In the Pipeline: 3/6/13

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

The wind crew is bitterly clinging to its tax credits. They probably don’t have religion or guns. Politico (3/5/13) reports: “Two months after Congress rescued it, the wind industry’s crucial tax credit is back on the countdown to extinction. The fiscal cliff deal revived the wind-production tax credit on New Year’s Day just hours after it legally expired. Industry leaders say the extension saved thousands of jobs and will support the installation of thousands of megawatts of power this year… But the credit is due to expire again Dec. 31, and opponents are just as eager as before to see it die. The industry wants a long-term extension, but that has near zero odds with the Capitol consumed with talk of budget pain.”

Obama taking credit for the increase in domestic oil and gas production in like Ike Turner taking credit for Tina’s success. Energy & Commerce (3/5/13) reports: “The nonpartisan Congressional Research Services has issued a new report showing the effects of the Obama administration’s “all-of-the-above but nothing-from-below” energy policy on oil and gas production on federal lands. While U.S oil production is at its highest levels in two decades, evidence suggests this increase is largely a result of production on state and private lands where the federal government plays little or no role. CRS found that ALL the increases in production since 2007 have taken place on non-federal lands. The report reveals a similar story for natural gas. Since 2007, natural gas production on federal lands fell by 33 percent while production on state and private lands grew by 40 percent.”

The energy debate isn’t just about science and engineering, it’s about who has the right to control your life. Commentary (3/5/13) reports: “It doesn’t matter whether you are in full agreement with the president on this issue or buy into only a part of it or none at all. The question before the nation here is whether the executive branch can or should give itself the power to run roughshod over Congress and unilaterally implement new regulations that will give the force of law to the president’s climate beliefs. If McCarthy and Moniz intend to use their regulating power to redraw the laws concerning fossil fuel emissions or the ability to explore or drill for new energy sources, then the result will be as much of a Constitutional crisis as anything else.”

Peak oil is so old, she knew Burger King when he was still a Prince. CNN (3/5/13) reports: “Predictions that the world would imminently ‘run out of oil’ have been worrying oil consumers since at least the 1920s. They always prove wrong, for reasons explained by the great oil economist M. A. Adelman after the last ‘oil shortage’ in the 1970s. Oil reserves, Adelman writes, ‘are no gift of nature. They (are) a growth of knowledge, paid for by heavy investment’.”