July 2018 – Knowledge Problem

“Any Aid Package, No Matter What Dollar Amount, is a Band-Aid on an Arterial Bleed.”

More stinging criticism of the agricultural industry harms from the Trump tariffs and the proposed aid package to offset some of those harms since my post about the dairy industry yesterday — this article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is full of pointed arguments against them: Bill Gordon, a soybean farmer near Worthington, Minn., said his crop …

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Dairy Farming, Tariffs, and Trump’s “12 Billion Dollar Crutches”

1 Comment / Economics / By Knowledge Problem

Farming has always been an uncertain business. Weather and the price-taking nature of being small relative to large commodity markets lead to feast or famine. The Trump Trade War and today’s palliative farm subsidies to farmers harmed by Trump’s tariffs combine with pre-existing subsidies to amplify that underlying boom and bust cycle, imposing high costs on …

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Should Your Electricity Distributor Also Be Your Electricity Retailer?

1 Comment / Economics, Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By Michael Giberson

Maximilian Auffhammer explored the question, “How Local Should Your Energy Retailer Be?” at the Energy Institute at Haas blog. He said the issue had come up over lunch in the office. The distribution utility of the future is going to buy electrons in this reordered market (mostly renewables and some fossils) and sell them to its …

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Two Ev Entries in the “How Cool is This?” File

4 Comments / Economics, Electricity, How cool is this?, Transportation / By Lynne Kiesling

Economical energy storage has long been the Holy Grail of electricity. Since 1800, when Alessandro Volta invented the electric pile (a forerunner of the modern battery), hobbyists, scientists, and engineers have experimented with chemicals and materials to create economical storage at a smaller scale than a hydroelectric dam and with a more portable technology than, …

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