that a group of Saudi investors were eying a 10 percent to 15 percent stake in the company without mentioning where it got the information. Sfakianakis said such an acquisition was unlikely.

Oil spill response doesn’t address issue The paradox is that, even though Obama cannot stop the oil from gushing, his search for someone’s ass to kick might be an effective solution because it de-politicizes the looming crisis of peak oil. The present oil crisis is not simply signaling an ecological crisis, inadequate administrative oversight, the multiple risks associated with oil extraction, and the greed of BP shareholders. The present oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico signals a terminal crisis in global capitalism. In the popular media, very little has been done to connect this oil crisis to the crisis of peak oil.

Faith in Government Gone, Citizens Appalled by the Oil Spill Turn to Each Other Nothing says more about citizens' loss of faith in government than a website in Santa Rosa, CA called "StoptheGusher", where ordinary citizens have gathered to share ideas, offer suggestions, and rack their brains about what to do about the Gulf Oil Spill.

Almost three months into this crisis, both BP and the White House appear paralyzed. But on StoptheGusher, people spend hours composing long, intricate plans and copying their Congresspeople, proposing concrete underwater containment barriers, and suggesting organic products such as Kenaf, an oil-soaking plant grown in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas that is ground down, refined and marketed as SupremeSorb.

Rick Rule on Oil & Gas vs. Green Energy Peak oil is more an economic and political phenomenon than it is a geological phenomenon. I think we’re past $40 peak oil but I don’t think we’re past $200 peak oil. There are technologies, as an example, miscible CO2 flooding to recover oil from allegedly depleted oil fields. There are new basins, albeit remote, frontier basins. There are new technologies that allow dry gas or LNG to be substituted for liquid oil. It’s an economic function because these technologies and substitutions require higher energy prices. At $200 oil, we’ve got lots of oil.

Peak oil means expensive food The impacts of even a small drop in production can be devastating. For instance, during the 1970s oil shocks, shortfalls in production as small as 5 per cent caused oil prices to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago with natural gas. A production drop of less than 5 per cent caused prices to skyrocket by 400 per cent. What, then, can we expect when the annual decline rate, beginning soon, falls into the presently predicted range of 4 to 10 per cent?

Every sector of the economy will be affected, but the initial lack will be felt in terms of food. In this regard, Cuba's experience has relevance for us.

Moving home and hearth While years ago, a modest three-bedroom asbestos home with an outside laundry and gas boiler with the weekly collected dunny was Nirvana, now nothing short of two-and-half-bathrooms, stone kitchen benchtops, eight-kilowatt reverse cycle air-conditioners and if possible, a triple remote-operated garage are regarded the minimum.

Another main difference is that young people now are totally gobsmacked about any notion of saving. Saving, what is that? The hysteric Harvey Norman jingle goes; "I want it noooow". It perfectly sums up our terminal materialism with so many expecting everything immediately, at the same time easily accepting being eternally on the hock as well. Our love of credit has never been higher. 'Peak house mortgage' has overtaken 'peak oil', and this will inevitably also run its course with a sea of mortgage defaults polluting our economic landscape with dire consequences for many.

Heads in the sand How can a city that can't get bike lanes right deal with peak oil?

Patrick Takahashi: Hawaii: The Proposed Symbol of Energy Independence Hawaii is that proverbial canary in the coal mine regarding Peak Oil and the economy. Our only hope is a global partnership to as quickly as possible help us attain a high level of energy independence. But why should Hawaii be singled out for this privilege?

The reasons are many, but the most compelling is that we are the ideal sustainability test tube: progressive leaders, abundance of renewable options, high cost of energy (an electricity bill 250% higher than the national average, so commercialization can more quickly be attained), relatively small size (less than one half of one percent the population of the Nation, so the investment will be affordable), singular political clout (the most powerful congressional member in Senator Daniel Inouye, and leader of the Free World, President Barack Obama, who was born in this state) and, soon, sheer desperation, and, therefore, motivation. Provided is a golden opportunity for the World to work together with us to create a symbol for sustainability.

Soybean Yields Will Drop on Climate, Ozone, University of Illinois Says Climate change and pollution may cut yields for soybeans and other crops by 2050 unless plants are adapted, the University of Illinois said, citing research.

Tests showed crops grown in open fields benefitted less than expected from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the air, the university said in a report published yesterday. The yield increase was only half of that assumed by the United Nations’ climate-change panel to predict world food supply in 2050, according to the report.

Russian Oil Erodes Middle East's Hold on Exports to Asia Russia is sending record amounts of oil to Asia, eroding the dominance of the Middle East, as refiners in South Korea and Japan increase purchases from a source that’s three weeks closer by ship.

South Korean imports of Russian crude climbed to an all- time high of 179,000 barrels a day in May, equal to 7.3 percent of the country’s supplies, according to government data. Japan took an unprecedented 241,000 barrels a day, up 61 percent from a year ago, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry data showed.

The first completed segment of the $26 billion East Siberian-Pacific Ocean pipeline is boosting competition between Russia and the Middle East, the world’s two biggest oil suppliers. North Asian processers can access the Russian oil, known as ESPO, for about $1 a barrel less than Dubai crude, according to shipping rates and data compiled by Bloomberg.

Crude Rises to One-Week High as Supplies Drop, IMF Boosts Growth Forecast Crude oil climbed to the highest price in a week as the IMF bolstered its economic outlook and a decline in U.S. crude inventories added to signs of recovery.

U.S. crude stockpiles fell 2 percent to 351.8 million barrels last week, the biggest reduction since September, the American Petroleum Institute reported. The Energy Department will release its own weekly data today. The International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for global growth this year, reflecting a stronger-than-expected first half.

Gas drillers seek input on Pennsylvania natgas tax PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Pennsylvania's shale gas industry says any state tax on natural gas collected at the wellhead should be accompanied by new rules and regulations, but critics say that's just a tactic to secure fewer restrictions on their operations.

Ghanaians to Stage a Protest Asking Lawmakers to Raise Petroleum Royalties Ghanaians will today stage a peaceful demonstration asking lawmakers to increase oil-industry royalties by almost double the maximum level.

The protestors want Ghana to increase royalties to 20 percent from between 4 percent and 12.5 percent now, George Kotey, who is leading the demonstration in the capital, Accra, said by phone today.

China to Extend Resources Tax to Entire Nation to Fund Government Spending China plans to extend a tax on oil, gas and coal output to the entire nation, stepping up efforts to raise funds for development of poorer inland provinces in a move that will reduce earnings for resource producers.

Chevron, Rosneft Black Sea Drilling Plans Depend on Request for Tax Breaks Chevron Corp. and OAO Rosneft’s plan to drill for oil in the Russian Black Sea hinge on a request for government tax breaks, according to a copy of their initial drilling agreement obtained by Bloomberg News.

The final agreement is conditional on the group gaining assurances of “fiscal relief” from the Russian government “to ensure the economic viability of the project,” according to the document. The two sides aim to finish negotiations by the end of March and start drilling at the end of next year. Chevron will have a 33.3 percent stake in the venture.

BP dampens hope of early leak fix WASHINGTON (Reuters) – BP dampened hopes that it could plug its leaking Gulf of Mexico well sooner than forecast on Thursday, while a battle between the U.S. government and the oil industry over a deepwater drilling ban heads to court.

BP stuck to its August target to complete a relief well to halt the worst oil spill in U.S. history, after a press report raised hopes the company could stem the 80-day-old leak sooner.

US government launches new website on Gulf oil spill WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US government Wednesday launched a new website to give information on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, moving away from the portal jointly run with oil giant BP.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top government official handling the spill, said the site www.RestoreTheGulf.gov was "designed to serve as a one-stop repository for news, data and operational updates related to administration-wide efforts to stop the BP oil leak."

Obama administration set for drill ban legal fight WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration heads to court on Thursday with a single goal -- to reinstate a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling imposed in response to the BP Plc oil spill but blocked by a federal judge.

The high-stakes showdown starts at 3 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, where government lawyers will square off for one hour against drilling companies before a three-judge panel.

Economic peril seen from offshore drilling ban HOUSTON (Reuters) – A Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling ban has already cost offshore jobs in a nascent U.S. economic recovery and a lengthy moratorium will put the industry at peril, sector executives said on Wednesday.

Moratorium to cut U.S. oil output 82,000 bpd: EIA WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. offshore oil drilling ban will reduce crude output by an average of 82,000 barrels per day next year, more than previously estimated, the government's top energy forecaster said on Wednesday.

The Energy Information Administration had said last month that the moratorium, which the government put on exploration rigs in response to the BP Plc oil spill, would reduce next year's U.S. crude output by an average of 70,000 bpd.

Base drilling halt on results, not an arbitrary timeline Which is worse: Risking another catastrophic oil spill like BP's April 20 blowout? Or inflicting even more financial damage on the already battered regional economy?

There's no easy answer, despite what the industry and environmentalists say.

Let drilling resume The moratorium neither improves safety nor mitigates risk.

Energy Department Lags in Saving Energy WASHINGTON — Like flossing or losing weight, saving energy is easier to promise than to actually do — even if you are the Department of Energy.

Its Web site advises that choosing new lighting technologies can slash energy use by 50 to 75 percent. But the department is having trouble taking its own advice, according to an internal audit released on Wednesday; many of its offices are still installing obsolete fluorescent bulbs.

Aircraft completes first solar-powered night flight PAYERNE, Switzerland (Reuters) – A giant glider-like aircraft has completed the first night flight propelled only by solar energy, organizers said on Thursday.

Solar Impulse, whose wingspan is the same as an Airbus A340, flew 26 hours and 9 minutes, powered only by solar energy stored during the day. It was also the longest and highest flight in the history of solar aviation, organizers said.

How China Has Pruned Its Families' Trees With a current population of 1.3 billion people, China now boasts fertility rates of around 1.6 births per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate at which a population is maintained. But the country is also saddled with one of the planet's worst gender imbalances, largely a result of women aborting female fetuses due to a traditional preference for male offspring. Other countries such as India and South Korea also have skewed sex ratios, but the pressure to bear a son is all the greater in China precisely because many families are limited to just one child. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that by 2020 there will be at least 24 million "bare branches" — men destined to stay single because there are not enough wives to go around. As more of those boys become bachelors, China risks all sorts of social plagues — from criminal gangs to greater trafficking in women.

The other danger is that China will grow gray before it is rich enough to cope. Reducing population growth has meant that per capita GDP rates have zoomed upward. But factories are now facing shortages of young, skilled labor. By 2050, one-third of Chinese will be elderly. Despite its communist heritage, the People's Republic has little in the way of a national social-security system. Will a generation of "little emperors" be willing or able to support their parents and grandparents?

Masdar to drive change with carbon data Masdar City is set to reveal the carbon footprint of hundreds of materials that will be used to build the US$22 billion (Dh80.8bn) carbon-neutral development at the edge of the capital.

The data, from Masdar’s efforts to procure low-carbon cement, aluminium, steel and other materials for its groundbreaking city, covers 400 products plucked from the many advertised as environmentally friendly, said Richard Reynolds, the department supply chain manager at Masdar City. It will be disclosed by the end of this year.

A Flush of Funding for Carbon Capture In the endeavor to reduce greenhouse emissions, carbon capture and storage technology continues to generate a lot of interest.

Climate scientists praise report on hacked email scandal SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Leading climate scientists on Thursday welcomed a British report that cleared researchers of exaggerating the effects of global warming and said they hoped it would restore faith in the fight against climate change.

Initial Claims totaled 454k, an 8 week low and 6k below expectations, offsetting a revision upwards by 3k to last week’s level of 475k. Typical July auto plant shutdowns, which influence the summer claims data, will not happen to the same extent as a month ago GM said they were not shutting plants down this summer. The Labor Dept though did say they didn’t see any influence yet in the states that GM does business in but historic seasonal adjustments may be skewed over the next few weeks. Continuing Claims fell a sharp 224k to the lowest since Nov ‘08 and Extended Benefits fell a net 343k. The decline in these longer term claims data would be great if it was due to people finding new jobs but the lack of extension to employment benefits is resulting in people falling off the rolls involuntarily. Net-net, while clouded by the seasonals related to auto shutdowns or not, the 8 week low in the initial claims # is why the futures are rallying.

Why did WWII aircraft have such a heavy influence on traditional hot rod styling? Probably for numerous reasons, starting with the fact that plenty of servicemen returned home from the war and turned to building hot rods. Aluminum components, airplane gauges, belly tankers, bomber seats, Kinmont disc brakes and pin up girl murals are but a few cues we see ramp up heavily in the early post-war (1946 – 1950) era of Hot Rod. It’s often said that truly great, classic design never comes dated or obsolete, but actually keeps on influencing new generations of ideas. It may lie dormant for years, but some young designer discovers it, and that inspires new designs with a nod back to the old. That inspiration probably why most of us are drawn to the HAMB in the first place, right? I’ve included a few vintage aircraft-inspired objects below, and feel free to add some of your own.

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The WSJ’s Heard on the Street column notes that “individual investors are getting scared. That could be a good thing.”

Only 25% of AAII’s members are bullish on stocks, versus nearly 42% who are bears. That is an unusual ratio. The obvious argument is the growing bearishness is bullish. Before you draw that conclusion, the history of this sentiment indicator is rather imprecise when it comes to timing:

“But investors can take their time phoning brokers, counters James Bianco of Bianco Research. Only some 25% of AAII members were bullish on November 27, 2008, he notes. But stocks still fell 23% over the next four months, before finally enjoying a sharp rally.”

I’ll do Jim one better: We had an even greater spread of 24% bulls, 58% bears. The problem with that reading was that it occurred in July 20th, 2006 — 15 months prior to the market’s October 2008 top.

I always prefer actual buy and sell driven data — prices, volume, asset allocation, etc. — versus mere surveys. They can be useful, but have huge limitations. Us humans are notorious for saying what we hope, rather than what actually is. . . .

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Source:
Overheard: It’s Bearable
WSJ, July 7, 2010, 6:09 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703636404575353194180224482.html

AAII Sentiment: 58% Bearish
Babak, Trader’s Narrative July 20th, 2006
http://www.tradersnarrative.com/aaii-sentiment-58-bearish-522.html

Well, not quite.

But the European Space Agency released a spectacular picture of the microwave sky Monday, an artful mosaic of interstellar dust and the relic light from the birth of the universe.

Planck sees sky in new light:

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click for ginormous image

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Planck, a roughly $800 million mission to detect the leftover radiation from the Big Bang, when a condensed ball of hot gas exploded to form the universe 13.73 billion years ago. Planck collected data for the all-sky map from August 2009 to June 2010.