Energy buoys Wall Street after selloff, Syria eyed

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange August 27, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK | Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:42am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Energy shares buoyed Wall Street on Wednesday as oil prices jumped after the United States and its allies appeared ready to attack Syria, raising concerns over global oil supplies.

Selling pressure abated on equities following stocks' worst day since June a day earlier amid heightened tensions over a possible Western response to an alleged chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians by President Bashar al-Assad's government.

The S&P 500 index fell 2 percent in the past two days and the CBOE Volatility Index .VIX rose 20 percent, reflecting investor uncertainty.

Tuesday's selloff "may have been an over reaction to what we know now on Syria," said John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in New York. However, he said, the consequences of any conflict are unknown and the selling could have only started.

The United Nations Security Council was set for a showdown on Wednesday after Britain sought authorization for Western military action against Syria that seems certain to be vetoed by Russia and probably China.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 28.8 points or 0.19 percent, to 14,804.93, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 3.56 points or 0.22 percent, to 1,634.04 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 14.088 points or 0.39 percent, to 3,592.612.

Brent crude hit a six-month high and U.S. crude hit its highest in more than two years on concerns foreign military action in Syria may further destabilize the Middle East.

The S&P energy index .SPNY rose 1.3 percent to lead the top ten S&P sectors. Chevron (CVX.N), up 2 percent at $121.25, and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), up 1.3 percent at $87.93, were the top performers on the S&P 500.

An index of airline shares .XAL fell 0.7 percent after falling 3.9 percent on Tuesday.

Analysts said a possible decline in consumer confidence and spending, due to higher oil prices and the possibility of a larger conflict, was affecting U.S. equities.

Gold prices rose to 3-1/2 month highs above $1,430 an ounce as the Syria tensions raised its appeal as a safe-haven asset.

On Wall Street, U.S. government housing finance authorities are pressing JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) for at least $6 billion to settle lawsuits over bonds backed by subprime mortgages, according to a person familiar with the matter. JPMorgan shares fell 0.5 percent to $50.36.

Shares of mining equipment manufacturer Joy Global (JOY.N) fell 5.6 percent to $48.45 after it reported a lower profit for the third quarter and said orders fell.

Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes fell for the second straight month in July, a sign that rising mortgage rates are taking some steam out of America's housing market recovery.

The PHLX housing sector index .HGX fell 0.6 percent.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Countryside Fears Over Solar Energy Growth

By Emma Birchley, East of England Correspondent

Rural campaigners say the push to generate green energy through giant solar farms is having an unacceptable impact on Britain's rural landscape.

Developments like Burntstalks Solar Farm in Norfolk, which has nearly 50,000 photovoltaic panels and captures enough of the sun's rays to power nearly 4,000 homes, are heralded as a sensible solution to the UK's energy needs.

However, some claim the sites are yet another blot on the landscape and are ruining the countryside.

David Hook, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, told Sky News: "I think that if policy is not changed ... the industrialisation through solar farms and extra wind turbines is going to have a dramatic effect on the countryside, and a very negative effect."

It is only two years since the UK's first large scale sun park began generating electricity in Lincolnshire.

There are now nearly 160, mostly in rural areas, with a further 229 under construction or awaiting approval.

David Hook wants policy to change

Lightsource Renewable Energy owns and operates dozens of solar farms, including Burntstalks, near King's Lynn.

Mark Turner, the company's operations director, said: "The balance we have to strike is between a solar farm that can generally only be seen by people very close up to it and usually by fleeting glimpses through hedgerows as you are driving along, versus potential wind farms or the other alternatives of non-renewables including nuclear power stations and coal-fired power stations.

"The amount of ground taken up by the farm is minimal and what we then try to do, as far as possible, is to use the land for dual use.

"We graze sheep or plant wild flowers, so the land is used for the kind of purpose it would be used for before the panels were here."

The Government has made it clear it backs the production of solar energy, which it hopes will eventually produce 20GW of energy every year - eight times more than at present and enough to power around six million homes.

Its priority is for panels to be put on brownfield sites and the roofs of factories, hospitals and houses but according to Mr Turner, that is not always possible.

"Finding roof tops that are owned by companies we can rely on to be there in the 25 years we need to return the investment is extremely difficult," he said.

"And finding brownfield sites that are sufficiently far enough south to generate enough electricity, are close enough to the grid and aren't dedicated to other purposes, is extremely difficult."

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Countryside Fears Over Solar Energy Growth

By Emma Birchley, East of England Correspondent

Rural campaigners say the push to generate green energy through giant solar farms is having an unacceptable impact on Britain's rural landscape.

Developments like Burntstalks Solar Farm in Norfolk, which has nearly 50,000 photovoltaic panels and captures enough of the sun's rays to power nearly 4,000 homes, are heralded as a sensible solution to the UK's energy needs.

However, some claim the sites are yet another blot on the landscape and are ruining the countryside.

David Hook, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, told Sky News: "I think that if policy is not changed ... the industrialisation through solar farms and extra wind turbines is going to have a dramatic effect on the countryside, and a very negative effect."

It is only two years since the UK's first large scale sun park began generating electricity in Lincolnshire.

There are now nearly 160, mostly in rural areas, with a further 229 under construction or awaiting approval.

David Hook wants policy to change

Lightsource Renewable Energy owns and operates dozens of solar farms, including Burntstalks, near King's Lynn.

Mark Turner, the company's operations director, said: "The balance we have to strike is between a solar farm that can generally only be seen by people very close up to it and usually by fleeting glimpses through hedgerows as you are driving along, versus potential wind farms or the other alternatives of non-renewables including nuclear power stations and coal-fired power stations.

"The amount of ground taken up by the farm is minimal and what we then try to do, as far as possible, is to use the land for dual use.

"We graze sheep or plant wild flowers, so the land is used for the kind of purpose it would be used for before the panels were here."

The Government has made it clear it backs the production of solar energy, which it hopes will eventually produce 20GW of energy every year - eight times more than at present and enough to power around six million homes.

Its priority is for panels to be put on brownfield sites and the roofs of factories, hospitals and houses but according to Mr Turner, that is not always possible.

"Finding roof tops that are owned by companies we can rely on to be there in the 25 years we need to return the investment is extremely difficult," he said.

"And finding brownfield sites that are sufficiently far enough south to generate enough electricity, are close enough to the grid and aren't dedicated to other purposes, is extremely difficult."

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Mitchell's tenacity led to US energy boom

NEW YORK (AP) — The technological breakthrough pioneered by George P. Mitchell, the billionaire Texas oilman and philanthropist who died Friday at age 94, reversed the fortunes of the U.S. energy industry and reshaped the global energy landscape.

As Mitchell was doggedly pursuing the natural gas he and others knew was trapped in thin layers of sedimentary rock under several U.S. states, it appeared to most that the world was running out of oil and gas and what was left was found mostly in the Middle East.

U.S. natural gas production had peaked in 1972 and prices were rising to alarming new levels in the middle of the 2000s, raising heating and electricity bills and sending U.S. manufacturers of plastics, fertilizer and countless other natural gas-dependent goods overseas.

U.S. oil production, meanwhile, had peaked in 1970, and fell every year but one between 1985 and 2008.

But after 20 years of trying, Mitchell finally learned how to combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing, a process together known now generally as fracking, to release natural gas at a rate fast enough to turn a profit. But the practice has also sparked powerful antagonism, especially in the Northeast, from residents and environmentalists opposed to increased industrial activity in rural areas and concerned that the fracking process or the wastewater it generates can contaminate drinking water.

By the mid-2000s, fracking had spread across the industry and the country, and natural gas production in the U.S. began to soar in such places as Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. In 2005, the U.S. produced 19 million cubic feet of gas, about the same amount produced in 1968. Last year, the U.S. produced 25 million cubic feet, a U.S. record and more gas than any other nation. And all this while drillers held back: They would have produced more if prices hadn't fallen to 20-year lows.

But this cheap gas lowered energy bills for consumers and inspired plans for new chemical plants, steel plants and fertilizer plants around the nation from manufacturers looking to capitalize on some of the lowest natural gas prices in the world. Electric utilities drastically increased the use of natural gas to generate power, and cut back on the use of coal, helping the U.S. power industry substantially reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide.

The U.S. now has the potential to produce so much gas that companies are looking to export it to Europe and Asia, just five years after regulators were approving plans to import natural gas in hopes of avoiding an energy crisis.

In some areas fracking has been blamed for air pollution and gas leaks that have ruined well water, but the Obama administration and many state regulators say the practice is safe when done properly. New York, which is thought to have considerable natural gas resources, has imposed a moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing and star-studded activist groups have staged countless rallies and events to generate opposition to the practice.

As natural gas drillers were perfecting fracking, oil engineers learned to adapt the process to squeeze crude out of oil-bearing rock. By 2008, they had learned to tap oil deposits in formations in North Dakota and South Texas, and U.S. oil production started to creep up. It soon boomed.

Last year U.S. crude production rose to 6.5 million barrels per day the U.S. after posting the largest single-year rise in oil production since 1951, and production is on track to rise to 7.3 million barrels per day this year. That's an increase of 46 percent since 2008. The increase of 2.3 million barrels per day is about as much oil as Venezuela produces. The International Energy Agency says the U.S. is on track to be the world's biggest crude producer by the end of the decade.

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Cooperation Between a Primary Terminal and an Energy Harvesting Cognitive Radio Terminal. (arXiv:1307.4744v2 [cs.IT] UPDATED)

Subjects: Information Theory (cs.IT); Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI) Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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