Michael Giberson A great deal of energy is currently being expended in Europe debating the merits of further unbundling of vertically-integrated electric utilities in the EU. “This is unfortunate,” said Jean-Michel Glachant and François Lévêque, in a post on the EU Energy Policy Blog, on two grounds. First, because the economics of the matter are …
Michael Giberson Power from the people, story from the Christian Science Monitor: For two architecture students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., the sound of footsteps is an echo of energy gone to waste. They figure that the stomp of every footfall gives off enough power to light two 60-watt bulbs for …
Michael Giberson Discussions of internal corporate prediction markets have sometimes pointed out that open, anonymous participation can lead to better information flow within the corporation. See, for example, Jed Christiansen’s write-up of the recent Consensus Point conference on prediction markets, particularly his notes on the presentations of Dave Perry and Fortune Elkins. A lot of …
Prediction Markets and the Flow of Information Inside Organizations Read More »
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 …
Nuclear Power and the Death of Regulation (and the Rebirth of Nuclear Power) Read More »
Michael Giberson As a follow-up to yesterday’s note on prizes vs. grants, George Mason University economist and MarginalRevolution.com blogger Tyler Cowen spoke on the topic at Google’s New York City office. Cowen was speaking the day after the “Google Lunar X Prize” was announced, and carried into the lecture a clipping of the story from …
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. …
Adler: Government-sponsored Prizes Would Be Better Than Subsidies Read More »
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 …
Capacity Market Costs Drive Utility to Want to Leave Pjm, Join Midwest Iso Read More »
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 …
Sean Casten Counters “Backlash Against Competitive Markets” Read More »
Michael Giberson A story by Peter Behr in today’s Washington Post lays out all the pieces in the dispute between PJM and Joe Bowring, chief of PJM’s market monitoring unit: Federal energy regulators plan to meet today to try to resolve damaging accusations against PJM Interconnection by a key employee who oversees the fairness of …
Newspaper Article Presents Dispute Between Pjm and Its Market Monitor Read More »
Michael Giberson John Podesta, currently president of the Center for American Progress, recently spoke to the National Association of State Treasurers: Continued leadership from state treasurers on global warming will be essential to ensure that we address the scale and urgency of climate risk—and capture the vast economic possibilities that lie ahead as the world …
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