Pundits Were Wrong Again -- News, Views, Links For Monday

WSJ Links

German's chancellor wins by a huge margin, confounding pundits -- again.

Six myths about green energy.

• renewables are an insignificant source of power.  (don't forget Hoover Dam, nuclear)
• renewables can replace all fossil fuels
• renewables are too expensive.  (coal, 3 cents; new gas plants, 6 cents; wind 8 cents; solar, 13 cents; and renewable costs are falling fast)
• variability dooms renewable energy
• cheap natural gas is the enemy of renewable energy
• renewable energy means millions of green jobs

Great article on how utilities are using data from "smart meters."

Why solar customers' electric bills may rise. I don't think the utilities are going to win this one in California.

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Update on Monterey Shale -- if I remember, I will do a stand-alone post on this one.

Few techniques have garnered more scrutiny in California than hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which entails injecting water, often mixed with chemicals, into a well to fracture rock formations and unlock trapped oil and natural gas. Widely used in North Dakota and other big fields, fracking is less common in California, where only 560 of 50,000 producing wells were fracked in 2012, according to the Western States Petroleum Association.

Fracking is more difficult to do in the Monterey because the formation is so jumbled, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of energy and sustainability at the University of California, Davis. That makes it hard to find large amounts of shale to frack, industry officials say.

Exactly what I've been saying; I think I just said that -- again -- sometime in the past three days. 

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Who drives electric cars?

Owners of electric cars drive less, possibly because they are using electric vehicles primarily for short trips, to work or the grocery. Or it may be that they fear running out of juice. A separate survey found that limited range caused many EV owners to avoid longer or discretionary trips—to the movie theater or to visit friends, for instance.

The EV Project's data also shows that buyers of plug-in vehicles are relatively more affluent than the average motorist. That reflects the cost of the vehicles: General Motors Co.'s gas-and-electric Chevrolet Volt costs around $40,000, while the all-electric Nissan Leaf sells for about $30,000. Owners are also more likely to be "greener"—a large portion of electric-car buyers report having solar panels. 

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Heard on the Street:  US coal vs the world. 

Received wisdom says Chinese coal demand is insatiable. The International Energy Agency doesn't see it peaking until sometime in the 2020s.

But it could happen sooner. Beijing has recognized that a growth model skewed towards heavy investment is unbalancing the economy and poisoning the environment. As China seeks to boost consumption and services, the electricity required to generate each incremental yuan of gross domestic product should decline. Furthermore, a slower pace of infrastructure investment should curb growth in Chinese steel demand. Meanwhile, ferocious smog in Beijing and elsewhere has sparked protests, prompting a government pledge this month to cut coal use in eastern parts of the country. Carbon isn't the burning issue here, but the effect could be much the same as the EPA's moves in the U.S., with coal losing market share to gas and renewable power.

Compounding the issue for U.S. miners is that China's own coal industry is improving. Sanford C. Bernstein points out that the country's top 55 miners account for more and more of China's coal production, suggesting smaller, less efficient operators are being acquired or squeezed out.And consolidation, as well as China's growing rail network, should ultimately reduce the cost of domestic coal, limiting the need for imports further. Bernstein sees Chinese coal imports peaking in 2015. U.S. coal miners can hardly expect the likes of India and Europe to pick up all the slack.

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Netflix makes history with showing at Emmys. Regular readers know my interest in Netflix.

The streaming video service scored a win at the TV industry's Emmy Awards on Sunday night as David Fincher took the best director prize for political drama "House of Cards." It marked the first victory in a major category for an online video distributor.

The Emmy win could boost Netflix's prestige in Hollywood as an outlet for high-quality original series and further encourage writers, producers and actors to consider Netflix projects at a time when competition for talent among TV networks is as fierce as ever.

But despite the milestone for Netflix, high-profile cable channels racked up victories, too, showing their continued strength in the face of new competition.

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No articles on Syria -- at least as far I could see. A word search for "Syria" revealed not one hit in the entire first section of headlines in today's on-line edition of The WSJ.