In the Pipeline: 5/28/13

Here’s the thing. Even if Congress passed us a law that gave us cash to become tall and good-looking, we would still remain balding, overfed, leaping gnomes. So it is with physics. The federal government can’t just incentivize things into existence. The Atlantic (5/26/13) reports: “Electric car infrastructure company Better Place’s move to file bankruptcy today marks the end of the road for a billion-dollar bet that Silicon Valley-style technological disruption could wean the world from fossil fuels… Founded in 2007 in Palo Alto, California, by a charismatic former SAP executive named Shai Agassi, Better Place sought in one stroke to solve a conundrum: most electric cars were too expensive and too limited in their range to become a mass market alternative to the internal combustion engine.”

Why is it that OPEC has the same concerns as the Greenies? WSJ (5/27/13) reports: “The American energy boom is deepening splits within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, threatening to drive a wedge between African and Arab members as OPEC grapples with a revolution in the global oil trade… OPEC members gathering on Friday in Vienna will confront a disagreement over the impact of rising U.S. shale-oil production, with the most vulnerable countries arguing that the group should prepare for production cuts to prop up prices if they fall any lower… ‘We are heading toward some problems,’ said a Persian Gulf OPEC delegate.”

It’s easy to triple a really small number. What’s really difficult is undoing the damage done to taxpayers. IER (5/24/13) reports: “According to the newly confirmed Secretary of Energy, Ernie Moniz, “While the market has taken longer than predicted to get going, sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. tripled last year and are continuing to increase rapidly in 2013. Tesla and other U.S. manufacturers are in a strong position to compete for this growing global market.” But, electric vehicles still have a long way to go to catch up to sales of traditional gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. During the first four months of 2013, plug-in cars accounted for less than 1 percent of total vehicle sales.[vii] And one thing is abundantly clear from Tesla’s financial experience with electric cars: thus far, this is a market created by the government, and without the government’s powers, it would not exist.”

The cure is worse than the disease. Most doctors would stop treatment. The Times London (5/20/13) reports: “There is little doubt that the damage being done by climate-change policies currently exceeds the damage being done by climate change, and will for several decades yet. Hunger, rainforest destruction, excess cold-weather deaths and reduced economic growth are all exacerbated by the rush to biomass and wind. These dwarf any possible effects of worse weather, for which there is still no actual evidence anyway: recent droughts, floods and storms are within historic variability.”

To kick the week off with a surprise, Jay Leno shares some insightful wisdom about government-funded solar companies. NewsBusters (5/25/13) reports: “You know, if he really wants to close it, turn it into a government-funded solar power company. The doors will be shut in a month. The whole thing will collapse and shut in a month.”