In the Pipeline: 2/20/13

The people at IER sure do good work. They’re pretty good looking, too. Join them and Neil Cavuto in Houston on May 9, 2013. 

This should be obvious, but there is a strong correlation between per capita energy use and life expectancy. Roger Pielke Jr. (2/14/13) reports: “The graph above shows energy use (expressed as kilograms of oil equivalent per capita) versus life expectancy at birth (expressed in years) for 151 countries in the World Bank Development indicators database that had data for both variables in 2010… Nonetheless these data carry a powerful message — Energy poverty is not the only factor which contributes to below-average life expectancies, but it is clearly a very important factor.”

I wonder what the lag time is before these protests start in America. His Majesty seems pretty bent on following in these morons’ footsteps with expensive and unreliable energy, so we’ll take the under on four years. The Sunday Times (2/17/13) reports: “The payout — equal to £158 for each of the Scottish utility’s 5.6m customers — will inflame the debate over soaring gas and electricity prices. The average annual bill has doubled in the past five years to £1,340, pushing one in five homes into fuel poverty. Scottish Power raised its dual-fuel tariff by 7% in October, adding about £100 to the average annual charge… Fuel poverty protesters brought traffic to a standstill yesterday with a demonstration in front of the Department of Energy & Climate Change building in central London.”

Since we’re in a betting mood, we’ll put our coins on the table for the monkey-wrench throwers in this scenario. It’s not that we think they’ll come out on top, though. Sometimes gambling is about principles.Clean Technica (2/14/13) reports: “Wow, talk about taking the wind out of a guy’s sails. Just minutes after President Obama urged the nation to support more wind power in his State of the Union address, Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) sure put a damper on things. He announced that his House subcommittee intends to challenge the new one-year extension for the production tax credit for wind power. That comes on the heels of a similar announcement last month by Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA), who complained that the new wind tax credit extension is a “dramatic” change from previous versions… The investigation threatens to throw yet another monkey wrench in the path of the wind industry, which is just coming off a banner year for wind production in 2012.”

We like to keep things simple, too: “Three Reasons to Build the Keystone XL Pipeline”. Reason (2/17/13) reports: 1. The oil isn’t going to stay buried / 2. The pipeline isn’t a disaster waiting to happen. / 3. It will help the economy.

Maybe the Mafia was getting bored. After all, there’s likely going to be a lot more crime, traffic on the black market, and general economic decline as countries like Italy (and America) self-impose energy poverty. Sounds like an excellent market opportunity for coercive-types. BBC News (2/15/13) reports: “Police have arrested five people in eastern Sicily suspected of involvement in Mafia corruption over contracts to build wind farms, Italian media report… The mayor and a councillor in the small town of Fondachelli Fantina, in Messina province, were among those detained… The five face charges including extortion, fraud and Mafia association… The investigation, which began in 2009, is linked to sub-contracts awarded to build energy farms near Agrigento, Palermo and Trapani.”