EleBlog

26 May, 2009

Lately, I've been paying attention to the Railroad association (AAR) and its weekly report on railcar loadings. Here's the latest release, which covers data for the week of 5/16. Key sentences:

U.S. railroads originated 247,258 cars during the week, down 25.3 percent from the comparison week in 2008, with loadings down 21.2 percent in the West and 30.9 percent in the East.

All 19 carload commodity groups were down from last year, with declines ranging from 10.2 percent for the grain mill products to 69.5 percent for metallic ores.

Intermodal volume of 188,435 trailers or containers was off 19.4 percent from last year, with container volume down 14.1 percent and trailer traffic off 39.1 percent.

Total volume was estimated at 26.2 billion ton-miles, off 24.3 percent from 2008.

For the first 19 weeks of 2009, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 5,036,579 carloads, down 19.2 percent from 2008; 3,531,569 trailers or containers, down 16.6 percent; and total volume of an estimated 534.6 billion ton-miles, down 18.1 percent.

Here's the key for The EleBlog:


If you compare the year's average so far with the past two weeks, THINGS ARE NOW WORSE than they were earlier in the year.

26 May, 2009

Copper prices have come down to the $2.00 - $2.03 range (per pound). They were higher.

This is contrary to my expectations. The U.S. dollar index has come WAY down in recent weeks, from the 85-86 range to less than 81 today.

Ordinarily, I would guess that a big dip in the $ index would mean a pop in the price of copper. It HAS NOT worked out that way.

One reason might be that the Chinese have either finished completely or "finished for now" their program of buying copper hand-over-fist and sticking it into warehouses. That's what they've been doing for much of 2009, according to numerous reports -- and that might just be what has held up the price of copper.

26 May, 2009

Three recent "Special Report" weekly columns posted to TEDMAG:

I went to a conference on Net Zero Energy Buildings.

Should we do away with air conditioning? Only if we're serious . . . are we?

Feedback on this one was positive: Haven't we been subsidizing conventional energy sources?

26 May, 2009

Just a few points on green, energy, enviromentalism, sustainability, and such:

NECA launches green blog -- find it here and a release about it here. Disclaimer: I work with the person doing the blog (I have zero input into what she writes) on another project.

Home builders say green growing "at a surprising rate" -- they expected otherwise?

Electrical green training.

26 May, 2009

Architects -- the April billing index was down slightly from March, but the AIA played other numbers from the thing as positive (and the decline was slight). Still, the index is more than 7 points below the magic "50" dividing line between expansion + . . . the other thing.

McGraw-Hill Construction -- this April report is interesting, but page down to the bottom of the web page. The UNadjusted non-residential construction total for the year's first 4 months = a 42% decline in the $ value of construction starts. The above index (AIA Billings Index, or ABI) has been giving off negative signals since 2/08. Now, the work that didn't make it onto the architects boards IS NOT being built on jobsites.

Reed -- this alternative to MHC above shows April as a worse month than MHC says it was, but overall nonresidential is down only 21.5%. Who is "right?" I have no idea, but there sure is a big difference between a 21.5% decline and a 42% decline, isn't there?

NAHB -- "The Economic Contraction Is Losing Steam," it says here. The EleBlog thinks this is a bunch of hogwash, but we're all entitled to our views -- and you are entitled to look at something with which I don't agree.

26 May, 2009

I had a pretty intense period of travel (to LightFair in NYC and to the NAED Leadership Summit in Florida), plus a bunch of out-of-the-office days at the IBEW Construction & Maintenance Conference (D.C.) and one day at BICSI's Spring Conference (Baltimore).

So the blog was dormant. Sorry about that, apparently I am unable to multi-task.

08 May, 2009

On page 19 of the 29-page PDF released today on the national employment/unemployment picture, there is a line (line U-6 in table A-12), labeled as follows:


The UNadjusted figure for April was 15.4%, which The EleBlog would call the "true" unemployment rate, down from the 16.2% in March.

April 2008 = 8.9%

On a seasonally ADJUSTED basis, the April number was 15.8%, up from 15.4%. April 2008 was given as 9.2%.

08 May, 2009

BLS is always one month behind in providing construction subcontractor employment numbers. So what came out today was MARCH employment in electrical contracting. Here's a look at the Production Workers (foremen, journeymen, apprentices, helpers) in this report:

• March's total, at 636,000 (subject to revision next month), was the lowest total since March 2004.

• February and March 2004 were low-employment months in electrical construction. You have to go back to early 1998 to see monthly numbers consistently running below 640,000.

• Feb 09's revised total was given as 647,200. So EC production-worker employment fell marginally from Feb to March.

• March 2009 was 11.17% below March 2008.

08 May, 2009

The Bureau of Labor Statistics updated the national employment picture today. Here's a subject -- production workers (field employees) in CONSTRUCTION.

• 4,682,000 production workers were employed in Construction as of April. This is a preliminary number, subject to two future revisions (next 2 months).

• That compares with 5,507,000 such workers employed in 4/08. The decline is almost exactly 15%.

• At 4.68M, the April number is higher than February and March. However, it's lower than January's total. Is that attributable to good January weather?

• That 4/09 number is the lowest April construction employment number since 1998.

• For April, the BLS added 38,000 construction jobs via its Birth/Death model estimate. This just seems so unlikely. But there it is!!!

BLS posted a revised March number (subject to one future revision) of 4.60M employed as Construction production workers, so the April number is UP a bit. Of course, one expects April's construction employment number to increase from March's number. A quick check showed that it has happened EVERY YEAR going to the late 1970s, including every recession year.

08 May, 2009

The Census Dept. emitted the March 2009 "construction put-in-place" report (also called "construction spending") on 5/4. Here's what it said about Q1 of 2009, in brief (and probably subject to some revisions over time):

Total construction in the year's first 3 months -- down 10.9%, from $235B in '08 to $209B this year.


These are seasonally UNadjusted, the real numbers.

EleBlog take: Thus far, nonresidential construction hasn't been seriously hurt. YET.

06 May, 2009

Saw a lot of exhibitors on Day One of LightFair 2009. Attended one session, which I had to leave early. The topic:

"100,000-Hour Lifetimes and Other LED Fairytales." Presenter: Dr. John W. Curran of LED Transformations.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early (after only 1 HR of this 90-minute session). Some points worth thinking about:


Curran stressed, at the beginning of his presentation, that he was not ANTI-LEDs. But he made a lot of points aimed at getting lighting people to rethink blind faith in LEDs. There's an awful lot yet to be done. I skipped ahead to slide #99 (of 101) to get to his conclusions, which I did not get to hear:

01 May, 2009

I'll be you might actually know that it's Electrical Safety Month. May, that is.

But: Did you also know that May 3-9 is Building Safety Week . . . ?

01 May, 2009

I don't like it, but it's straight reporting -- SV Solar going, and Photowatt ceasing activity.  (More)

01 May, 2009

Stan Shook, who graces the pages of Electrical Contractor magazine each month with his Estimating column, has a blog, it turns out. Heading: "Beyond Estimating."

Two recent posts were on his first-ever visit (and speaking appearances) at the User's Conference of McCormick Systems, a sponsor of this site (and client of the EleBlog's owner as well). See the 4/23 and 4/28 posts.

01 May, 2009

Click here to see a YouTube video that explains that there's nothing whatsoever "wrong" with carbon dioxide.

01 May, 2009

From a Barry Ritholtz blog post (in which he quotes another blogger):

GOOD GRIEF!