Energy Roundup: Speculators On Speculating, No Uranium Enrichment, Coda's Funding and More

To curb, or not to curb – Energy speculation has been getting plenty of attention, with legislators threatening to place hard limits on trades. Now the traders are finally mobilizing to fight back, or at least win some concessions. Goldman Sachs, for example, says that trading curbs will disrupt the market, while JPMorgan predicts that trading will simply move overseas. [Sources: Bloomberg, Associated Press]

DOE cancels loans for uranium enrichment — The U.S. Enrichment Corp. has had a $3.5 million loan guarantee for a uranium enrichment plant in Ohio canceled by the Department of Energy. The DOE reportedly said that USEC’s technology needs more work; the company, for its part, says that the project will now need to be shut down. [Source: Oil and Gas Journal]

Coda gets funding for electric sedan – An electric car startup, Coda Automotive, has received $24 million for the release of its sedan in 2010 in California. Some of the backers include private equity firm Angeleno Group, Piper Jaffray and Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff. [Source: Gas 2.0]

Shell profits fall, more jobs to go – The oil giant’s quarterly profits fell 70 percent, touching off another round of job cuts. Among its various other problems, the company reported that militant attacks in Nigeria in the late spring and early summer actually caused negative growth in liquefied natural gas production. Other areas were hurt by excess oil capacity in the market. [Sources: The Guardian, WSJ]

Wind power still a great idea, a century later — It’s not exactly fresh news, but the Times of London has reprinted an article from 1909 extolling the virtues of wind power in England. This may sound familiar: “In view of our diminishing returns of coal and petroleum, the utilization of wind-power deserves careful attention … the intermittent and varying results obtained from wind-mills, however, confine their usefulness to industries in which the storage of power can be simply effected. [Source: Financial Times]