New Media
Drought, Climate Drive Uncertainty on New England Imports from Québec
“At the moment, given the forecasts of a significant deficit at Hydro-Québec, I don’t think [NECEC] will
change the balance at all,” said McCullough. “There’s nothing in the contract to prevent them from buying
cheaply in New England, storing it, and sending it back to New England.”
Hydro-Quebec shut off the spigots for New England power in March and hasn’t turned them back on. Why?
Boston Globe – Jon Chesto
Still, hydropower consultant Robert McCullough says the extended shutoff could be a
sign of troubling trends in Quebec. He’s beginning to wonder if the droughts and
resulting low reservoir levels will continue — contrary to the company’s stated hopes
that more normal conditions are on the way. Hydro-Quebec, he says, underinvested
for years in its own power infrastructure, and is now racing to keep up.
California’s Gasoline Price Gouging Law Working To Hold Down Oil Refiner Profits and Gas Prices Two Years After Passage, Adds Protections For Polluter Pays Laws
“Oil companies with refineries in California have made extraordinary profits over the last 10 years,” said Robert McCullough. “Profits of the five major companies owning refineries in California over the past decade totals $246.7 billion. Allowing the recapture of some of these profits to meet the costs of global warming partially caused by these companies is appropriate.”
New Articles
Problems with CleanBC roadmap
British Columbia’s CleanBC program was initiated in 2018. It has spawned innumerable websites, reports, studies, and communiques. In February 2023, it was updated with the Roadmap to 2030 plan.
The Roadmap is plainly aspirational. It is, as it says, a roadmap. However, 60 percent of the way to the objective, it is unclear whether real progress is present.
Missing tariff on the missing imports
The anomalous energy sources in s. 8(a) does not include solar and wind which have no fuel. In thecase of “geothermal heat” and “kinetic movement of flowing water,” this is a strange construction ofwords that attempts to define the “fuel” for geothermal and hydroelectricity. However, they are notcommodities since they are not traded, transportable, and relatively difficult to measure.
Press coverage has taken a number of approaches to handling the odd terminology. The mostcommon has been to simply assume that the terms are simply meaningless and substitute logicalalternatives. This is defensible given the president’s lack of background in energy, but falls afoul ofthe standards of legal interpretation which argue against an interpretation that makes some of thetext irrelevant.
Whither Hydro-Québec?
High above René Lévesque Boulevard in Montreal looms the redoubt of Hydro-Québec — long one of the most secretive utilities in North America. While resource plans at other utilities in Canada and the U.S. can run to thousands of pages — including detailed studies of markets, technologies, loads and transmission — Hydro-Québec’s periodic Strategic Plans have slowly but surely shrunk to a minimalist report announcing their existence, their profound popularity and their contribution to the Quebec economy.
In March, the tiniest glimmer of information was released from la
forteresse d’Hydro-Québec.
New Reports
Deconstructing Trump’s Energy Tariff
On February 1, 2025, the president issued an executive order imposing tariffs on Cana-dian energy. The actual tariff language was contained in a previous executive order enti-tled “Declaring A National Energy Emergency.”[…]
The anomalous energy sources in Section 8(a) do not include solar and wind which have no fuel. In the case of “geothermal heat” and “kinetic movement of flowing water”, this is a strange construction of words that attempts to define the “fuel” for geothermal and hydroelectricity. However, they are not commodities since they are not traded, trans-portable, and relatively difficult to measure.
Comments on SB X1-2 Workshop on Maximum Gross Gasoline Refining Margin and Penalty
Restrictions to the maximum margin changes the incentives for any number of market abuses ranging from exaggerated public announcements to wash trades designed to raise the OPIS index. The management of the refineries will exercise more supervision over their California operations if they face the incentive to do so. Absent such incentives, the unexplained market events experienced over the past decade will continue.
West Coast Gasoline Price Excursions in September 2022
In September 2022, West Coast consumers saw the second highest gasoline prices in history even while global oil prices were falling.
Data from the federal Energy Information Administration and the California Energy Commission indicate that production did not decrease during the period of the high prices.
McCullough Research concludes that West Coast refineries’ explanations that unforeseen shortages cause gasoline price increases are questionable, considering that the usual practice is to build inventory to cover sales during operational shutdowns. The attached memo finds little evidence that a supply shortage caused the price spike.
Market surveillance and transparency assure efficient markets, yet the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission do not provide routine surveillance, and until the nation’s gasoline and oil markets are subject to the same procedures that are routine for all other energy markets, the West Coast is vulnerable to market manipulation.