What has changed?

For those of you who check in regularly, I must apologize. I have been attempting to fulfill my American dream - buying our first house ourselves (my wife is a PA-licensed real estate salesperson) So, if any apartment dwellers have any questions, hit me.

What else has changed in the past few months? When I last wrote, we were talking about energy prices, natural resource plays in Canada, and instability in Iran. Ok, it appears NOTHING has changed in these last few months, so here goes the latest:

Ethanol is worse than you thought - it's a net loser!
Although most green advocates and US security analysts have praised ethanol as a solution to our energy dependence issues, it turns out ethanol may be a net loser. In other words, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than the ethanol actually contains! Yikes.

American Energy / Royalty Trusts
In America, there are energy trusts who own the rights to the oil, natural gas, etc obtained from that land. In Canada, they are called Royalty trusts. Now that we've addressed that, let's look at some America energy trusts with nice returns:

• BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (BPT) - Prudhoe? That's right - Alaska's North Slope
• Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (CRT) - Oil properties in the Southwest Dominion Resources
• Black Warrior Trust (DOM) - natural gas and coal in the South
• Marine Petroleum Trust (MARPS) - oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico
• Mesa Royalty Trust (MTR) - oil and natural gas in the West
• Eastern American Natural Gas Trust (NGT) - natural gas in the Mid Atlantic
• Sabine Royalty Trust (SBR) - oil and natural gas in the South and Southwest
• San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (SJT) - oil and natural gas in New Mexico
• Torch Energy Royalty Trust (TRU) - oil and natural gas in the South
• Williams Coal Seam Gas Royalty Trust (WTU) - related to San Juan Basin

Other players (not a trust):
Kinder Morgan Management LLC (KMR) - manages pipelines, terminals, etc
Penn Virginia Resource (PVR) - manages coal and natural gas properties