Saturday’s WSJ – “Court Overturns Clearance for Offshore Wind Farm” – federal appeals court told the FAA to redo its review of the Cape Wind project.  The $2.6 billion project has been trying for years to become the first commercial-scale wind farm in the U.S., but the “Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound” has been battling the project in the courts.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia told the FAA to do a more thorough review before finding that the project wouldn’t impact aircraft safety . . . .

Saturday’s WSJ also noted that forecasts of colder temperatures caused natural gas futures to jump 4.2% to $3.923 per million Btus.  ”Frosty Air Heating Up Gas Futures” quoted Matt Smith at Summit Energy:  ”It’s all about the weather.”    The same article reported that US EIA found underground gas inventory up 92 billion cubic feet, “much higher than the five-year average build for the current period.”  If futures can “jump” to only $3.92 per MBtu, the news is really how astoundingly low natural gas prices will probably stay. . . .

Front page in multiple papers Saturday on White House review of all loan guarantees made by DOE under the stimulus bill.  WaPo headline:  ”White House orders audit of Energy Dept. loans: Move comes amid GOP subpoena threat in Solyndra case.”  The story that won’t die, the “review is a tacit acknowledgment that the loan program, defended by President Obama and his senior advisers for weeks, has raised enough internal concern that an outside assessment is necessary to clear the air and determine its future.”  Good luck clearing the air.  Loan guarantee program future is bleak . . . .

Front page Sunday NYT:   “A New York Village’s Debate Over Drilling Turns Personal”:  ”The debate over horizontal hydraulic fracturing . . . has become increasingly contentious across the Eastern United States, with dozens of communities passing or considering bans.”  No real news here, including the allegation that fracking opponents are also generally “antigrowth fanatics, opposing a once-a-year music festival . . . wind turbines . . .even additional Little League fields. . . . .”

And the most important piece of the weekend, Dan Yergin in Sunday’s WaPo, Outlook section.  In “Oil’s new world order,” Yergin makes the point that the global geopolitical balance of power in the oil economy is shifting.  He finds that a “new world oil map is emerging” . . .”centered not on the Middle East but on the Western Hemisphere.”  But don’t breathe a sigh of relief yet, for since “there is only one world oil market” the U.S. “will still be vulnerable to disruptions . . . .”  Darn.

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