Here's a good read by Peter Sinclair over at Crock Of The Week....
I posted a video interview last week with a Resource Planner for Michigan’s largest electric utility – Consumers Energy – in which she described the decision to forego new gas turbines, in favor of solar, some wind, and efficiency.
Above, a recent local television spot describes further the steps to shut down coal plants. The goal is 80 percent carbon reduction by mid-century – which is not enough, to be sure – but it’s hard to overestimate the significance of this change, which has really happened at light speed (in utility terms) over the last several years.
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/07/07/update-midwest-utility-says-goodbye-to-coal-no-more-gas-were-going-solar/Be sure to watch the video of Jessica Woycehoski ..... a long term planner for Consumers Energy.As some of you might know..... the oil and gas companies have been shifting some of their "mix" of business from
OIL to NATURAL GAS over the past several years. Exxon .... seeing as though she is the dumbest of the O&G sisters .... has been slower to change their mix over (which is one of the reasons XOM is a "lagging" stock in the O&G sector).
I had ..... until recently..... felt that natural gas would have much longer staying power. Coal was the fossil fuel that got whacked
FIRST ..... and then
OIL (currently) ..... and then
NATURAL GAS will eventually get whacked as well.
It looks like natural gas may not have such a long ride after-all. Previously ..... I was thinking it might be another 20 years or more before nat gas gets "whacked" (by whacked I don't mean going to ZERO .... but I mean pretty much on the slope of what coal has done (and continues to do) over the past 5 years or so.
Well..... solar and wind keep coming down in price, and some of the people that do the long range planning for electric utilities are now beginning to "skip over" natural gas because it doesn't fit into their intermediate/long term planning
FROM A COST PERSPECTIVE.
THAT..... is not good news for oil and gas companies
IN THE INTERMEDIATE TERM (5 - 10 years from now). Long term, of course, it is
HORRIBLE NEWS. But that "long term" is being
PULLED FORWARD more than expected.
Of course...... this also helps the move towards electrifying transportation. That marriage of electric homes/businesses and electric vehicles is going to be
VERY GOOD for consumers...... and not very good for some O&G companies and some O&G oligarch's of little Vladi's in Russia.