Friday Morning Links

Minimal blogging today; traveling; working.

Active rigs: 187 (steady)

RBN Energy: 2012 natural gas power burn

Last year natural gas power burn increased by 6 Bcf/d over 2011. This year power burn levels in the first quarter were down 10 percent from 2012. Peabody Energy reported last week that coal consumption for generation is growing this year versus 2012. Today we ask whether 2012 power burn was an anomaly and what we should expect in 2013.

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WSJ Links

Section M (Mansion): I don't read.

Section D (Arena): later

Section C (Money & Investing):

• Heard on the street -- answer to smog in China: buy more SUVs.

China's middle-class consumers see SUVs as a status symbol and view them as a safer option on the country's notoriously dangerous roads, says China auto analyst Michael Dunne.

Ironically, air pollution might be playing a part, too.

China's government rolled out new fuel-efficiency regulations last month aimed at the country's air-quality problem. A quirk in those rules could juice the SUV market, says Bernstein auto analyst Max Warburton. Fuel-economy targets based on different car weights—including easier targets for heavier vehicles—mean manufacturers have an incentive to make more SUVs, Mr. Warburton says.

Section B (Marketplace):

• Pilot Flying J restraining order sought 

• Chilly North Sea comes back to life

• XOM's output falls again; US production increases by 2% due to the Bakken; overall global production drops for seventh consecutive quarter

• US, China boost Starbucks

Section A:

• Theory of Einstein's proved right -- again

• Kurdish group to pull its armed units from inside Turkey

• Europe's unemployment problems worsen

• Op-ed: nearly sideswiped by another green car 

For an excellent study in how green-energy cronyism works, look instead to the near miss (for taxpayers) of Next AutoWorks. That startup applied for a $320 million federal loan guarantee in 2009, promising a Louisiana factory that would produce cheap and fuel-efficient cars.

Next didn't, ultimately, get its loans. It wasn't from a lack of political lobbying. Emails referenced in a House Oversight subcommittee hearing this week confirm every suspicion about the degree to which powerful moneymen worked the system on behalf of their investments, pushing their political contacts to roll over Energy's credit department.

Next AutoWorks—founded in 2006 as V-Vehicle—was a green darling. It was backed by heavyweights like Google Ventures and T. Boone Pickens, though its star investor was Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins, which (back then) was making a huge green play. The venture capital firm had made an art of lining up its portfolio companies—Next, Fisker, AltaRock, Agrivida, EdenIQ—for President Obama's green handouts. It hired insiders like Al Gore, and its partners donated some $2 million to 2008 political campaigns—mostly to Democrats.