Outrun Change – Page 62 – We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.

More good stuff on the open frontier of energy – 2/25

New frontiers are rough and tumble places. The energy revolution is proving to be no exception.

A few recent articles about crude oil and natural gas which I found interesting:

2/19 – Nature – Study finds relatively low emissions of methane from major US gas fields / After a series of alarming reports, scientists estimate leak rate of about 1% for three major US gas formations – Study by team from University of Colorado Boulder estimates that methane emissions in three major gas fields, (Haynesville, Fayetteville, and Marcellus) averages about 1% of gas that is produced. Range is from 0.18%-0.41% in Marcellus to 2.1% in Haynesville and 2.8% in Fayetteville. Average of 1% is in line with industry and EPA estimates and dramatically less than the 1.5% many critics claim.

2/9 – Wall Street Journal – Oil-Price rebound Predicted – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontier of energy – 2/25”

Has the U.S. just stopped making stuff? Yeah, I’d think so too if industrial output in the U.S. wasn’t at all time record high.

There’s an idea that we don’t make anything in the U.S. anymore. Well, we do import a huge portion of the good stuff we enjoy everyday. Yet we still make a huge amount of stuff here.

Check out this indicator of total industry production in the US. The peak production level is today:

This is from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, which has a humongous database called the Federal Reserve Economic Data, or FRED.

What does the index above cover? From the FRED site:

The Industrial Production Index (INDPRO) is an economic indicator that measures real output for all facilities located in the United States manufacturing, mining, and electric, and gas utilities (excluding those in U.S. territories).(1)

So industrial production in the U.S. is at a record level. Cool.

Want to check out manufacturing only? Okay, here is it: Continue reading “Has the U.S. just stopped making stuff? Yeah, I’d think so too if industrial output in the U.S. wasn’t at all time record high.”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2/25

A few articles on technology, energy, and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment.

Publishing

2/10 – Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View – You Want Advice? Don’t Ask Journalists – Journalism as a career path is going through savage turmoil. Want to write in-depth about an industry or topic? She suggests going to work in that industry and find some writing do to there. Then you can go back to journalism if a great opportunity surfaces or your new industry collapses.

Education

2/11 – Chronicle of Higher Education – Meet the New, Self-Appointed MOOC Accreditors: Google and Instagram –

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2/25”

Transportation costs dropped 95% in the 1800s

There are a lot of data points on travel cost and travel time during the first half of the 1800s mentioned by Allen Guelzo in his fantastic book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President.

Here is the most amazing part:

Overall drop in cost to transport freight with canals, steamboats, and railroads (location 641):

95%

I want to accumulate some of these tidbits since I’m amazed at the radical change created by technology.

Transportation time and cost

Consider:

Travel by stagecoach: Continue reading “Transportation costs dropped 95% in the 1800s”

More indications of the battle between free enterprise and regulation in Washington’s recreational marijuana market

A reader pointed me toward this report from CNBC: Washington has more pot than it can smoke.

Feels like I hit a jackpot in watching the battle between free enterprise and crushing regulation. Follow along with me as I highlight the story with editorial comments on capitalism and regulation.

You may want to get a fresh cup of coffee. This will be along article.

Why so much discussion?

Why am I spending so much time writing about medical marijuana? As a general matter I don’t give a hoot about this marketplace because I have zero interest in this or any other market for intoxicants.

The medical marijuana markets are a natural experiment in a small, separately visible, newly created market and the impact regulation has on the development of that sort-of-legal industry.

Opportunities to see whether regulations strangle an industry are so limited everywhere else in the economy because other markets are large, well-developed, complex, intertwined, and have already adjusted to regulation.

With medical marijuana we can watch a brand-new industry adjust to brand-new regulations.

Back to the article.

There is apparently a huge excess supply of recreational marijuana over demand in Washington State.

Continue reading “More indications of the battle between free enterprise and regulation in Washington’s recreational marijuana market”

Some data points on pricing in newly legal recreational marijuana. We can already see distortions created by regulation.

Comments by a reader of my blog informed me that wholesale prices of state-legal-federally-illegal recreational marijuana have dropped dramatically. That got me to wondering what has happened to the pricing.

I’m am otherwise totally clueless of the pricing in this market. What I know I learn by reading the ‘net.

Just so everyone knows, I am following this story because it is a natural experiment to see the impact of crushing regulation imposed on a newly emerging industry.

The commenter shared a recent report on CNBC quoting a producer saying the wholesale prices had dropped from $1,700 to $2,200 per ounce down to $700 per ounce.

The range in price is due to different qualities. That would give wholesale prices in the range of $60 to $77 per gram in the recent past to around $25/gram currently.

That gives these data points:

Wholesale
$1,700 to $2,200 per ounce sometime prior to the CNBC article
$700 per ounce at the time of the CNBC article (date unknown)

So using the ‘net, which is the most incredible educational tool ever invented, I search for about 10 minutes and found a lot of great info. Spent another 10 minutes reading promising articles and found the following:

Continue reading “Some data points on pricing in newly legal recreational marijuana. We can already see distortions created by regulation.”

Mr. “Worlds far away”, please let me introduce Mr. “Natural experiment in heavy-handed regulation”.

I have multiple interests on this blog. As is extremely obvious, I have been captivated by the energy revolution created by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Have also been fascinated by the wide open frontiers of education, publishing, private space exploration, energy, and technology in general.

There are at least two other threads. First, dark worlds far away I’ll never visit, such as selling drugs and sundry other illegal stuff on the net (called “dark nets”). Another thread is the watching how much heavy-handed regulation is dragging down the newly legal industry of recreational marijuana.

Just like the closing scenes of Ghostbusters, those two threads have touched each other and merged.

Continue reading “Mr. “Worlds far away”, please let me introduce Mr. “Natural experiment in heavy-handed regulation”.”

Update on marijuana regulation – #15

Only a few articles I’ve noticed recently on the state legal sales of recreational marijuana. In case you are just noticing my articles on the topic, my interest is to watch the natural experiment of whether overbearing, heavy-handed regulations strangle a brand new industry.

1/15 – KOMO news – Too much pot: Growers struggle with glut of legal weed – This is essentially a story on implementation issues in Washington state. Initially there was a shortage of state-legal marijuana, now there is a glut. Since last summer, growers have harvested 31,000 pounds (I have no idea how that count is determined).

Article says many users are staying with the lower taxed medical marijuana.

Continue reading “Update on marijuana regulation – #15”

More good stuff on the open frontier of technology – 2/18

A few articles on the amazing things going on the in wide open tech frontier. Video of building an airplane. Potential for blockchain (which is the tech behind Bitcoin), we are all moving toward being entrepreneurs, and FAA’s draft rules on drone use.

1/7 – BBC – The world’s biggest ship – for 53 days – The Globe can carry 19,100 of the standard 20 foot containers. That’s equal to 4,550 of the usual container you see pulled on a big rig on the freeway. It is the largest cargo ship on the sea. It weighs in at 186,000 gross tons.

It only takes a crew of 23 to operate this ship, which shows how automated it is. The engine is so efficient that this ship uses 20% less fuel per container than a ship that can hold 10,000 TEU (I think that is the abbreviation).

Boeing – Time lapse video of airplane construction – hattip BehindTheBlack blog.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&x-yt-cl=84838260&v=SE71NJl-naY&x-yt-ts=1422327029]

1/22 – TechVibes – How Technology Behind Bitcoin Could Transform Accounting As We Know It – Great article providing background on blockchain, which is the core technology behind Bitcoin. Good brain stretcher on where blockchain could go.

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontier of technology – 2/18”

More good stuff on Bakken – 2/17

Here’s a few more articles on Bakken I found interesting – adjusting to growth and drop in crude oil prices. How would you handle calls for police service increasing by a factor of 180 over the last 8 years?

1/9 – Oil Patch Dispatch – Record number of births reported in Oil Patch in 2014 – Along with the huge number of workers moving to North Dakota, there is another year of record baby births. Main hospitals in Minot, Williston, and Dickinson report increases of 5%, 7%, and 13% respectively.

Continue reading “More good stuff on Bakken – 2/17”

2 graphs of annual oil production in North Dakota through 2014

Here is are two pictures of the production of crude oil in the state. The monthly production is multiplied by the state’s calculation of average price with the monthly amounts aggregated.

Dollar value of production, in billions:

Amount of production, in millions of barrels:

Continue reading “2 graphs of annual oil production in North Dakota through 2014”

2 graphs showing dramatic change in production dynamics in N.D. – 2-15

The price of crude oil realized in North Dakota is lower than the Gulf coast due to transportation costs. Here is a graph of the average price for the month as reported by the Department of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas Division, of the North Dakota Industrial Commission. You can find the reports here.

Also, the number of rigs is dropping fast. Here is the average rig count, with an actual as of Friday’s report:

Continue reading “2 graphs showing dramatic change in production dynamics in N.D. – 2-15”

Oil production in N.D. hits record in December ‘14, breaking 1.2M bopd

Oil production averaged 1,227,344 in December, up from a slightly revised 1,188,258 in November, a 3.29% increase. Only passed the 1M bopd mark in April, eight months ago. Up 22% in eight months.

Rig count is dropping rapidly. Prices as well. More on that here.

Update before the graphs: A few tidbits from the Department of mineral Resources director Lynn Helms on the information released Friday, as mentioned in the Bismarck Tribune’s article, Daily oil production passes 1.2 million barrels. He mentioned with oil prices starting to recover, there is a “renewed confidence” that the big trigger of oil tax reductions will not take place.

Article says, as I’ve mentioned previously, that the little trigger was pulled effective the first of February.

Flaring targets

Flaring dropped to 24% in December. He expects the January target to be met.

Targets for flaring, per the article:

26% – 10/1/14
23% – 1/1/15
15% – two years
10% – six years

Now to the graphs. Here is some statistical data to show the story better than my words can tell:

For a longer term perspective:

Continue reading “Oil production in N.D. hits record in December ‘14, breaking 1.2M bopd”

Risk of harm is bad. Certainty of harm is good. The disconnect in assessing risks of getting the energy we need.

Sometimes you just have to scratch your head wondering about the fantasmagorical world inhabited by some regulators. A good dose of ridicule might bring them back to earth, but the chances are small. I’ll give it a try anyway.

1/14 – ReWire – Report: Fracking Imperils Southern California Residents, Wildlife – A report from the California Department of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources concluded that any fracking in three specific oil fields in the state would have

“significant and unavoidable” environmental damage”.

There would be significant risk of damage to:

Air quality
Wildlife
Public and worker safety
Increased greenhouse emissions
recreational use of surrounding lands
transportation and traffic problems

This, in a state that is building wind turbines as fast as the rare earth minerals can be mined and the concrete can be poured to get the slice-and-dice blades spinning.

This, in a state that has a huge solar plant that is killing unknown and intentionally undercounted numbers of protected & migratory birds and wants to build many more such wing-toaster facilities.

Continue reading “Risk of harm is bad. Certainty of harm is good. The disconnect in assessing risks of getting the energy we need.”