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Yep, truth is since JN has started acquisitions both PPS and EPS have improved...
"The Truth" is good news for solar!
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Letter: Trump will not be able to ‘bring back coal’ (Gazette)
Trump will not be able to ‘bring back coal’
Editor:
Trump digs coal? Oh, really!
I watched in amazement as the snake-oil salesman told miners in Charleston that he would “… bring back coal and you’ll work your asses off … .” When will someone tell them that the accessible coal is gone, along with the profits which have gone to the out-of-state corporations?
The thin seams of coal left in the ground will be so expensive to mine that it can never compete with cheap gas and renewable energy. I hope the bearer of this bad news will pass the info to our governor and our legislators, too. The legacy left to West Virginia taxpayers is that we get to pay for cleanup of the mine sites left by the “bankrupt” coal companies. Apparently, Trump doesn’t know that the coal that has been leaving West Virginia for 100-plus years took millions of years to form underground.
Bringing the coal back will be even more difficult than getting Mexico to pay for the wall.
Regina Hendrix
- See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/gazette-letters-to-the-editor/20160524/letter-trump-will-not-be-able-to-bring-back-coal-gazette#sthash.pVvUtjsx.dpuf
Ultimate Solar Off-Grid experience coming up...
Mission to mars. No wind? No fossil fuels. Will need to grow all food. No power lines. No grocery store...
Now THAT will be interesting to follow...
We will need new standards....
You can’t get more “off grid” than another planet!
Mars One – The Ultimate Off Grid Community
Complete with solar power, shelters, climate controlled gardens, rovers, and spacesuits. This is truly the ultimate off grid lifestyle, and utilizes the highest technology available.
You and I will probably never be able to experience living on another planet, however, from this perspective, it shows what is possible if we think outside our comfort zone.
We can still be connected to the internet, use solar power, cell phones, satellite, GPS, and every other piece of technology that will make your life easier. We can still have all the luxuries we have now, and not be connected to the electrical grid. We’re connected to the grid now because we rely on the electric companies to provide our electric power and water companies to provide water. And now we have the ability to not be dependent on the grid.
That is after all, the whole reason we developed the technology to begin with.
Think outside… no box required.
The company and investors will be rewarded with patience.
Despite the fall...
We are bigger than
BTU the worlds biggest coal miner
ACI the #2 coal miner
ANR big coal miner
and
WLT Walter energy
COMBINED!
They deliver much more energy than we do....
We need profitable quarters.
I did my part for solar! I was part of that dastardly crew!
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2016/05/16/massive-protest-bp-whiting-refinery-near-chicago
Massive protest at BP Whiting refinery near Chicago
What other solar installers are cutting costs by 50%...?!?!?
Energy market is taking a hit today...
We are up....
SDOCQ 0.02 -14.31% 0.0201 0.0215
WLTGQ 0.068 -9.33% 0.0658 0.076
ACIIQ 0.3902 0.00% 0.3902 0.40
CHK 3.70 -3.90% 3.69 3.70
SPI 7.05 -4.99% 6.99 7.05
SPWR 15.37 -5.53% 15.36 15.37
FSLR 47.04 -3.43% 47.02 47.07
XOM 88.91 -0.49% 88.91 88.92
Record high nat gas in storage will hurt the fossil fool market..
http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html
Only recently we were fighting for $20M for the YEAR.
Now we are about 20M for THE QUARTER....
Once you see clean solar! There is no comparison!
WLOS — ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Governor McCrory's administration classified all coal ash ponds for a full clean up. Most were originally slated to be capped-in-place.
We are not the only ones...
Tesla plans $2 billion stock offering to finance quicker Model 3 launch
esla Motors Inc (TSLA.O) said it would offer $2 billion of stock to help finance the accelerated launch of its new Model 3 electric sedan.
Shares were down 2.2 percent at $206.59 following the news after markets closed on Wednesday.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk surprised investors last month with his decision to speed up the introduction of the Model 3, a smaller, less expensive car than Tesla has built, and expand production capacity at the Tesla plant in Fremont, California.
Tesla said it would pull ahead by two years a plan to boost production at the Fremont plant to 500,000 in 2018, from 50,000 in 2015. Most of the increased production would be Model 3, which drew 400,000 early reservations after Musk unveiled the car on March 31.
As part of the sale, Tesla said it would offer about $1.4 billion of shares, with the remaining shares to be sold by Musk to cover taxes connected with his exercise of more than 5.5 million stock options. The exercise will increase Musk's stake in the company, Tesla said.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are bookrunners.
Earlier on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs upgraded shares to “Buy” from “Neutral,” and said Tesla’s current share price was not “fully capturing the company’s disruptive potential.”
(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Alexandria Sage in San Francisco)
When you see the price and ready to puke. BUY!
When you see the price and are feeling euphoria SELL!
This movement seems too unusual.
Like Moneyrunners in reverse....
I sent an SEC complaint anyway.
https://tts.sec.gov/oiea/Complaint.html
And I beg to ask what % of those shares were bought and paid for at face value like the ones you and I own?
ll officers and directors as a group (8 Persons) 1,157,020 5.55 %
Another day, another new solar development!
Solar's outlook just got a little bit brighter
May 17, 2016
New inventions from ASU researchers may lead to cheaper, more efficient solar power
Companies making solar panels have faced the same choice for decades. Their sun-soaking panels could be efficient or cheap, but not both.
Time to start erasing that rule.
Researchers within the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering have wedded two types of solar technologies, putting solar panels a step closer to being cheaper and more accessible.
Here’s the challenge researchers faced: solar panels made with silicon are expensive but more efficient than the cheaper, thin film solar cells, which are made with cadmium telluride.
The ASU team, led by electrical engineering professor Yong-Hang Zhang and assistant professor Zachary Holman, figured out how to add a little silicon to the thin film cells, combining the qualities of each type of panel.
Their invention broke a 30-year efficiency record for thin film cells and achieved the highest open-circuit voltage ever recorded for that type of cell. Their results were published this week in a paper in the journal Nature Energy.
Overcoming a decades-old obstacle
Open-circuit voltage measures the potential for a solar cell to pump electricity around a circuit. High voltage is created when light is absorbed in a solar cell, exciting electrons by shaking them off their atoms. The electrons then build up on one side of the solar cell, like at the negative terminal of a battery.
Engineering a solar cell with high voltage is challenging because the excited electrons can be lost within microseconds or even nanoseconds of sunlight hitting a solar cell. Thus, a goal of solar cell research is to extract the electricity before it dissipates, which is generally accomplished by adding conductive contacts to the top and bottom of a solar cell, according to Zhang (pictured left), who also is an associate dean for research in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
“The traditional contacts are made through introducing impurities in the solar cell absorbing layer,” said Zhang, “which can degrade the device performance dramatically.”
Zhang, Holman and their research teams added a separate contact layer of low-cost amorphous silicon instead of an impurity. In doing so, they created a solar cell with a voltage of 1.1 volt, an unimaginable feat even one year ago.
“Essentially, we’ve created a solar cell that allows for the maximum number of electrons possible to build up before extracting them quickly and efficiently out the ‘smart’ contact,” Zhang said.
The cells not only reached high voltage but also a 17 percent efficiency, breaking a three-decade-old record of 13.4 percent for thin film solar cells. While other types of solar cells, such as silicon, boast a best efficiency rating of around 25 percent, such a dramatic improvement in thin film efficiency shows promise for widespread use.
Zhang’s next goal is 20 percent efficiency or more.
Impact on industry
Materials science doctoral student Calli Campbell uses a molecular beam epitaxy machine to fabricate the solar cell wafers in Yong-Hang Zhang’s lab. Photo courtesy of Yong-Hang Zhang/ASU
The important thing is that this material system has been proven cost effective, but (until now) never efficient enough in terms of energy production to take over the solar market,” said Zhang. “Many times with a paper such as this, the findings are either scientifically interesting or commercially applicable, but not both. However, these results are.”
While silicon solar panels dominate the market, there are about 10 gigawatts — enough to power 2.5 million homes — of thin film solar panels in use worldwide today. First Solar in Tempe, Arizona, is the world’s largest manufacturer of thin-film solar cells.
“These latest results further confirm our long-standing conviction that CdTe (cadmium telluride) is an ideal material choice for photovoltaic application,” said Markus Gloeckler, vice president of advanced research at First Solar. “Reaching an open-circuit voltage of 1.1 volts is a milestone for the technology and provides confidence that thin-film CdTe has not reached its limits.”
The first step in an ongoing collaboration
The success grew out of an unanticipated alliance between Zhang and Holman’s separate teams.
“It’s a unique collaboration, and one that happened in the best way possible: through student initiative,” said Holman (pictured left). “One of Yong’s students reached out to one of my post-docs, and things took off from there.”
Though Zhang and his group initially conceived the underlying concept of these breakthrough solar cells, it took them nearly two years to improve the materials needed to fabricate them. They also called upon Holman’s expertise in silicon solar cells to marry two very different semiconductors to achieve these unique and efficient properties.
Zhang and Holman look to use their respective expertise to collaborate in the future as well.
“We’re exploring the possibility of developing a tandem solar cell,” Holman said, “basically two complimentary solar cells that would stack on top of one another, further boosting efficiency.”
The two teams plan to continue collaboration and are slated to present their recent results at the upcoming Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Photovoltaic Specialists Conference in Portland, Oregon, in June.
The research was mainly supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium (BAPVC), a collaboration between universities, industry and government dedicated to improving photovoltaic technology, jointly led by Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley. Additional funding was supplied through Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST), one of the four National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Centers at the Fulton Schools at ASU.
Initial support for this research came from the Arizona Science Foundation in 2007, and following funding from the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, the Air Force Research Laboratory and Air Force Office of Scientific Research have paved the way to enabled many of these new ideas developed in the past 10 years, according to Zhang.
Top photo: A novel approach to a decades-old materials science challenge has birthed a record-breaking monocrystalline cadmium telluride solar cell, which shatters a 30-year efficiency record and boasts the highest voltage ever for its type of cell. Photo by Cheng-Ying Tsai/ASU
Opinion: Solar fueling local food movement
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/opinion/my-turn/2016/05/17/opinion-solar-fueling-local-food-movement/84511440/
Eighteen years ago, Champlain Orchards was founded in Shoreham with the idea that we could grow fruit with a conscience. Today, Champlain Orchards does just that with our locally grown, ecologically managed apples and other tree fruits. The majority of our fruit, pies, and ciders are sold in Vermont or within 30 miles of our border, and the local purchase of food is the foundation of our business and a contributor to our success.
As our business began to grow, we were constantly reminded by how dependent we were on outside energy systems. It takes a lot of electricity to refrigerate, pack and press millions of pounds of apples. Our controlled atmosphere refrigeration and storage facility allows us to sell our products in local stores year-round and reduces our communities’ off-season reliance on international apples. While it’s great to be able to go to the grocery store and see Vermont apples on the shelves, a lot of energy is required to store the fruit year-round.
That energy usage isn’t consistent with the principles of ecologically-grown local food. That’s why we decided to become fully self-sufficient and generate our own energy, so our customers know that when they buy an apple from our farm, even the energy behind the apple is 100 percent local. We want to ensure that, just as we’re not burning carbon by sending our apples across the globe, we’re also not shipping our electricity in from somewhere else and passing that burden on to others.
Three years ago, we built two new orchards on our land, but rather than planting apple trees, we installed 24 solar panels with the help of All Earth Renewables. Located on low-lying areas of the land that would only otherwise be used for pasture, these two 60kW orchards now allow us to generate 100 percent of our own electricity. With Vermont-harvested sun, we are now managing 200 acres of fruit trees and storing and processing millions of pounds of apples annually. Our local products are more local than ever.
That’s good for business. Our power generation offsets our usage, allowing us to get through the busy fall season without increasing our costs. And our electrical power budget is more predictable, as we now have stable long-term energy costs.
It’s very important to us that our customers see these panels and are able to interact with them. In addition to educating the public about local fruit and its production, we can now welcome folks to learn about solar energy first-hand. Our sun-tracking panels have become an integral part of our working landscape.
Harvesting solar energy is an intuitive process for farmers. We’re in the business of using the sun to grow our crops, and harvesting its electricity is a logical extension. Perhaps best of all, it’s a far more profitable use of certain farm acreage which isn’t suitable for tree fruit production.
The notion of solar energy as part of our local food system is one that I hope our Vermont voters will keep in mind as we debate renewable energy policies in Montpelier. If we really want to show Vermont’s commitment to the local food movement and our local economy, we all should take every step possible to expand opportunities for more businesses to become 100 percent self-sufficient and have access to solar energy. With the help of organizations like All Earth Renewables, we can make solar an integral part of our local landscape. We’re good at harvesting crops; now it’s up all of us to facilitate more opportunities to harvest the sun.
Bill Suhr, of Shoreham, is founder of Champlain Orchards.
BioSolar Targets Growing Market for Lithium-ion Batteries
Key trade publications report on the company’s proprietary technology
Santa Clarita, CA – May 17, 2016 – BioSolar, Inc. (OTCQB: BSRC), a developer of breakthrough energy storage technology and materials, today recognized recent media coverage detailing BioSolar’s efforts to scale its proprietary battery technology, and commented on recent reports stating the size of the lithium-on battery market.
As previously disclosed, the Company’s laboratory testing results suggested that lithium-ion batteries incorporating its cathode technology could potentially achieve significantly higher capacity with costs below $100/kWh, which is less than half of today’s lowest cost lithium-ion batteries.
In a recent Q&A with Today’s Motor Vehicle Magazine, BioSolar CEO Dr. David Lee discussed both the development of and market for its innovative cathode technology. Within the interview, Dr. Lee discussed the advantages under review from battery manufacturers when evaluating cost and efficiency; opportunities for automakers in identifying new battery technologies; both commercial and industrial vehicle applications; and next steps for BioSolar in terms of development and commercialization. In a print article for Chemical Engineering Magazine, an interview with Dr. Lee touched upon the more technological aspects of developing BioSolar’s battery technology, and also addressed inherent challenges faced by battery manufacturers.
According to a recent study performed by Allied Market Research entitled, "World Lithium-Ion Battery Market: Opportunities and Forecasts, 2015-2022,” the global lithium-ion battery market is expected to generate revenue of $46.21 billion by 2022, with a CAGR of 10.8% during the forecast period (2016-2022). Currently, the market is very concentrated, as over 70% of installed energy storage capacity uses lithium-ion batteries, as the technology is proven and bankable.
“Lithium ion batteries are becoming a mainstream battery choice for consumer and automotive applications, as well as large scale energy storage due to its advantages over many existing battery chemistry,” said Dr. Lee. “The inherent challenges associated with lithium-ion batteries center upon cost and scale. As most improvements to battery performance have come from changing chemistry rather than from ongoing improvement within a given chemistry, BioSolar has focused on addressing these fundamental issues with its innovative approach to developing cathode technology.”
BioSolar is currently funding a sponsored research program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), to further develop its super battery technology. The lead inventors of the technology are UCSB professor Dr. Alan Heeger, the recipient of a Nobel Prize in 2000 for the discovery and development of conductive polymers, and Dr. David Vonlanthen, a project scientist and expert in energy storage at UCSB.
About BioSolar, Inc.
BioSolar is developing a breakthrough technology to increase the storage capacity, lower the cost and extend the life of lithium-ion batteries. A battery contains two major parts, a cathode and an anode, that function together as the positive and negative sides. Today's state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery is limited by the storage capacity of its cathode, while the anode can store much more. Inspired by nature, we are developing a novel cathode based on inexpensive conductive polymers and organic materials that can fully utilize the storage capacity of conventional anodes. By integrating our high capacity, high power and low-cost cathode with conventional anodes, battery manufacturers can create a super lithium-ion battery that can double the range of a Tesla, power an iPhone for two days straight, or store daytime solar energy for nighttime use. Founded with the vision of developing breakthrough energy technologies, BioSolar's previous successes include the world's first UL approved bio-based back sheet for use in solar panels.
To learn more about BioSolar, please visit our website at http://www.biosolar.com.
Date : Tuesday, May 17 2016
Perhaps an arrangement to promote our racking solution is forthcoming . . .
Appears that Sandridge Energy needs some expert advice as to how to run a conpany,
after reaching a deal with its creditors to swap $3.7 billion in debt for control of the oil and gas company.
I Was Wrong About the Limits of Solar. PV Is Becoming Dirt Cheap
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/i-was-wrong-about-the-economic-limitations-of-solar-power
A couple of weeks old...
Harvard’s David Keith revisits his assumptions about solar costs: “Facts have changed.”
by David Keith
April 28, 2016
Over the last few years, solar PV has gotten cheap. Cheap enough to start impacting some commodity energy markets today. Cheap enough that with continued progress, but no breakthroughs, it might alter the global outlook for energy supply within a decade.
I have long been skeptical of solar hype. In 2008 we did an expert judgment exercise suggesting only even odds of getting to module prices of $0.30 per watt in 2030. In 2011 we did some analysis showing how the power-law learning curve for modules appeared to be flattening. That analysis was done at the end of a decade that saw big increases in installed capacity, with little corresponding change in module prices.
I worried that deployment incentives (the global total amounting to many hundreds of billions of dollars over the past decade) would simply lock in the current technologies and do little to drive the breakthroughs that were needed to get solar cheap enough to compete for commodity power.
I was wrong.
Current costs
Facts have changed. Just a few years ago, the cost for industrial systems was twice what it is today. A host of little innovations have driven costs down. Module prices are now around $0.50 per watt. The unsubsidized electricity cost from industrial-scale solar PV in the most favorable locations is now well below $40 per megawatt-hour and could very easily be below $20 per megawatt-hour by 2020. Compared to other new sources of supply, this would be the cheapest electricity on the planet. Let’s look at how that cost is calculated.
he current state of play is captured in three facts:
The capital cost of industrial (>50 megawatt) solar PV installations with north-south axis trackers is now about $1,500 per kilowatt, and contracts for some industrial systems without trackers are getting down to $1,000 per kilowatt.
Capacity factors of industrial systems with trackers are reaching just over 30 percent at the best sites in the U.S.
Real-world efficiency for commercial PV systems now exceeds 20 percent.
Let’s now proceed on the assumption that these facts are correct. What does this mean for electricity supply cost?
Assume that an average capital change factor (CCF) is 6 percent, a low but not unfeasible value, as the risk premium for these facilities has decreased dramatically. (CCF is the ratio of the total annualized cost of capital, spread across debt and equity, divided by capital cost.) At $1,500 per kilowatt, a 6 percent per year CCF, and 30 percent capacity factor, electricity cost is $34 per megawatt-hour.
1500 × 0.06/(8760 × 0.3) = 34
Note that this low cost of capital would only make sense for a project that was selling into a low-risk market.
Now suppose costs for big systems (>100 megawatts) get to $1,000 per kilowatt by 2020, and you install them in the world’s best locations using a north-south oriented single-axis tracker to a capacity factor of 34 percent. These trackers used to add a lot of capex, but disciplined manufacturing and scale has driven cost down to about $100 per kilowatt. (Here is info on the Sunpower C1 tracker.)
Under these assumptions, power cost is $20 per megawatt-hour -- or $0.02 per kilowatt-hour.
1000 × 0.06/(8760 × 0.34) = $20 per megawatt-hour (or same cost at $750 per kilowatt and 26 percent CF).
That’s $5.5 per gigajoule for electricity. ($20 per megawatt-hour and 3.6 gigajoules per megawatt-hour = $5.5 per gigajoule.)
Even $40 per megawatt-hour is very cheap power. The 2013 median price of sales to industrial customers in the U.S. was about $60.
That’s the good news. But cheap solar does not deal with the problem of solar power’s intermittency. It does not mean rooftop solar in New England makes sense. It does not magically decarbonize the world. In the long run, we need low-carbon dispatchable power in the world’s demand centers. This will require some combination of gas for peaking, storage, and long-distance transmission. Lots of the world’s demand is in places where insolation is at least 40 percent less than in the best locations, which are parts of Mexico, Southern California, the Mid-East and Australia.
But it does mean that one can now build systems in the world’s sunny locations and get very cheap power.
Implications
What does this mean?
Implication #1: In sunny places, solar will reshape commodity power markets.
Examples:
Power prices will have a midday low. This is already happening in California, where it’s called the “duck curve.” It will soon be the norm in other high-sun demand centers, and the changing power price structure will shake utilities and industrial customers.
Wind suddenly looks less interesting. The capacity factors, global build rate, and costs for wind power have been nearly flat for five years.
Nuclear and CCS will have a harder time competing. For example, there are nuclear builds in the Middle East (e.g., UAE building Korean reactors), but with cheap solar it will be hard to compete against solar with gas backup.
Gas for load following and low-capex peaking looks ever more important.
Implication #2: There will be opportunities to bring electrical demand to areas where power is cheap.
One option is look for products that have very high energy costs and are easily transportable, and build solar farms and production together in high-insolation sites.
Four options are aluminum, ammonia, desalination, and transportation fuels. The first two are each about 1 percent of global primary energy demand. Niches, yes, but not small. Desalination is growing fast and it’s much cheaper to store water than electricity.
If (a) most of the energy demand is from processes that can handle a diurnal cycle, and if (b) the amortized capex is low compared to the energy cost, then one can deal with variability by simply cycling the production facility on and off.
For transportation fuels, if cheap solar means hydrogen prices under $10 per gigajoule in sunny places, then carbon-neutral synthetic fuels look promising. It takes about 2 t-CO2 and 40 gigajoules of H2 to make 1,000 liters of gasoline using a process like Exxon Methanol-to-Gasoline. If we can get CO2 from the air at $125 t-CO2 then the idea of making fuels at prices around $1 per liter looks plausible over the next few decades.
The upshot
Cheap solar is limited by intermittency and by the fact that many of the locations with the highest energy consumption don’t have good solar resources (e.g, northeastern U.S., northern Europe, coastal China).
In the near term, a surprising amount of intermittency can be managed cost-effectively with gas turbine backup, and this works even as electricity sector carbon emission are pushed down to a third of today’s values. Looking further ahead, long-distance electric transmission can move solar power from good sites to demand centers and can reduce the impact of intermittency by averaging supply and demand across larger areas.
Looking even further ahead, if we want a stable climate, humanity must bring net carbon emissions to zero. And, if we hope for a prosperous world with ample energy that can raise standards of living for the poor, then energy demand will more than double, growing to beyond 30 terawatts.
Climate is not the only problem: energy systems have other social and environmental costs, and the land footprint of energy is a good proxy for environmental impacts on water, landscapes, and the natural world. My view is that only two forms of energy -- solar and nuclear power -- can plausibly supply tens of terawatts without a huge environmental impact. But that’s a topic for future posts. For now, let’s celebrate the last decade’s progress toward cheap solar.
***
David Keith is a Gordon McKay professor of applied physics and professor of public policy at Harvard. This piece was originally published at his Harvard blog and was reprinted with permission.
To learn and debate about these kinds of energy system topics, sign up for Harvard's free edX course launching on June 8th, Energy Within Environmental Constraints. You can also follow the course on Twitter and Facebook, where we'll announce more blog posts like this one in the weeks leading up to the course.
SandRidge Energy Files for Bankruptcy Protection
And I thought that JN was running our business all wrong... LOL!
Perhaps if they spent more time on THEIR OWN BUSINESS instead of ours!
0.0247 -0.0365 -59.64%
Market Cap Micro Cap | 18M
1 minute ago - DJNF
By Patrick Fitzgerald
SandRidge Energy Inc. became the latest victim of the prolonged downturn in energy sector, filing for bankruptcy protection Monday after reaching a deal with its creditors to swap $3.7 billion in debt for control of the oil and gas company.
The Oklahoma City company filed for chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston after reaching a deal with the majority of its lenders and bondholders on the terms of a "prearranged" debt restructuring pact.
SandRidge Chief Executive James Bennett said the proposed debt swap, which requires court approval, will allow the reorganized company to concentrate on oil and gas exploration and development in our active Oklahoma and Colorado project areas.
The company will stay open during the chapter 11 case and expects to exit bankruptcy "with minimal disruption to our business," Mr. Bennett said.
SandRidge says it has enough cash to fund its ongoing operations without a bankruptcy loan. Among its initial bankruptcy request is the authority to pay operating expenses associated with production activities, royalties and wages to its workers. The company also intends to pay all suppliers and vendors in full during the bankruptcy.
SandRidge joins the ranks of oil and gas drillers to file for bankruptcy in recent weeks as the low oil prices continue to roil the energy sector. Linn Energy, Midstates Petroleum Co. and Ultra Petroleum Corp. have all recently filed for bankruptcy in Texas. Also, Breitburn Energy Partners LP filed for bankruptcy Monday in New York.
Those companies join Samson Resources Corp., Magnum Hunter Resources Corp., Emerald Oil Inc., Swift Energy Co., and dozens more that had earlier sought bankruptcy.
SandRidge drills for oil and gas in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, where it has 4,411 gross producing wells and more than 2 million gross acres under lease. As of Dec. 31, it had four rigs in operation.
At the end of last year, the company employed more than 1,100 people but has since reduced its head count to 864. The company listed assets of $7 billion and debts about $4 billion in papers filed with the bankruptcy court.
The law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP is handling the chapter 11 case, and Houlihan Lokey, Inc. is SandRidge's financial adviser.
--Stephanie Gleason contributed to this article
If you are anywhere near Wisconsin, this is a no-miss event....
Tons of REAL information to be learned.....
https://www.theenergyfair.org/
SandRidge Energy, which owes $4.13 billion, said in its annual financial report that auditors have raised doubts about its ability to stay in business. It delayed releasing its first-quarter results, citing ongoing discussions with creditors on a “potential comprehensive restructuring transaction.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-12/oil-at-45-a-barrel-proving-no-savior-as-bankruptcies-add-up
If I was in a Fossil Fool company I would be getting into renewables...
Like Total...
Total continues renewable energy charge with Saft battery deal
May 9, 2016 2:57 pm
Total continues renewable energy charge with Saft battery deal
Michael Stothard in Paris
Total is making a deeper push into renewable energy, signing a deal to buy battery manufacturer Saft.
The French oil company, which is suffering from the chronic low oil price, said that the acquisition would “accelerate its development in the fields of renewable energy and electricity”.
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Last month, Total announced the creation of a gas, renewables and power division, saying it wanted to become a “leader” in renewables and electricity storage within 20 years.
On Monday both Total and Saft said they had signed a joint agreement for Total to launch a tender offer at €36.5 per Saft share, a 38 per cent premium on the close last Friday giving the group a valuation of €950m.
Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and chief executive of Total, said the deal would “allow us to complement our portfolio with electricity storage solutions, a key component of the future growth of renewable energy”.
Ghislain Lescuyer, chief executive of Saft, which is based just outside Paris, said: “I am convinced that Total will provide Saft with the required expertise and resources needed for its future development.”
In 2011, Total made its first significant foray into renewable energy with the $1.4bn acquisition of SunPower, one of the largest solar companies in the US.
Mr Pouyanné said last month that “electricity will be the energy of the 21st century” and that he wanted Total to make money from the “entire electricity value chain”, including solar, biogas, batteries as well as oil and gas.
Total last year announced that it would invest €200m to transform its unprofitable La Mede oil refinery into a biofuel plant and separately that it would start to invest $500m a year in renewables.
Despite the Saft acquisition, spending in renewable energy will still be a fraction of the company’s overall investments, which amounted to $28bn last year.
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Total is not alone in taking steps towards renewables, which comes partly in response to shareholder concerns about climate change. Royal Dutch Shell and BP have made similar moves.
The acquisition comes as the entire sector is also suffering from a low oil price. The average price of a barrel of Brent crude was $34 in the first quarter of 2016. In the previous quarter it was $44, and a year ago it was $54.
This has prompted oil companies to drastically cut their capital expenditure on new projects. In the first quarter of 2016 Total’s exploration and production business made $498m, a 63 per cent drop from the previous year.
SOMEBODY, keeps on talking about us.....
US vs THEM!
Why she is on a mission against us......
https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=1&chfdeh=0&chdet=1463169600000&chddm=98923&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=OTCMKTS:SDOC&cmptdms=0&q=NASDAQ:SUNW&&fct=big&ei=4SI2V5GkDomVeeynhNAJ
What is the link for the CC?
Rolling Blackouts in Cali?
Will that inspire more solar sales? Not wishing bad...
'Shine? Other Cali members?
SUNW Is a solar stock.
When they say solar won't work.
Solar Panels Working as Promised for Iowa Company
May 2, 2016 By Carl Weinschenk
The Oskaloosa Herald offers an update on Mohrfeld Electric’s solar installation at Huffman Welding and Machine in Fort Madison, Iowa.
The panels, which were installed in December, 2015, have produced $10,000 worth of electricity. State and Federal tax credits have for about 45 percent of the project. With incentives, the typical payback is five to seven years, the story says.
The piece says the system is rated for 208 KW and uses net-metering. During summer, the grid power is used early in the day when product starts, while the panels suffice later on. On balance, the panels use more power than the company uses. Thus, the goal — to cut 90 percent to 100 percent of the company’s electric bill – has been met.
In March, the Iowa Utilities Board scheduled formal complaint proceedings on behalf of Eagle Point Solar of Dubuque in regards to a filing that could lead to expanded net-metering in the state.
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Mohrfeld promotes solar energy
CURT SWARM, Empty Nest May 1, 2016
Michael Morhfeld stands in front of one of the four huge solar-panel arrays his company, Mohrfeld Electric, installed at Huffman Welding and Machine, Inc., in Ft. Madison. It's late morning on a sunny day. The panels are supplying all of the energy requirements for the manufacturing firm. In fact, they are producing more energy than required. The excess energy is fed back into the Alliant-Energy grid in the form of a credit.
Huffman Welding and Machine, Inc. went online with the solar-panel system in December, 2015. Already, the panels have produced $10,000 worth of electricity. State and Federal tax credits paid for about 45 percent of the cost of the solar-panel installation. The rest will be paid back in energy savings. Typical payback, with incentives, is five-to-seven years.
The 208 kilowatt system is set up for what is called “net metering.” The goal was to reduce 90 to 100 percent of Huffman's electric bill. That goal has been met. During a typical summer month, with lots of sunshine, Huffman's will produce a credit moving forward. During peak periods of the day, the panels are making more electricity than is required. There is a bi-directional meter, so the panels can push electricity out to the grid, and/or send it to Huffman's. At 6:00 o'clock in the morning, when Huffman's starts production, they draw electricity from the grid. A few hours later, the panels are handling the load.
When I wrote about Michael Morhfeld a year ago, he was heavy into developing a large subdivision in Ft. Madison called Green Oak Development. I stated at the time that when the 50 some homes at Green Oak were completed, Mohrfeld would be looking for another project. Well, he couldn't wait. Green Oak is about half done, but he has gone ahead with the development of another subdivision in West Point, called South Park. Some of the features, which he has also incorporated into Green Oak, are homes being built on a lot-and-a-half, allowing for bigger homes, yards, and three-car garages. One of the homes I toured, has a master-bedroom closet with a back door to the laundry room. Very unique, very efficient.
Solar is an option on all the homes Mohrfeld builds. With a 15-or-30-year note, if solar is added to the cost of a home, it's only an increase of $20 - $25 per month, while saving $100 - $150 per month on electricity. It's an easy sell for the home owner and the banker.
But wait. Mohrfeld has started a third subdivision. As yet unnamed, it's on Bluff Road in Ft. Madison, and overlooks the city, as well as the Mississippi River. It will be about ¾ of a mile long, on 120 acres of bluff property. Mohrfeld is in the process of moving a lot of dirt, clearing trees, and getting ready to put in infrastructure. The subdivision will have a pond. Morhfeld plans on building higher-end, walk-out style condos on one side of the development, and custom homes on the other. Because of the terrain, a drone was called into service for surveying, like a bumblebee mapping out a clover field.
Mohrfeld Electric just completed all of the building-shell-electrical work on Silgan Container Corporation in Burlington. Mohrfeld Electric is also doing the electrical work on the SCC additions in West Burlington and Keokuk.
Thinking outside the breaker box, Michael Mohrfeld, recognizing the need for housing, is on the cutting edge of construction and energy savings. He likes nothing more than to drive down a street he has developed and see cars in driveways, barbeque grills fired up, and kids playing in yards. His dad taught him a long time ago that, “If you take care of the community, the community will take care of you.”
These Super-Efficient Solar Panels Are Light Enough To Install Almost Anywhere
Affix Sunflare's technology to wherever you want with barely any effort.
Sunflare is a Los Angeles startup that's making solar panels smaller and lighter. That sounds pretty good, but the real innovation comes when you see what you can do with them.
Unlike heavier panels, which require proper construction techniques to hang, Sunflare's panels are so light that the company claims they can be hung with "little more than a 3M tab on the side of buildings." Add to that the fact that they're flexible and you have a panel that can quickly be adapted to fit into any space that gets the sun.
The improved absorption combines with better high-temperature performance to increase efficiency yet further, generating more power at midday when temperatures are hottest.
Gao also says that Sunflare’s manufacturing process is greener than that used to make other panels. In addition to using less chemicals in the manufacture (no lead or cadmium, for example), the factory recycles spent materials, and also recycles its water.
The most practical difference, though, is also the most mundane aspect. The Sunflare panels can be deployed on roofs without having to reinforce them—you just stick them up there and wire them into your system. You don't need to reinforce the roof, or build out frames on which to mount them. That could make for big savings, opening up the possibility of solar to many people who wouldn't normally consider it.
These are all big predictions for a small company. Whether Sunflare delivers on its promises remains to be seen.[/img]
The Sunflare panels do without a glass substrate, allowing them to be flexible. They're a variant the CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) type solar cell, which already requires only a thin film to construct. The problem so far with CIGS has been the cost of manufacture, compared to regular crystalline silicon panels, which are used almost everywhere else. Sunflare makes some bold claims: It says it has solved the production costs, while making a panel that's 65% lighter and able to produce 10% more energy throughout the day, thanks in part to better efficiency in low light at dusk and dawn.
"To make the most efficient solar power the cells must absorb as much light as possible while reflecting as little light as possible," says Sunflare founder Len Gao. "Sunflare’s cells produce less glare and capture more light."
The improved absorption combines with better high-temperature performance to increase efficiency yet further, generating more power at midday when temperatures are hottest.
Gao also says that Sunflare’s manufacturing process is greener than that used to make other panels. In addition to using less chemicals in the manufacture (no lead or cadmium, for example), the factory recycles spent materials, and also recycles its water.
The most practical difference, though, is also the most mundane aspect. The Sunflare panels can be deployed on roofs without having to reinforce them—you just stick them up there and wire them into your system. You don't need to reinforce the roof, or build out frames on which to mount them. That could make for big savings, opening up the possibility of solar to many people who wouldn't normally consider it.
These are all big predictions for a small company. Whether Sunflare delivers on its promises remains to be seen.
$2 coming after earning due to the dump.
Love this Statement, emphasis on CONSERVATIVE:
'....good position to achieve our conservative 2016 revenue guidance of $100 million.'
I can attest to the uncertainty and fear currently present at both BoD meeting and dinner table.