April 2012

Measuring Success by How Much You Spent on the Program: A Renewable Energy Example

3 Comments / Energy markets, Environmental policy, Politics, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson In general, in public policy analysis, you’d like to judge ultimate success or failure of a program by its net results, by actual benefits less the costs involved in achieving those benefits. Admittedly sometimes benefits are hard to measure, but ultimately the point of a policy change is to bring about some improvement …

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David Zetland Speaking Words of Wisdom

Economics / By

Lynne Kiesling From the wish-I’d-said-it file (actually, I have said it, just not so eloquently), at Aguanomics: The problem with planners is that they cannot be as flexible or accurate as individuals making their own choices when those choices do not affect each other or can be coordinated at a low cost.

The Internet of Things and Computational Energy Efficiency

Economics, Electricity, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling Today in Technology Review, Jonathan Koomey has an interesting analysis of computational energy efficiency. We’re all familiar with Moore’s Law — Gordon Moore’s prediction that the number of transistors on a chip will double approximately every two years — but I did not realize that Moore’s Law is also borne out in improvements …

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Greedy Oil Companies and Charitable Natural Gas Companies?

2 Comments / Economics, Electricity / By

Michael Giberson Oil and gasoline prices are high and so it isn’t too tough to find complaints about skyrocketing greed at oil companies. Yet at the same time natural gas prices have fallen to incredible lows (about $2.10 per MMBTU on the NYMEX this morning for May 2012). Aren’t natural gas company executives greedy too? It …

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Rto Forward Capacity Markets Are Unlikely to Succeed

Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson The Gulf Coast Power Association meetings earlier this week included a debate over the future of resource adequacy within the ERCOT power system. Debate moderator Eric Schubert, BP Energy Company, introduced the issue with a critique of capacity market structures that is heavy on its reliance on Hayek’s knowledge problem. It is a …

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Current Oil Prices: Scarcity Rents, Political Unrest, Inflation Hedging, or Speculation

1 Comment / Economics, Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson An article by Sarah Kent in the WSJ, “Gulf in oil prices may set up market for a fall,” takes notice of wide gap that has emerged between the current price of oil on the world market and the futures price of oil a few years into the future. A variety of explanations …

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Adam Smith and Mirror Neurons Paper Published

1 Comment / Economics, Science / By

Lynne Kiesling I mentioned a while ago my working paper on the neuroscience research on mirror neurons and its relevance for Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy developed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). After revision and some extremely helpful referee guidance, the paper has been published in The Review of Austrian Economics: Mirror neuron …

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Net Metering in Indiana Sees Exciting 50 Percent Growth

2 Comments / Electricity, Environmental policy, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson From the Indianapolis Star, “More Hoosiers reap benefits of generating their own electricity“: [M]ore and more people around Indiana are starting to generate their own electricity, motivated by environmental concerns and feelings of energy independence. The arrangement is known as “net metering,” allowing customers to offset part of their energy costs and feed …

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