September 2007

Nuclear Power and the Death of Regulation (and the Rebirth of Nuclear Power)

Michael Giberson Earlier this week, NRG Energy filed an application to build two new nuclear power plants adjacent to the existing South Texas Project (STP) plants. It is the first such application submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in nearly 30 years. Loren Steffy, business columnist at the Houston Chronicle, appreciates the subtle irony in …

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Adler On Regulatory Barriers To Renewable Energy

Lynne Kiesling Today sees a good article from the aforementioned Jonathan Adler on regulatory barriers to innovation and implementation of renewable energy. His conclusion: To promote alternative energy development, there’s no need for more handouts. Instead the government should get out of the way. If the goal is to increase actual alternative energy production, and …

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Adler On Morriss On Energy Regulation

Lynne Kiesling Jonathan Adler has a Volokh post on energy regulation linking to Andy Morriss’s article about regulatory sclerosis in energy. America’s energy markets, including the infrastructure that makes trading in energy possible (made up of pipelines, oil and gas terminals, and refineries), are clogged with the debris of almost a hundred years of state …

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The New Demand For The Stylish Urban Bike

Lynne Kiesling Here’s a new example of dynamic, creative capitalism: shifts in relative prices of urban transportation (i.e., high gasoline prices) have increased the number of urban residents who use bicycles for transportation instead of/in addition to sport and fitness. This shift in relative prices and previously-untapped demand has led to a new product market: …

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Good Climate Change Article From Ron Bailey

Lynne Kiesling Ron Bailey has a thorough and thoughtful article about climate change at Reason that is well worth a read. Part of the article focuses on the crucial role that technological change plays in affecting future resource use and climate conditions, and points out that such technological change is the main way that progress …

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Adler: Government-sponsored Prizes Would Be Better Than Subsidies

Michael Giberson “Direct government subsidies are a particularly poor way to encourage innovation,” writes Jonathan Adler in an article asserting that government-sponsored prizes would be better than subsidies at encouraging the development of low-carbon-emission energy technologies. Government subsidies tend to be dispersed on political criteria, rewarding large, politically connected incumbent firms, rather than innovative upstarts. …

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Capacity Market Costs Drive Utility to Want to Leave Pjm, Join Midwest Iso

Michael Giberson Duquesne Light has announced it wants to drop out of PJM and join the neighboring Midwest ISO, citing the high costs emerging from PJM’s capacity market as their motivation. The capacity market is called the “RPM” market after the “reliability pricing model” which serves as the underlying pricing mechanism. Duquesne has filed a …

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Sean Casten Counters “Backlash Against Competitive Markets”

Michael Giberson Writing at environmental commentary site Grist, Sean Casten (CEO of Recycled Energy Development) takes on a few of the critics of deregulation: In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi advises that “It is good to know karate. It is good not to know karate. It is not good to know a little karate.” With …

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