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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (28484)	10/31/2011 10:21:28 AM
From: Alastair McIntosh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86355

RE: Curry drops bomb on Muller. She's the second lead author for BEST Looks like Watts is blowing smoke again: Discussion with Rich Muller Posted on October 30, 2011 by curryja\| 166 Comments by Judith Curry I had a 90 minute meeting with Richard Muller this evening. I have to say that there isn’t much that we disagree on. He was very excited to show me his latest analyses. He is clearly driven by the science and is very sincere about wanting to make progress on understanding the global temperature record. The discussion clarified several things for me. First, Muller’s title for the WSJ op-ed was “Cooling the Warming Debate,” he intended it to be a conciliatory article regarding how this data set could be used to settle some of the debates surrounding the land temperature record. The “End of Skepticism” title was provided by the WSJ editors. Muller was not happy about this change of title. Second, the reason for the publicity blitz seems to be to get the attention of the IPCC. To be considered in the AR5, papers need to be submitted by Nov, which explains the timing. The publicity is so that the IPCC can’t ignore BEST. Muller shares my concerns about the IPCC process, and gatekeeping in the peer review process. Re the recent trend, Muller reiterated that you can’t infer anything about what is going on globally from the land data, but the land data shows a continued increase albeit with an oscillation that makes determining a trend rather ambiguous. He thinks there is a pause, that is probably associated with AMO/PDO. So I am ok with this interpretation. With regards to the BEST data itself and what it shows. He showed me an interesting graph this is updated from the Rohde article, whereby the BEST data shows good agreement with the GISS data for the recent part of the record. Apparently the original discrepancy was associated with definition of land; this was sorted out and when they compared apples to apples, then the agreement is pretty good. This leaves CRU as an outlier. Speaking of CRU, Muller related an interesting anecdote about Phil Jones that was apparently related to him by a reporter. When Jones was asked to comment on the BEST papers, he said he no comment until after the papers were published. Maybe Muller was correct in worrying about making sure the IPCC pays attention. We also discussed problems with the IPCC, Climategate issues, etc., and we tend to mostly agree on all this. The one disagreement of the evening was over interpreting hurricane data, but that is not something to bother with here. So all in all, I am ok with what is going on in the BEST project. The PR situation is still a problem, but the media aren’t helping here. In any event alot of people are now looking at the data. The BEST team is taking seriously the more serious critiques and are sorting through them. Progress is being made! Well, this is already shaping up to be a lively conference. I planned on preparing a post on the Santa Fe conference today, but got sidetracked by the Mail article. I will get something up tomorrow. judithcurry.com Doesn't read much like dropping a bomb.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (28484)	10/31/2011 10:33:35 AM
From: FJB	Respond to of 86355

Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker, fell as much as 26 percent in Denmark, the most in three years, after cutting margin and revenue forecasts because of production delays in Germany. The stock traded at 91.05 kroner, down 18 percent, as of 11:03 a.m. local time. The Randers, Denmark-based manufacturer yesterday said it expects 6.4 billion euros ($9 billion) in revenue in 2011, down from 7 billion euros forecast in August. Vestas said Ebit margins will drop to 4 percent from the 7 percent previously forecast, and further delays are possible. “The fact that the profit warning is based on ramp-up problems and not on weak demand or other execution problems is certainly surprising,” Sven Kuerten, an analyst at DZ Bank, said in a note. Vestas’ new forecast is “way below expectations” as it was a “severe profit warning,” he said. The news followed a series of earnings misses that have pushed the stock down more than 90 percent from its 2008 record. Vestas and its rival General Electric Co. are suffering from slower demand growth, falling prices and narrowing margins. Chinese companies grabbing market share also are suffering profit declines, with Sinovel Wind Group Co. yesterday reporting a 49 percent drop in third-quarter profit. Quarterly Loss Vestas said it would post a pretax loss of 60 million euros in the third quarter, largely due to delays in expanding a new production plant in Travemuende, Germany. That compares with a pretax profit of 107 million euros expected, according to the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of six analysts. Before yesterday, Vestas had reported earnings that missed estimates in four of its previous six quarters as the debt crisis eroded demand for clean-energy investments. Yesterday’s downgrade was a result of the factory in Travemuende not being able to keep up with higher demand, Vestas said. It would have been “irresponsible” to run the German factory at a level that would meet demand as it would hamper safety and quality of the products, Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel said in the statement. “Had Vestas continued the build out of turbines with external or untested parts, this could have led to a repeat of the fleet failures and much larger warranty costs the company experienced in 2005,” Rupesh Madlani, an analyst at Barclays Capital, wrote in a note to clients. “We believe it was an appropriate action for the company to take.” Under its new sales forecast, the company would book the lowest full-year revenue since 2008. Short interest in Vestas has climbed 2.3 percentage points since the end of September and stands at about 13 percent of the shares outstanding, suggesting more investors are betting the stock will drop, according to data on Bloomberg compiled by Data Explorers Inc. Quality Standard There may be further delays affecting Vestas results for 2011, according to the statement. About 600 million euros of projects that would have been delivered this year have now been postponed to 2012 because of delays in ramping up the capacity of the Travemuende plant, which makes generators for the turbines, said Peter Kruse, a spokesman for Vestas. He declined to say how many projects and what amount of megawatts of turbines were affected. “Travemuende is a very new plant, and we thought we could take it to top production sooner than the case is,” Kruse said in a telephone interview. “It’s not producing as many generators as we thought.” Kruse said the Travemuende plant makes generators for several types of turbines. He said the postponements to next year won’t create a “snowball” effect of further delays, and that Vestas is working “every day” to ensure the factory in Germany is brought up to speed. Decision to Announce The company was due to report earnings on Nov. 9 and decided the delays meant it had to make a statement sooner. “When we came to the conclusion that we had to change our guidance we had to go to the street immediately,” Kruse said. It reported a negative third-quarter earnings before interest and tax margin of 6.9 percent compared with an Ebit margin of 14.1 percent a year earlier and posted a third-quarter Ebit loss of 92 million euros, compared with an Ebit of 271 million euros a year earlier. Vestas reported second-quarter net income of 55 million euros, the company said in August, beating analysts’ estimates of 41.5 million euros. Last night, the company confirmed estimates for an order intake in 2011 of between 7,000 megawatts and 8,000 megawatts.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (28484)	10/31/2011 10:34:33 AM
From: FJB	Respond to of 86355

Sun Oct 30, 2011 11:35pm EDT * Company benefited from same program as Solyndra * DOE says Beacon and Solyndra different situations By Tom Hals and Roberta Rampton Oct 30 (Reuters) - Beacon Power Corp filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, just a year after the energy storage company received a $43 million loan guarantee from a controversial U.S. Department of Energy program. The bankruptcy comes about two months after Solyndra -- a solar panel maker with a $535 million loan guarantee -- also filed for Chapter 11, creating a political embarrassment for the administration of President Barack Obama, which has championed the loans as a way to create "green energy" jobs. Beacon Power drew down $39 million of its government-guaranteed loan to fund a portion of a $69 million, 20-megawatt flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York. There are several key differences between the two loans, an Energy Department spokesman said on Sunday, noting the Beacon plant continues to operate, unlike Solyndra, which shut down shortly before filing for bankruptcy. The Energy Department also had agreed to restructure Solyndra's debt in a last-ditch effort to keep the company alive, a deal which put taxpayers behind $75 million in private investment. But for the Beacon project, the government loan is the first debt the company must pay, the spokesman said. But the new bankruptcy will stoke criticism from Republicans in the House of Representatives who are investigating whether Obama campaign donors who were investors in Solyndra played a role in decisions on the loan -- allegations denied by the White House and Department of Energy (DOE). "This latest failure is a sharp reminder that DOE has fallen well short of delivering the stimulus jobs that were promised, and now taxpayers find themselves millions of more dollars in the hole," said Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who is leading the House Energy and Commerce Committee's probe. Energy Secretary Steven Chu plans to testify to the committee at a hearing slated for Nov. 17. 'SMART GRID' TECHNOLOGY The new bankruptcy comes on the heels of a White House announcement on Friday that Wall Street veteran Herb Allison will conduct an independent review of the Energy Department's loan portfolio during the next 60 days and issue a public report on how to improve the program. The Energy Department has a loan portfolio of $35.9 billion -- $24.5 billion of which have been finalized. The portfolio includes "green energy" loans like the one given to Solyndra and Beacon Power, as well as loan guarantees for new nuclear plants and grants and loans for technology used in energy-efficient vehicles. Beacon Power developed new technology that allows its energy storage plant to rapidly absorb electricity from New York's power grid when demand drops, and inject energy back into the grid when demand increases. The technology is designed to help more solar and wind power -- which is intermittent -- be used by power grids, which need stable power to remain reliable. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passed a new rule on Oct. 20 requiring power markets to pay more for frequency regulation services, such as those provided by Beacon -- a major victory for the company. The Tyngsboro, Massachusetts-based company was spun off of SatCon Technology Corp in 1997 and went public in 2000. It said in documents filed with Delaware's bankruptcy court that it had $72 million in assets and $47 million in debts. Beacon currently operates at a loss and its revenues are not enough to support its operations, it said in court documents. It blamed the bankruptcy on its inability to secure additional investments due to the financing terms mandated by the Department of Energy, its recent delisting by the Nasdaq stock market and the current "political climate." The loan guarantee for the project included "many protections for the taxpayer," said DOE spokesman Damien LaVera, noting the department is not directly exposed to Beacon's liabilities, has the operating plant as collateral, as well as cash reserves held by the business. The case is Beacon Power Corp, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 11-13450.