by jboullion | Aug 24, 2012 | Uncategorized
A thank you letter from RENEW Executive Director Don Wichert:
Thanks for stopping by the RENEW Wisconsin booth or talking with me at the Polk County Energy Fair.
RENEW is the organized voice for clean renewable energy in Wisconsin, and as a membership organization, we critically need your support to effectively advocate for businesses, organizations, and individuals who seek more, clean renewable energy in Wisconsin.
We have an aggressive agenda for the remainder of 2012, and by working together we can organize to implement positive change in Wisconsin’s renewable energy landscape.
Despite the many challenges we face, RENEW continues to advance the following positive policy agenda to expand renewable energy for everyone in Wisconsin:
- Build a coalition in support of our Clean Energy Choice initiative, which would allow customers to purchase renewable energy from systems located on their premises and owned by third parties;
- Represent renewable energy stakeholders at the PSC and with the Focus on Energy administrators to offer proactive options for the renewable energy program;
- Improve the state’s outdated interconnection requirements. We are proud of our work to organize Wisconsin’s renewable energy stakeholders into a community that speaks with one voice. But we need your active participation to advocate on your behalf.
Please become a RENEW member by making a tax-deductible donation to RENEW: Join RENEW. Help us push the renewable energy envelop in Wisconsin to a new level for the remainder of 2012.
Feel free to contact me with suggestions or if there are ways that RENEW can assist you.
Sincerely,
Don Wichert
Executive Director
RENEW Wisconsin
by jboullion | Aug 16, 2012 | Uncategorized
RENEW Wisconsin invites our members and other renewable energy supporters to our membership meeting at the Polk County Energy Fair, 1:00 p.m., August 18, in St. Croix Falls. If you are not yet a member, please Join Today!
For the meeting’s highlight, I’ll release an evaluation of major Wisconsin utilities’ commitment to renewable energy — Xcel actually does reasonably well — and invite area media to cover the evaluation announcement, meeting, and fair.I’ll also report on the progress RENEW has made in advancing three statewide priorities that should be beneficial in northwest Wisconsin as well:
- Build a coalition in support of our Clean Energy Contract initiative, which would allow customers to purchase renewable energy from systems located on their premises and owned by third parties;
- Represent renewable energy stakeholders at the PSC and with the Focus on Energy administrators to offer proactive options for the renewable energy program;
- Improve utilities’ outdated interconnection requirements.
RENEW thanks the sponsors of the meeting:
Chippewa Valley Alternative Energy, a small, family-owned business in west-central Wisconsin, has been involved in the alternative energy field in for over 25 years, and has been heavily involved in many aspects of thermal, pyrolation and gasification energy technologies; and, Jeff Peterson, a RENEW member, are sponsoring RENEW’s membership/public meeting at the Polk County Energy Fair, August 18, at 1:00 pm in St. Croix Falls.
by jboullion | Aug 15, 2012 | Uncategorized
August 10, 2012
A commentary by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin, Director, Policy and Programs:
After skidding below $2.00/MMBtu this winter, wholesale natural gas prices are now creeping toward the $3.00 mark. This upward movement is the result of below-normal volumes of natural gas going into storage for the winter heating season. The latest report, released August 16th, marks the 16th straight week where injection volumes lagged significantly behind the five-year average.
Notwithstanding this mild rebound, everyone in the energy industry, including the traders themselves, knows that $3.00/MMBtu is well below the cost of producing natural gas, and cannot deliver a return that can support future drilling efforts. This is particularly true with shale gas, the so-called “game-changer” that industry flacks contended would topple King Coal’s reign over the electricity sector.
High-profile shale gas producers like Chesapeake Energy are now running out of ways of concealing their financial distress. Consider the following developments that occurred over the last fortnight.
- Chesapeake Energy announced plans to reduce domestic gas production in 2013 by 8%;
- BHP Billiton wrote down $2.84 billion on the value of Fayetteville shale gas assets it had acquired in 2011; and
- The most recent count of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States is 495, down 70% from the record-setting levels seen in September 2008.
“Write down” is a fairly bloodless way to describe the loss of $3 billion; “carnage” is better at conveying the pain that now grips the natural gas sector. This begs the question: why are wholesale natural gas prices still under the $3.00/MMBtu level?
I believe that there are two reasons for this phenomenon. The first is that energy traders, like virtually everyone else in this country, are truly convinced that the United States is awash in shale gas, thanks to a brilliant industry-led public relations campaign. Lower prices help reinforce the popular belief that cheap gas will be with us for another century. Unfortunately, federal energy agencies and universities have also bought into this view of the supply picture big-time, leaving little room for skeptics and agnostics to influence public perceptions.
This overarching belief has been unintentionally reinforced by local and regional controversies over the practice of hydraulic fracturing solid rock to obtain the shale gas trapped inside. Virtually unheard of four years ago, “fracking” has vaulted into the public consciousness, and in doing so, sustains the society-wide belief that natural gas can be accessed almost anywhere in the United States.
Ironically, the myth of abundance that E&P companies so carefully cultivated–and bankrolled–is now clearly working against their short-term interests.
The other factor that keeps prices so low is the traders’ fear of large demand swings. For example, the phantom winter of 2011-2012, which cut demand for heating fuel by more than 25%, creating a colossal oversupply that sent wholesale prices crashing. The supply pendulum is now swinging the other way, and more than half of the bulge has melted away. Assuming a continuation of smaller-than normal injections, natural gas inventories should be in line with the five-year average by mid-December.
Traders attribute the ongoing reduction in inventories to a hotter than normal summer, prompting utilities to switch on more gas generators to meet system peaks. But weather isn’t the only thing that influences the storage picture; output does as well. But as long as traders and speculators subscribe to the myth of nearly limitless supply, they will discount the possibility that declining output is also responsible for lagging storage volumes.
The paradigm shift ushered in by the fracking phenomenon won’t go away easily. But in the not-very-distant future, the reality of reduced drilling activity and capital spending, along with rapid decline rates in shale gas plays, will bite deeply into natural gas supplies and cause yet another overturning of expectations in this sector. For electric utilities as well as end-users, the results will not be pretty.
Michael Vickerman is program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization. For more information on the global and national petroleum and natural gas supply picture, visit “The End of Cheap Oil” section in RENEW Wisconsin’s web site: www.renewwisconsin.org. These commentaries also posted on RENEW’s blog: http://renewwisconsinblog.org and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com
by jboullion | Aug 15, 2012 | Uncategorized
August 10, 2012
A commentary by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin, Director, Policy and Programs:
After skidding below $2.00/MMBtu this winter, wholesale natural gas prices are now creeping toward the $3.00 mark. This upward movement is the result of below-normal volumes of natural gas going into storage for the winter heating season. The latest report, released August 16th, marks the 16th straight week where injection volumes lagged significantly behind the five-year average.
Notwithstanding this mild rebound, everyone in the energy industry, including the traders themselves, knows that $3.00/MMBtu is well below the cost of producing natural gas, and cannot deliver a return that can support future drilling efforts. This is particularly true with shale gas, the so-called “game-changer” that industry flacks contended would topple King Coal’s reign over the electricity sector.
High-profile shale gas producers like Chesapeake Energy are now running out of ways of concealing their financial distress. Consider the following developments that occurred over the last fortnight.
- Chesapeake Energy announced plans to reduce domestic gas production in 2013 by 8%;
- BHP Billiton wrote down $2.84 billion on the value of Fayetteville shale gas assets it had acquired in 2011; and
- The most recent count of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States is 495, down 70% from the record-setting levels seen in September 2008.
“Write down” is a fairly bloodless way to describe the loss of $3 billion; “carnage” is better at conveying the pain that now grips the natural gas sector. This begs the question: why are wholesale natural gas prices still under the $3.00/MMBtu level?
I believe that there are two reasons for this phenomenon. The first is that energy traders, like virtually everyone else in this country, are truly convinced that the United States is awash in shale gas, thanks to a brilliant industry-led public relations campaign. Lower prices help reinforce the popular belief that cheap gas will be with us for another century. Unfortunately, federal energy agencies and universities have also bought into this view of the supply picture big-time, leaving little room for skeptics and agnostics to influence public perceptions.
This overarching belief has been unintentionally reinforced by local and regional controversies over the practice of hydraulic fracturing solid rock to obtain the shale gas trapped inside. Virtually unheard of four years ago, “fracking” has vaulted into the public consciousness, and in doing so, sustains the society-wide belief that natural gas can be accessed almost anywhere in the United States.
Ironically, the myth of abundance that E&P companies so carefully cultivated–and bankrolled–is now clearly working against their short-term interests.
The other factor that keeps prices so low is the traders’ fear of large demand swings. For example, the phantom winter of 2011-2012, which cut demand for heating fuel by more than 25%, creating a colossal oversupply that sent wholesale prices crashing. The supply pendulum is now swinging the other way, and more than half of the bulge has melted away. Assuming a continuation of smaller-than normal injections, natural gas inventories should be in line with the five-year average by mid-December.
Traders attribute the ongoing reduction in inventories to a hotter than normal summer, prompting utilities to switch on more gas generators to meet system peaks. But weather isn’t the only thing that influences the storage picture; output does as well. But as long as traders and speculators subscribe to the myth of nearly limitless supply, they will discount the possibility that declining output is also responsible for lagging storage volumes.
The paradigm shift ushered in by the fracking phenomenon won’t go away easily. But in the not-very-distant future, the reality of reduced drilling activity and capital spending, along with rapid decline rates in shale gas plays, will bite deeply into natural gas supplies and cause yet another overturning of expectations in this sector. For electric utilities as well as end-users, the results will not be pretty.
Michael Vickerman is program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization. For more information on the global and national petroleum and natural gas supply picture, visit “The End of Cheap Oil” section in RENEW Wisconsin’s web site: www.renewwisconsin.org. These commentaries also posted on RENEW’s blog: http://renewwisconsinblog.org and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com
by jboullion | Aug 15, 2012 | Uncategorized
August 10, 2012
A commentary by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin, Director, Policy and Programs:
After skidding below $2.00/MMBtu this winter, wholesale natural gas prices are now creeping toward the $3.00 mark. This upward movement is the result of below-normal volumes of natural gas going into storage for the winter heating season. The latest report, released August 16th, marks the 16th straight week where injection volumes lagged significantly behind the five-year average.
Notwithstanding this mild rebound, everyone in the energy industry, including the traders themselves, knows that $3.00/MMBtu is well below the cost of producing natural gas, and cannot deliver a return that can support future drilling efforts. This is particularly true with shale gas, the so-called “game-changer” that industry flacks contended would topple King Coal’s reign over the electricity sector.
High-profile shale gas producers like Chesapeake Energy are now running out of ways of concealing their financial distress. Consider the following developments that occurred over the last fortnight.
- Chesapeake Energy announced plans to reduce domestic gas production in 2013 by 8%;
- BHP Billiton wrote down $2.84 billion on the value of Fayetteville shale gas assets it had acquired in 2011; and
- The most recent count of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States is 495, down 70% from the record-setting levels seen in September 2008.
“Write down” is a fairly bloodless way to describe the loss of $3 billion; “carnage” is better at conveying the pain that now grips the natural gas sector. This begs the question: why are wholesale natural gas prices still under the $3.00/MMBtu level?
I believe that there are two reasons for this phenomenon. The first is that energy traders, like virtually everyone else in this country, are truly convinced that the United States is awash in shale gas, thanks to a brilliant industry-led public relations campaign. Lower prices help reinforce the popular belief that cheap gas will be with us for another century. Unfortunately, federal energy agencies and universities have also bought into this view of the supply picture big-time, leaving little room for skeptics and agnostics to influence public perceptions.
This overarching belief has been unintentionally reinforced by local and regional controversies over the practice of hydraulic fracturing solid rock to obtain the shale gas trapped inside. Virtually unheard of four years ago, “fracking” has vaulted into the public consciousness, and in doing so, sustains the society-wide belief that natural gas can be accessed almost anywhere in the United States.
Ironically, the myth of abundance that E&P companies so carefully cultivated–and bankrolled–is now clearly working against their short-term interests.
The other factor that keeps prices so low is the traders’ fear of large demand swings. For example, the phantom winter of 2011-2012, which cut demand for heating fuel by more than 25%, creating a colossal oversupply that sent wholesale prices crashing. The supply pendulum is now swinging the other way, and more than half of the bulge has melted away. Assuming a continuation of smaller-than normal injections, natural gas inventories should be in line with the five-year average by mid-December.
Traders attribute the ongoing reduction in inventories to a hotter than normal summer, prompting utilities to switch on more gas generators to meet system peaks. But weather isn’t the only thing that influences the storage picture; output does as well. But as long as traders and speculators subscribe to the myth of nearly limitless supply, they will discount the possibility that declining output is also responsible for lagging storage volumes.
The paradigm shift ushered in by the fracking phenomenon won’t go away easily. But in the not-very-distant future, the reality of reduced drilling activity and capital spending, along with rapid decline rates in shale gas plays, will bite deeply into natural gas supplies and cause yet another overturning of expectations in this sector. For electric utilities as well as end-users, the results will not be pretty.
Michael Vickerman is program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization. For more information on the global and national petroleum and natural gas supply picture, visit “The End of Cheap Oil” section in RENEW Wisconsin’s web site: www.renewwisconsin.org. These commentaries also posted on RENEW’s blog: http://renewwisconsinblog.org and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com
by jboullion | Aug 15, 2012 | Uncategorized
August 10, 2012
A commentary by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
Wholesale natural gas prices are once again flirting with the $3.00/MMBtu mark after the Energy Information Agency (EIA) reported this week that working gas in storage increased by 24 billion cubic feet (bcf) over last week’s totals. Compared with the five-year average of 45 bcf for the first week in August, the volume injected is modest. The August 9th report marks the 15th week in a row where the weekly injection volumes trailed the five-year average by a minimum of 20 bcf.
On the trading front, the trend this summer has been a steady upward drift punctuated by sharp sell-offs whenever gas prices momentarily settle above $3.00. The last week in July was a case in point. Though the reported number for that week (28 bcf) was only half the five-year average for that date, the announcement triggered a pullback of nearly 10% down to $2.80 from $3.10. It turns out that EIA’s number came in 5 bcf higher than the traders’ own estimate, triggering a wave of serious unloading of positions by those who had bet long.
Everyone in the energy industry, including the traders themselves, knows that $3.00/MMBtu is well below the cost of producing natural gas, and cannot support exploration and extraction activity at the level we saw in 2008 through 2010. Producing shale gas, the so-called “game-changer” that industry flacks contended would loosen King Coal’s grip on the electricity sector, is an even more expensive proposition. High-profile exploration and production (E&P) companies like Chesapeake Energy tried to maintain a jaunty look while wholesale prices were scraping along the $2.00 floor, but they can no longer conceal their distress. Consider the following developments that occurred over the last fortnight.
- Chesapeake Energy announced plans to reduce domestic gas production in 2013 by 8%;
- BHP Billiton wrote down $2.84 billion on the value of Fayetteville shale gas assets it had acquired in 2011; and
- The most recent count of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States is 498, nearly 70% off the levels seen in September 2008, when prices were above $10/MMBtu.
“Write down” is a fairly bloodless way to describe the loss of $3 billion; “carnage” is better at conveying the pain that now grips the natural gas sector. This begs the question: why do wholesale natural gas prices appear to be trapped for now at the $3.00/MMBtu level?
I believe that there are two reasons for this phenomenon. The first is that energy traders, like virtually everyone else in this country, are truly convinced that the U.S. is awash in shale gas. The industry-led campaign to persuade Congress, state legislatures, Wall Street, Big Media, utilities, and Joe Sixpack that the United States possesses a 100-year supply of natural gas has been a stunning success. Federal energy agencies like EIA have also bought into this view of the supply picture big-time, leaving little room for skeptics and agnostics to influence public perceptions.
This overaching belief has been unintentionally reinforced by local and regional controversies over the practice of hydraulic fracturing solid rock to obtain the shale gas trapped inside. Virtually unheard of four years ago, “fracking” has vaulted into the public consciousness, and in doing so, sustains the society-wide belief that natural gas can be accessed almost anywhere in the United States.
Ironically, the myth of abundance that E&P companies so carefully cultivated (and bankrolled) is now clearly working against their short-term interests.
The other factor that keeps prices so low is the traders’ fear of large demand swings. This is a more legitimate if somewhat overblown fear. The two main reference points for traders here is the demand destruction that occurred in 2008 from the one-two punch of double-digit gas prices and worldwide recession, and the abnormal bulge in storage volumes that occurred earlier this year.
Supply Overhang
As late as September 2011, natural gas inventories were tracking closely with the five-year average for storage volumes. Then came the phantom winter of 2011-2012, which brought us the usual dose of darkness but not the snowstorms and frigid air masses that make life in the Upper Midwest distinctly unpicniclike until April. In addition to disrupting seasonal cycles and ruining the maple syrup harvest, the extended stretches of anomalous warmth cut demand for heating fuel between 25% to 30%. Withdrawals of natural gas were substantially lower than the five-year averages during the heating season, creating a colossal bulge that briefly sent wholesale prices skidding below $2.00/MMBtu. By late April, the difference between 2012 storage volumes and the five-year average stood at 931bcf, about 60% larger than normal.
On May 1st, the pendulum started swinging the other way, whittling down the supply overhang to a more manageable 377 bcf compared with the five-year average for this week. Assuming present trends continue in future weekly storage reports, inventories should be in line with the five-year average by mid-December.
Traders attribute the ongoing reduction in inventories to a hotter than normal summer, prompting utilities to switch on more gas generators to meet system peaks. But weather isn’t the only thing that influences the storage picture; output does as well. But as long as traders and speculators subscribe to the myth of nearly limitless supply, they will discount the possibility that declining output is also responsible for lagging storage volumes. It is this mindset, coupled with the fear of weather-driven demand swings, that compels traders to focus on the supply overhang that remains, rather than gain a fuller appreciation of why it has shrunk so dramatically in only 15 weeks.
Old paradigms die hard. But in the not-very-distant future, the reality of reduced drilling activity and capital spending, along with rapid decline rates in shale gas plays, will bite deeply into the supply of natural gas and cause yet another overturning of expectations in this sector. Given the damage being inflicted on E&P companies as well as their renewable energy competitors, the intrusion of reality into this picture can’t happen soon enough.
Sources: Master Resource Report, Ravenna Capital Management http://www.ravennacapitalmanagement.com/mrr/
“Chesapeake to cut natural gas production,” NEWSOK, Adam Wilmoth, August 8, 2012. http://newsok.com/chesapeake-to-cut-natural-gas-production/article/3699062
“Billiton in $3.3 billion write-down as gas prices plunge,” BBC News. August 3, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19107135
Michael Vickerman is program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization. For more information on the global and national petroleum and natural gas supply picture, visit “The End of Cheap Oil” section in RENEW Wisconsin’s web site: www.renewwisconsin.org. These commentaries also posted on RENEW’s blog: http://renewwisconsinblog.org and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com
