Winter Reserves
Nature teaches through its seasons. There's a time to plant and a time to harvest and a time to let the land sleep.
The winter season demands some preparation. You see the squirrels running around gathering their nuts. The bears (less seen) forage to put on their winter fat during their long hibernation.
Humans need food for the winter, but so far, so good overall for humanity. This winter we're going to need fuel to keep our homes warm, at least up north where I live. We mostly use natural gas for heating. Some use electricity. Some homes and cabins further out from infrastructure may use propane tanks.
With a low supply already Hurricanes Katrina and Rita offered further drops in expected reserves this winter.
We're being reassured that we won't have a shortage in Minnesota, but prices are a record high at $1.31/therm in October, and who knows how high into the winter.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/5643373.html Natural gas prices: Flamin' hot
******
The average Minnesota household can expect to pay 73 percent more for natural gas this October than it did in October 2004, assuming normal weather, state officials said Thursday.
...Nationwide, natural gas prices are expected to hover near record highs this winter -- even if production recovers quickly from Katrina and Rita, because the hurricanes took production off line when companies normally would have been building up gas inventories.
"We had a tight supply-and-demand situation before the hurricanes," Chavez said. "They have added an unknown factor that has the market just guessing on how much the damage will be. Nobody really knows, and the price is going up, just reacting to that unknown."
*****
What these articles don't talk about is "What if winter temperatures nationally are BELOW average?!"
Anyone with any common sense has to be asking "What's next?" and "Has something fundamentally changed that we need to know about?"
I think things have changed, and are changing, even if in fits and sneezes. I'm hopeful that these events, like Katrina and Rita will trigger more serious consideration of our dependence upon nonrenewable energy. Certainly the president, asking people to conserve gasoline is something rather amazing and different from his 9/11 advice of "Go shopping."
No I expect we can't "shop" our way out of an energy crisis.
Sadly, I shouldn't hope for bad things, but I do hope for a cold winter than challenges our natural gas supplies. Natural gas consumption has long been on an unwarranted rise, especially in new power plants. Sure, it's clean burning, but we need it now for heating, even if cogeneration is a good option too.
Gasoline up, Natural gas up, can electricity be far behind? For the longest time everyone said heating with natural gas was cheapest, but surely now electricity will become competitive in a hurry. People will fly to adding electric heaters in their homes, raising demand for electricity, raising need to go to "higher cost" sources for electricity.
Maybe winter time electricity usage isn't in danger of hitting capacity, but I wonder.
And when spring comes along, how much will anhydrous ammonia fertilize cost for farmers? We'd almost HAVE TO expect shortages on secondary uses for natural gas. Prices there will sky-rocket and some will have to make due with less, or import more I guess. World shortages could result in reduced yields and perhaps next winter we'll be looking at record low stores of grains and food.
http://www.ext.vt.edu/news/periodicals/cses/2005-02/fertilizer.html
http://farmweek.ilfb.org/viewdocument.asp?did=8379&drvid=105&r=0.81831&r=0.6571924&r=0.4224207 Fertilizer Costs Soar; Farmers Face Tough Decisions Friday, September 23, 2005
In the bigger picture it's "all good", anything that raises awareness, but that doesn't make the decisions any easier to change just about everything.
I think we have a lot of room for further failure, but I think prioritizing is going to be a struggle.
Myself, I'm more seriously considering investing in more insulation and more efficient windows in the long term, and window coverings in the short term.
For me energy costs are "still low". Only $1000 to heat my home for a year? Maybe $1200? A bargain I'd say.
The winter season demands some preparation. You see the squirrels running around gathering their nuts. The bears (less seen) forage to put on their winter fat during their long hibernation.
Humans need food for the winter, but so far, so good overall for humanity. This winter we're going to need fuel to keep our homes warm, at least up north where I live. We mostly use natural gas for heating. Some use electricity. Some homes and cabins further out from infrastructure may use propane tanks.
With a low supply already Hurricanes Katrina and Rita offered further drops in expected reserves this winter.
We're being reassured that we won't have a shortage in Minnesota, but prices are a record high at $1.31/therm in October, and who knows how high into the winter.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/5643373.html Natural gas prices: Flamin' hot
******
The average Minnesota household can expect to pay 73 percent more for natural gas this October than it did in October 2004, assuming normal weather, state officials said Thursday.
...Nationwide, natural gas prices are expected to hover near record highs this winter -- even if production recovers quickly from Katrina and Rita, because the hurricanes took production off line when companies normally would have been building up gas inventories.
"We had a tight supply-and-demand situation before the hurricanes," Chavez said. "They have added an unknown factor that has the market just guessing on how much the damage will be. Nobody really knows, and the price is going up, just reacting to that unknown."
*****
What these articles don't talk about is "What if winter temperatures nationally are BELOW average?!"
Anyone with any common sense has to be asking "What's next?" and "Has something fundamentally changed that we need to know about?"
I think things have changed, and are changing, even if in fits and sneezes. I'm hopeful that these events, like Katrina and Rita will trigger more serious consideration of our dependence upon nonrenewable energy. Certainly the president, asking people to conserve gasoline is something rather amazing and different from his 9/11 advice of "Go shopping."
No I expect we can't "shop" our way out of an energy crisis.
Sadly, I shouldn't hope for bad things, but I do hope for a cold winter than challenges our natural gas supplies. Natural gas consumption has long been on an unwarranted rise, especially in new power plants. Sure, it's clean burning, but we need it now for heating, even if cogeneration is a good option too.
Gasoline up, Natural gas up, can electricity be far behind? For the longest time everyone said heating with natural gas was cheapest, but surely now electricity will become competitive in a hurry. People will fly to adding electric heaters in their homes, raising demand for electricity, raising need to go to "higher cost" sources for electricity.
Maybe winter time electricity usage isn't in danger of hitting capacity, but I wonder.
And when spring comes along, how much will anhydrous ammonia fertilize cost for farmers? We'd almost HAVE TO expect shortages on secondary uses for natural gas. Prices there will sky-rocket and some will have to make due with less, or import more I guess. World shortages could result in reduced yields and perhaps next winter we'll be looking at record low stores of grains and food.
http://www.ext.vt.edu/news/periodicals/cses/2005-02/fertilizer.html
http://farmweek.ilfb.org/viewdocument.asp?did=8379&drvid=105&r=0.81831&r=0.6571924&r=0.4224207 Fertilizer Costs Soar; Farmers Face Tough Decisions Friday, September 23, 2005
In the bigger picture it's "all good", anything that raises awareness, but that doesn't make the decisions any easier to change just about everything.
I think we have a lot of room for further failure, but I think prioritizing is going to be a struggle.
Myself, I'm more seriously considering investing in more insulation and more efficient windows in the long term, and window coverings in the short term.
For me energy costs are "still low". Only $1000 to heat my home for a year? Maybe $1200? A bargain I'd say.
posted by Ares Olympus at 4:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home