Michael Giberson Occasionally we hear from readers curious about the blog name, “knowledge problem.” Edmund Phelps explains the knowledge problem in an excellent essay that appeared in the Financial Times. (Registration may be required for FT.com; the essay is also posted in full at the FT‘s Capitalism blog.) Joseph Schumpeter’s early theory proposed that a …
Michael Giberson In New York, a debate over the NYISO market design initiated by a report by Robert McCullough and committee hearings in the state legislature. The initial McCullough report asserted that the NYISO’s use of a uniform clearing price auction (the report calls it a “market-clearing price auction”, but “uniform clearing price” is technically …
Flawed Report, Subsequent Debate Should Advance Understanding of Nyiso Market Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Perhaps the only thing surprising about the research described in this Washington Post article is how demonstrable and quantifiable the effects are: In a remarkable illustration of the power of lobbying in Washington, a study released last week found that a single tax break in 2004 earned companies $220 for every dollar they …
Michael Giberson Cogeneration plants, which use a fuel source to produce both electric power and useful heat, can be very efficient projects. Whether particular projects are efficient will depend on the implementation, of course, and whether projects are profitable will depend on fuel and other costs and the revenues from selling power and heat. From …
Lynne Kiesling One of the recurring themes here at KP is that smart grid technology makes it possible to harness distributed intelligence in the electric power network, and when you couple that network of distributed intelligence with a decentralized flow of information (such as price signals and market processes), you can get reliability through decentralized …
Lynne Kiesling If you are interested in the ongoing scientific, economic, and political sturm und drang around ethanol, fossil fuels, and food, this WSJ Environmental Capital post alerts us to a new study from the Congressional Budget Office claiming that ethanol production was only responsible for 10-15% of the increase in food prices in 2007-2008. …
Lynne Kiesling Friday’s Wall Street Journal editorial on cap and trade and the Waxman-Markey bill has prompted me to come out of the closet and say something publicly that I’ve been thinking for a couple of months: although I think that the most effective and economically efficient carbon policy is one that directly reflects the …
Can Congress Be Trusted to Design Effective Carbon Policy? I Doubt It Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Idea courtesy of Paul Kedrosky, who posted a list of on-the-ground observations of economic activity. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours browsing and running some errands at my nearby suburban mall, and both the vehicle traffic there and back and the foot trafffic while there seemed light. But by the time I …
Michael Giberson The Houston Chronicle has an article on a proposal to set up a federally-chartered bank to lend billions of dollars to renewable energy projects. Renewable energy ‘green bank’ idea takes root By TOM FOWLER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle A coalition of energy companies hopes to reinvigorate the market for funding renewable energy projects …
Lynne Kiesling An update on my question from earlier this week about online training logs. While I agree with Kent that the Beginner Triathlete updated site is good, it’s still just more than I want to deal with, and more cumbersome than I want. But thanks to a couple of fellow triathletes I follow on …
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive