Kick

As the natural gas and electric-powered vehicle revolution gets set to kick off over the next year, those who are producing the vehicles as well as for those who are developing the utility support infrastructure continue to make preparations.

After failing to key off Tuesday’s kick-off of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, natural gas bulls grabbed hold of Wednesday to test out higher prices. The July contract put in a high of $4.440 before closing out the regular session at $4.424, up 17.6 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

After years of resisting special financial treatment for unconventional drilling, the Alberta government is showing signs of preparing to grant new breaks to kick-start activity that has to date largely bypassed Canada’s largest producing province.

After years of resisting special financial treatment for unconventional drilling, the Alberta government is showing signs of preparing to grant new breaks to kick-start activity that has to date largely bypassed Canada’s largest producing province.

In what could kick off a final decision by July, the final environmental review was released by the U.S. Coast Guard Friday on the proposed offshore Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal, 14 miles out to sea from Oxnard, CA, west of Malibu. The voluminous documents (48 pages for the table of contents alone) will be the subject of separate public hearings by the Coast Guard and California in early April.

FERC Chairman Pat Wood signaled last Wednesday that the agency will kick off an inquiry into whether the sweeping 1996 electricity deregulation rule, Order 888, needs to be revised or updated to shield against transmission-access discrimination, according to published reports.

Finding almost no heating load of any consequence remaining and with nothing resembling summer heat to kick-start power generation demand surfacing yet outside parts of the desert Southwest, prices continued to drop Friday. Thursday’s slightly bearish storage report and the typical weekend slump in industrial load contributed to the cash market’s decline.

The Bush administration is “absolutely” committed to kick-starting a two-decade-long effort to create a global hydrogen-based economy that will use fuel cells as a major enabler, according to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, speaking Wednesday at the National Hydrogen Association’s 15th annual conference in Los Angeles.

Canadian oilsands producers are being urged to go to work on “kicking the natural gas dependency” after an industry canvass turned up alarming demand projections. In a draft report scheduled for release early in 2004, the Alberta Chamber of Resources says that continuing present patterns would cause an “unthinkable” squeeze, with up to half of Canadian gas supplies needed to make the synthetic oil which is rapidly taking over from conventional production.