Affordable, reliable energy should be a policy priority for lawmakers around the world.
The Economist (5/10/23) reports: "After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Vladimir Putin weaponized his country’s energy supplies: cutting gas exports to Europe and causing prices to surge. Although wholesale costs have now fallen across the continent, the prices of domestic electricity and gas, compared with two years earlier, were up by an eye-watering 69% and 145% last winter. High energy prices can cost lives. They discourage people from heating their homes properly, and living in cold conditions raises the risk of cardiac and respiratory problems. In November The Economist predicted that expensive power might result in between 22,000 and 138,000 deaths during a mild winter. Unfortunately, we appear to have been correct. To assess how deaths last winter compare to previous ones we have used a common measure of mortality: excess deaths. Comparing actual deaths with the number we might expect given mortality in the same weeks of 2015-19, we found that deaths across Europe were higher than expected. Across 28 European countries we investigated, there were 149,000 excess deaths between November 2022 and February 2023, equivalent to a 7.8% increase. Several factors might explain this rise. Among those that died last winter, nearly 60,000 were recorded as covid-19 deaths...We estimate that a price rise of around €0.10 per kwh—about 30% of last winter’s average electricity price—was related to an increase in a country’s weekly mortality of around 2.2%. If electricity last winter had cost the same as it did in 2020, our model would have expected 68,000 fewer deaths across Europe, a decline of 3.6%."
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"EV enthusiasts respond that the technology will get better. Of course, better, lighter batteries are not just possible but inevitable—eventually. So, too, is better mining technology that will lead to lower costs and a lighter footprint. But progress is slow in big industrial domains. Rushing to subsidize and mandate yesterday’s technologies won’t make that future happen sooner; indeed, doing so usually stifles innovation. Perhaps someday the U.S. will re-shore a minerals industry that would be both cleaner and more transparent. Don’t hold your breath."
– Mark P. Mills,
City Journal
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