Lynne Kiesling With apologies to my colleague Mark Witte for plagiarizing him … we were discussing how the EU has had to suspend their carbon emission permit trading system (I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it a market) due to online security breaches and the theft of millions of Euros worth of permits. Mark asked …
What Has the Eu Ever Done for Us? Carbon Edition Read More »
Michael Giberson It’s not easy out there for the solar power industry: Renewable power credits don’t provide long term security for developers… …and middlemen seem to make more money from RECs than renewable power producers do. Private homeowner association rules can frustrate desires of persons wanting to go solar. Local government zoning regulations and associated …
Troubles, from the Point of View of the Solar Power Industry Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As I’ve mentioned before, I am passionately and actively opposed to the TSA’s fear-based violations of the rights and dignity of individuals. But my opposition extends beyond the moral and philosophical into the economic … and some recent commentaries indicate that I am not the only one! First let’s think about the cost …
Michael Giberson The Wall Street Journal reports that a program to cut energy consumption by subsidizing consumer purchases of compact fluorescent light bulbs is not working out as planned. I think we can summarize this as: regulator approves cost recovery for subsidy program to reduce energy consumption, program doesn’t work as well as expected, so regulator approves …
Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Not Living Up to California Program’s Expectations Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As an addendum to Mike’s post Monday about Evergreen Solar and Ed Glaeser’s comments, note that WW at The Economist’s Democracy in America blog has also posted some remarks on the subject. In particular, he focuses on the use (or uselessness) of solar technology subsidies as social policy: If subsidies for solar-panel manufactures …
Lynne Kiesling Another important birthday today, Lysander Spooner! “… An American individualist anarchist, libertarian, political philosopher, Deist, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the nineteenth century.” He famously founded a mail delivery company to compete with the monopoly U.S. Postal Service, and government legal challenges to his company drove it …
Lynne Kiesling Today’s Google banner celebrates the 172nd birthday of Paul Cézanne, my favorite artist. I love how he unpacks the underlying layers of geometry in landscapes. When I first saw the painting above, Le lac d’Annecy, in the Courtauld Gallery in London when I was a college student, it literally took my breath away. …
Lynne Kiesling Like other economists, I was intrigued by President Obama’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal about streamlining federal regulation. Like Matthew Kahn, I see the influence of Austan Goolsbee here, as well as Cass Sunstein; like Tim Haab, I think this is a salutary call for more, and more consistent, application of cost-benefit …
Is Rationalizing Regulation Even Possible Through Political Processes? Read More »
Michael Giberson In my view most “green jobs” arguments are bunk. While such estimates may have their practical uses, for the most part they are convenient lies. Industry lies to politicians and bureaucrats to get subsidies, and politicians recycle the lies to get votes. My view is not particularly subtle. Edward Glaeser provides a subtler …
Michael Giberson From the Baltimore Sun, Jay Hancock explains he is unhappy with electric power restructuring in Maryland and with the PJM market. I think he hits some targets and misses others. Assessing the particulars would require a lot of detailed work, probably better done by someone other than me. One big source of agreement …
Jay Hancock is Not Happy with the Pjm Power Market Read More »
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