Michael Giberson H. S. Knowlton said, “In the establishment of many kinds of modern business the question of cheap power is one of fundamental importance, and in not a few cases the industrial manager finds it a most difficult problem to decide between installing an isolated plant and contracting for central station service.” That’s from …
Michael Giberson Scientific American has an article on the start-up pains associated with smart grid development: Only one thing is worse than the lights not coming on when the switch is flicked—and that’s the lights going out right afterward. The fact that the problem is most often a burned-out lightbulb is testimony to the reliability …
Michael Giberson A paper by Giorgia Oggioni and Yves Smeers, “Degree of coordination in market-coupling and counter-trading,” examines the value of improving coordination between separate-but-interconnected power markets. (A post here last week cited a recent Windpower Monthly article that provides a good non-technical discussion of the issue. If you are not familiar with market coupling, …
Michael Giberson I found this discussion of spot oil prices, futures prices, and commodity storage to be insightful: [R]ecent evidence suggests that the combination of derivative prices and storage stabilized rather than destabilized the oil markets. Indeed, during the run up in oil prices at the beginning of 2008 the spot price for oil was …
Derivatives Markets, Storage and Price Volatility Read More »
Michael Giberson Everyone loves a good story, it seems. Maybe too much. Three U-Mass researchers have detailed the overwhelming influence of anecdotal information in decision making, even less-than-adequate anecdotes presented alongside directly relevant and authoritative statistical information. The research also looks at two strategies that mitigate some of the influence of anecdotal bias, priming a …
When Stories Compete with Statistics for Attention, Stories Win Read More »
Michael Giberson Scott Gustafson, at Arizona Economics, points to an article in the Arizona Republic on the market for donated used clothes. Apparently the competition is fierce, with donation boxes vandalized, bolted shut, or towed away to discourage rivals.
Michael Giberson Felix Salmon had an op-ed in New York Times on Hollywood’s opposition to the trading of future’s contracts based on box office receipts. Salmon said: In the 1950s, onion growers were often shocked at the low prices they were getting. Casting around for a villain to blame, they alighted on derivatives traders, and …
Michael Giberson Windpower Monthly has a great article describing changes in the market for transmission capacity between power systems in Europe and the benefits of the changes. Here is a summary by way of selected quotes, but the full story is worth reading: Most of the electricity cables connecting Europe were built when electricity systems …
The Right Market Design for Trade Between Power Markets Read More »
Michael Giberson News and commentary on Thursday’s stock market moves. First, Newsweek, “The Computer Glitch Felt Round the World.” Now, Scott Patterson, WSJ, reports “Did Shutdowns Make the Plunge Worse?” (Business Insider comments, “Everyone is rushing to blame [High Frequency Trading (HFT)] and other non-human problems for the crash… when, at least in part, it may have …
Michael Giberson Fall 2008 was a time of rapidly falling wholesale and retail gasoline prices throughout the United States, interrupted briefly due to the market disruptions of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in early September. In Tennessee, retail price increases surrounding Hurricane Ike resulted in more the 4,000 complaints to the state government. Resulting investigations by …
Tennessee Ag Settles Price Gouging Claim Against Knoxville Gasoline Retailer Read More »
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive