As government-imposed lockdown measures confined hundreds of millions of Americans to their homes, many began to entertain DIY projects they previously hadn’t the time or resources to complete. Over 75 percent of homeowners surveyed by Porch.com in July 2020 had completed a home improvement project since the beginning of the pandemic. Would-be craftsmen who have waited until now to begin renovations may be out of luck, however––over the past year, the price of lumber has skyrocketed, and home project expenses have risen with them.

From a price of $259.80 per thousand board-feet (the standard unit of lumber trading) on 1 April 2020, on Friday 7 May 2021, the price of lumber had risen to $1,686 per thousand board-feet as the DIY boom coincided with dire challenges to the lumber industry, including increased home building, mill closures, and staffing shortages.

Construction crews began to build homes with scarce materials, exacerbating shortages. Even a year on, mill capacity is limited, and production simply cannot meet the booming demand.

Lumber’s meteoric price rise has been unprecedented. In the futures markets, where producers and users of commodities trade to hedge against unanticipated changes of price over longer periods of time, lumber markets have typically been among the most quiescent, especially compared to crude oil, gold, natural gas, and soybeans. In fact, lumber contracts have typically been neck-and-neck with frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) contracts at the bottom of daily trading volumes ranked among all such derivatives. Indeed, with only a handful of exceptions between the mid-1980s and late 2019, the price of lumber per thousand-board feet has traded somewhat listlessly between $200 and $500. Yet front-month lumber has risen 450 percent between the end of 2019 and the end of April 2021, with the period between March 26 and April 19, 2021 showing an unbroken run of 16 daily price increases and a number of limit-up triggers along the way.

Without suggesting that the rise in prices has been purely speculative, perhaps the modern embodiment of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.’s barometer of frenzy––stock tips from shoeshine boys––is found in the burst of TikTok videos taking notice of prevailing market conditions. (Many employ the hashtags #lumberprices and #woodprices.)… CLICK for the complete article

An oncoming mineral shortage may derail our green future.

Humans can’t catch a break, even in the future.

A recently released report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), highlighted the at-odds relationship between the surging demand for rare minerals and their tight supply.

Experts believe this mismatch could derail countries’ efforts to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the most recent UN goal.

The reason…

Green energy production is a mineral junkie

Popular green energy solutions use a variety of rare earth metals and minerals. Two examples:

• An electric vehicle (EV) uses 6x as many mineral resources as a fossil fuel car.
• An offshore wind plant requires 9x as many mineral resources as a comparable gas power plant.

According to the IEA’s analysis, manufacturers will need 6x the amount of minerals being produced today by 2040.

Predicted demand for “White Gold” lithium used in EV batteries is otherworldly, expected to 70x in the next few decades. Accounting for existing global lithium mines, we’d only be able to meet about half the demand expected in this decade.

And there’s the supply chain…

… it’s delicate, like one-country-produces-most-of-it delicate.

In 2019, 70% of world’s cobalt production comes from the Demorcatic Republic of Congo. And not to be out-dug, China produces nearly 60% of all rare earth metals — AKA fancy elements ending in “-ium.”

But there’s hope. The IEA report outlined 6 areas of action to avoid the oncoming shortage, which included developing green technologies that aren’t so mineral-dependent.

So if we all work together, we can avoid Armageddon… sounds promising.

The country’s largest gasoline pipeline is mostly out of commission after the system’s operator, Colonial Pipeline, got hit with a ransomware attack.

What happened: On Thursday, the hackers reportedly stole nearly 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial’s computer systems, then locked up its computers and demanded payment. Colonial shut down the pipeline Friday as a precaution.

• That “double-extortion” scheme is a hallmark of the criminal group DarkSide, which experts consider the prime suspect in this hack.

What are the consequences?

Well, it’s like if officials shut down I-95 and you had to take Route 1, in all its traffic-light glory, from Florida to Maine.

The pipeline is the main source of diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel for the East Coast. It hauls more than 100 million gallons of fuel a day from Gulf Coast refineries to major hubs up the coast, including airports in Atlanta, North Carolina, and NYC.

So should we expect a toilet paper-like run on gasoline? No, but the total damage will depend on how long the outage lasts. If the pipeline is down five-to-six days, it could lead to shortages and price increases. By last night, Colonial had restored service to some minor parts of its system, but not its four main lines.

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