The recent dramatic plunge in oil and natural gas prices, to their lowest level since the global recession in 2009, has some observers worried about the effect on clean tech. Conventional wisdom has it that renewables have a tougher time competing when fossil fuels are cheap, making grid parity (in the case of natural gas-fired electricity) more elusive for solar and wind power.

For many mining companies, the rallying cry for investigating solar or wind energy options has been that the price of oil and other conventional fuels is too high — and will almost certainly rise over time. Now, though, with oil prices having taken a dramatic nosedive, this argument no longer packs quite the same punch that it once did.

October 17 marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo — an event that arguably launched the United States' ongoing pursuit of a national energy policy.

This month marks the anniversaries of two notable events, decades apart yet related in terms of historical impact, awareness of vulnerability, and challenge to business as usual: the Arab oil embargo 40 years ago (Oct. 19-20, 1973) and Superstorm Sandy, which hit the Northeast on Oct. 29 last year. Both events sparked a national and global focus on two concepts I’ve been hearing quite a bit about in recent months: adaptation and resilience.

Europe’s concern about its reliance on Russian fossil fuels may spur governments to prioritize alternative energy, the head of Neste Oil Oyj said.

HANGU: The police claimed to have foiled a car-snatching bid and arrested the accused in the district on Saturday.Police said that one Arifur Rehman, a resident of Naryab, was going to Peshawar in his car when accused Syed Saqi Abbas and Fahim intercepted him in Ibrahimzai area after a long...

It was the company’s first bond sale since a $5 billion offering in March 2015.

The post Malaysia’s state oil giant Petronas raises $6b in first bond offering in five years appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

Weak global cues, lower crude oil prices and political bickering over the government's demonetisation move pulled the Indian equity markets lower on Thursday.

This year the United Nations has officially declared 19 November World Toilet Day to raise awareness of the sanitation crisis faced by millions every day. Similarly, the OECD places great importance on the issue of water and sanitation. It has undertaken significant work on the issue to help promote global awareness, encourage action and propose viable solutions.

Issues related to water and sanitation are a priority for the OECD. A number of people working at the OECD are also involved through our War on Hunger Group. For example, last year the Group funded a project in Mozambique to reduce diarrhoea by at least 25% in children under the age of five by training in hygiene and changing current practices.

It’s time for governments to ramp up the development of alternative energies and to nail a price onto every tonne of CO2 emitted. With COP21 taking place in Paris in November, sending the right message on climate change means gradually increasing the cost of CO2 emissions, and creating a strong economic incentive to reduce the carbon entanglement and to move towards a zero-carbon world.

The year 2015 is the International Year of Soils. It is also the year the UN Millennium Development Goals launched in 2000 expire, and are to be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 goals and their 169 targets cover a vast range of issues, but care for the soil is the foundation of sustainability and is central to practically every SDG.

This joint OECD/France conference to be held in Paris on 16 September 2015 will aim to lay the foundation for the international effort which is needed on public policy options and economic incentives to support food security, the fight against climate change and adaptation to climate change while integrating soil issues in that effort.

Estonia needs to move faster to reduce its dependence on oil shale so it can advance towards a greener economy and reduce air pollution and waste generation, according to a new OECD report.

Culture is another name of Rajasthan and famous for their festivals and traditional fairs. While you are exploring this state where golden sand dune desert exist. So the desert may offer a magical view of sandy vastness that spread miles...

The year 2015 is the International Year of Soils. It is also the year the UN Millennium Development Goals launched in 2000 expire, and are to be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 goals and their 169 targets cover a vast range of issues, but care for the soil is the foundation of sustainability and is central to practically every SDG.

Estonia needs to move faster to reduce its dependence on oil shale so it can advance towards a greener economy and reduce air pollution and waste generation, according to a new OECD report.

Low oil prices and monetary easing are boosting growth in the world’s major economies, but the near-term pace of expansion remains modest, withabnormally low inflation and interest rates pointing to risks of financial instability, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Assessment.

The worst may now be over, but as one frontline doctor reveals in her latest diary, traumatised medics now have time to reflect on the life-and-death decisions taken in the heat of battle… 

QF171 left Melbourne at just after 9am on Saturday morning but a mechanical issue meant its intended landing in Wellington at 2.35pm was aborted and the plane diverted to an air base with no customs.

SafeWork New South Wales has slapped Qantas with an improvement notice after observing cleaners handle used face masks, vomit, soiled nappies and dirty tissues without gloves or masks.

1. The hearing was conducted through video conferencing.

OMP (I) (COMM.) 95 & 96/2020 Page 1 of 4

2. Petitioner, by the present petition, under Section 9 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as the "Arbitration Act"), inter alia seeks a restraint on the respondent from invoking and encashing the performance bank guarantees issued by respondent no. 2 on behalf of the petitioner and further seeks a direction to respondent no. 1 to release the payments due to the petitioner under the relevant contracts.

3. It is submitted that the respondent no. 2 is a Performa party.

4. Several contracts have been executed between petitioner and respondent no. 1 for provision of services, personnel and equipment. The contracts were executed as part of a composite transaction for the performance of services between petitioner and respondent no. 1 and are subject to and governed by Master Services Agreement and Master Supply Agreement.

Mark Zuckerberg held a phone press conference from the comfort of his home to announce Facebook's 'Coronavirus Information Center' that will provide authoritative information to users.

Howard Cox, founder of FairFuelUK, said the average prices of a litre of unleaded and diesel should be 98p and 106p respectively, but are around 10p higher on average at retailers.

The worst may now be over, but as one frontline doctor reveals in her latest diary, traumatised medics now have time to reflect on the life-and-death decisions taken in the heat of battle… 

Amid the worldwide toilet paper shortage, Khloé Kardashian plastered her older sister Kourtney's home with the highly sought-after paper good. 

The decline in oil prices and the value of investment assets since the start of the coronavirus outbreak will have an adverse impact on the "financial solvency" of the state, Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Saturday.

Archives, Room Use Only - PR4057.B16 B35 1882

The police seized perpetrator’s laptop, mobile phones and storage devices from his house.

London soil pollution worst on former Blitz bomb sites  Chemistry World

'Surrey swarm' quakes 'not caused by oil extraction'  BBC News

UK Geothermal: boiling beneath the surface?  Power Technology

Scottish researchers win £12m CCUS funding from European pot - News for the Oil and Gas Sector  Energy Voice

'Surrey swarm' earthquakes not caused by nearby oil extraction, study suggests  Science Daily

Oil workers in North Sea feel effects of earthquake, with platform 'shaking'  Evening Telegraph

The phase problem remains a major barrier to overcome in protein structure solution by X-ray crystallography. In recent years, new molecular-replacement approaches using ab initio models and ideal secondary-structure components have greatly contributed to the solution of novel structures in the absence of clear homologues in the PDB or experimental phasing information. This has been particularly successful for highly α-helical structures, and especially coiled-coils, in which the relatively rigid α-helices provide very useful molecular-replacement fragments. This has been seen within the program AMPLE, which uses clustered and truncated ensembles of numerous ab initio models in structure solution, and is already accomplished for α-helical and coiled-coil structures. Here, an expansion in the scope of coiled-coil structure solution by AMPLE is reported, which has been achieved through general improvements in the pipeline, the removal of tNCS correction in molecular replacement and two improved methods for ab initio modelling. Of the latter improvements, enforcing the modelling of elongated helices overcame the bias towards globular folds and provided a rapid method (equivalent to the time requirements of the existing modelling procedures in AMPLE) for enhanced solution. Further, the modelling of two-, three- and four-helical oligomeric coiled-coils, and the use of full/partial oligomers in molecular replacement, provided additional success in difficult and lower resolution cases. Together, these approaches have enabled the solution of a number of parallel/antiparallel dimeric, trimeric and tetrameric coiled-coils at resolutions as low as 3.3 Å, and have thus overcome previous limitations in AMPLE and provided a new functionality in coiled-coil structure solution at lower resolutions. These new approaches have been incorporated into a new release of AMPLE in which automated elongated monomer and oligomer modelling may be activated by selecting `coiled-coil' mode.

Clays and soils produce strong small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) because they contain large numbers of nanoparticles, namely allophane and ferrihydrite. These nanoparticles are amorphous and have approximately spherical shape with a size of around 3–10 nm. The weight ratios of these nanoparticles will affect the properties of the clays and soils. However, the nanoparticles in clays and soils are not generally quantified and are sometimes ignored because there is no standard method to quantify them. This paper describes a method to quantify nanoparticles in clays and soils with SAXS. This is achieved by deriving normalized SAXS intensities from unit weight of the sample, which are not affected by absorption. By integrating the normalized SAXS intensities over the reciprocal space, one obtains a value that is proportional to the weight ratio of the nanoparticles, proportional to the square of the difference of density between the nanoparticles and the liquid surrounding the nanoparticles, and inversely proportional to the density of the nanoparticles. If the density of the nanoparticles is known, the weight ratio of the nanoparticles can be calculated from the SAXS intensities. The density of nanoparticles was estimated from the chemical composition of the sample. Nanoparticles in colloidal silica, silica gels, mixtures of silica gel and α-aluminium oxide, and synthetic clays have been quantified with the integral SAXS method. The results show that the errors of the weight ratios of nanoparticles are around 25% of the weight ratio. It is also shown that some natural clays contain large fractions of nanoparticles; montmorillonite clay from the Mikawa deposit, pyrophillite clay from the Shokozan deposit and kaolinite clay from the Kanpaku deposit contain 25 (7), 10 (2) and 19 (5) wt% nanoparticles, respectively, where errors are shown in parentheses.

Single-crystalline-like thin films composed of crystallographically aligned grains are a new prototype of 2D materials developed recently for low-cost and high-performance flexible electronics as well as second-generation high-temperature superconductors. In this work, significant texture improvement in single-crystalline-like materials is achieved through growth of a 330 nm-thick silver layer.

Several oils were examined for use in the cleaning and cryoprotection of crystals in the lipidic cubic phase in terms of their effect on the crystal stability, the background scattering and the facilitation of the experiment.

The post “How Soil Savvy are You?, is featured in the exhibition “Dig It! The Secrets of Soil,” from the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A new study shows that as climate change enhances tree growth in tropical forests, the resulting increase in litterfall could stimulate soil micro-organisms leading to a release of stored soil carbon.

The post Increased tropical forest growth may result in release of stored carbon in the soil appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

When scientists discuss global change, they often focus on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and vegetation. But soil contains more carbon than air […]

The post Fungi may determine the future of soil carbon appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

How specific fungi interact with seeds in tropical forest soils may be the ultimate arbiter in the struggle for survival among tropical trees. “Depending on […]

The post Study reveals soil fungi has final say in survival of seeds from tropical trees appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The impact of polluted urban soil on trees is highlighted in a recent study from Latvia. The researchers found that high salt levels from de-icing chemicals and nutrient imbalance in soil damaged lime trees growing in the city of Riga.

Source: Streetwise Reports   05/07/2020

In a May 5 research note, analyst John Freeman reported that Raymond James increased its target price on Parsley Energy, Inc. (PE:NYSE) after it posted its Q1/20 numbers.

Raymond James' new target price on Parsley is $12 per share, up from $11. The Texas-based energy company's stock is trading now at about $9.38 per share.

Freeman reviewed and commented on Parsley's Q1/20 results. The company "delivered modest EBITDA and earnings per share beats relative to the Street" due to oil pricing," Freeman pointed out.

Production was relatively in line at 126,600,000 barrels of oil per day (126.6 MMbbl/d), which was 1% higher than consensus' forecast but 1% below Raymond James' estimate. Total production was 1% above the Street's projection but 3% below Raymond James' forecast.

"The performance on the quarter was encouraging, however, the highlight from earnings was the significant reduction in 2020 capex (down from about $1 billion to less than $700 million)," Freeman commented.

Capex, "a welcome surprise," Freeman wrote, came in 5% and 7% lower than the investment bank and the Street's estimates, respectively. Opex was 3% under Raymond James' projection

Moreover, Parsley's related maintenance capital needs were greatly below expectations as well, indicating that Parsley made capital efficiency gains during the period.

"We were pleasantly surprised that Parsley is able to maintain in line Q4/20 oil volumes (about 115 MMbbl/d) on a capital program that's about $300 million/30% below the Street," added Freeman.

Looking forward, Raymond James modeled a base case, or stable scenario for Parsley, that implies a West Texas Intermediate oil price of about $30 a barrel and Parsley having four to five rigs and one to two crews operating. In that scenario, Parsley would produce about 117 MMbbl/d in 2020 and 115 MMbbl/d in 2021.

Capex would amount to about $678 million in 2020, dropping to $598 million in 2021.

Free cash flow would be about $300 million in 2020, which coincides with Parsley's guidance of $300M plus, and increasing to $370 million in 2021.

Raymond James has an Outperform rating on Parsley Energy.

Disclosure:
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Disclosures from Raymond James, Parsley Energy Inc, May 5, 2020

ANALYST INFORMATION

Analysts Holdings and Compensation: Equity analysts and their staffs at Raymond James are compensated based on a salary and bonus system. Several factors enter into the bonus determination, including quality and performance of research product, the analyst's success in rating stocks versus an industry index, and support effectiveness to trading and the retail and institutional sales forces. Other factors may include but are not limited to: overall ratings from internal (other than investment banking) or external parties and the general productivity and revenue generated in covered stocks.

The analyst John Freeman, primarily responsible for the preparation of this research report, attests to the following: (1) that the views and opinions rendered in this research report reflect his or her personal views about the subject companies or issuers and (2) that no part of the research analyst's compensation was, is, or will be directly or indirectly related to the specific recommendations or views in this research report. In addition, said analyst(s) has not received compensation from any subject company in the last 12 months.

RAYMOND JAMES RELATIONSHIP DISCLOSURES
Certain affiliates of the RJ Group expect to receive or intend to seek compensation for investment banking services from all companies under research coverage within the next three months.

Raymond James & Associates, Inc. makes a market in the shares of Parsley Energy, Inc.

Additional Risk and Disclosure information, as well as more information on the Raymond James rating system and suitability categories, is available here.