January 2003

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Subsidies

In Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, President Bush proposed increasing federal subsidies to hydrogen fuel cell research. His administration had made similar recommendations in its national energy policy proposal in May 2001, to supplement the existing energy technology research subsidies. Such technology subsidies, particularly to get renewable energy technologies to the point where they …

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Hydrogen Fuel Cells

After Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, everyone’s in a tizzy about the prospects for increased funding of hydrogen fuel cell research for vehicles. See, for example, this Financial Times article discussing the increase in price in platinum markets yesterday. Platinum is currently the best catalyst for making hydrogen fuel, which is also one reason …

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Richard Epstein On Regulatory Transition

Richard Epstein’s Financial Times article on Wednesday lays out some problems that arise when you try to change the regulatory approach in a network industry in which technological change happens. He’s discussing telecom and the “deregulation” in the 1996 legislation, but as Keith at Liberty Lover points out, Epstein’s analysis has important insights for electricity …

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Venezuela Resolution?

Is the strike almost over? Is Chavez going to prevail? Apparently Chavez has fired 3,000 oil company (PDVSa) executives, but Chavez opponents are meeting with officials from other Latin American countries and the US to see if they can persuade an international coalition to work on their behalf. The resumption of tanker shipments this week …

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