Author name: Michael Giberson

Better Red Than Dead, but Not Red Yet (on Solar Power)

In her New York Times Economix column Nancy Folbre recently said (“The Red Faces of the Solar Skeptics,” March 10, 2014): If the faces of renewable energy critics are not red yet, they soon will be. For years, these critics — of solar photovoltaics in particular — have called renewable energy a boutique fantasy. A recent Wall …

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Someone Please Explain the American Wind Energy Association’s Funky Electricity Price Arithmetic

About a month ago the American Wind Energy Association blogged: “Fact Check: New Evidence Rebuts Heartland’s Bogus RPS Claims.” I’m scratching my head a bit trying to understand their so-called facts. The big claim from AWEA: The eleven states that produce more than seven percent of their electricity from wind energy have seen their electricity prices …

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Discrimination in West Virginia Price Gouging Case?

Are West Virginia “outsiders” more likely to be accused of price gouging? From the March 8, 2014, Charleston Gazette, “Morrisey accused of discrimination in price gouging response“: CHARLESTON, W.Va. –A Putnam County storeowner accused of price gouging bottled water during the water crisis says Attorney General Patrick Morrisey discriminated against him because he is Lebanese, …

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No Net Metering Without Grid Connection, No Net Metering Controversy Where Wires and Energy Products Are Unbundled

Around the country lobbyists for utilities and solar power companies are fighting over public policy, mostly for and against reform of net metering policies.* Today, The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) trumpeted in a press release recent victories in the states of Utah and Washington over net metering reforms urged by utilities. TASC highlighted the …

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Wind Energy’s Price Suppression Effects (debating Wind Power Cost Estimates – 6)

[Series header: On the Morning of October 15 the Institute for Energy Research in Washington DC released a report I’d written about the federal government’s wind power cost estimates. (Links available here.) Later that day Michael Goggin of the American Wind Energy Association, the lobbying organization in Washington DC that represents the wind energy industry, …

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Pjm Region Could Handle Substantially More Renewable Generation, Study Says

PJM Interconnection has been studying, with the help of GE Energy Consulting and other groups, the consequences of adding significantly more wind energy and solar energy to its transmission grid. The “headline result” of a preliminary report, presented to PJM stakeholders recently, is that the system could handle renewable power generation capacity at a 30 …

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Debating Wind Power Cost Estimates – 5

[Series header: On the Morning of October 15 the Institute for Energy Research in Washington DC released a report I’d written about the federal government’s wind power cost estimates. (Links available here.) Later that day Michael Goggin of the American Wind Energy Association, the lobbying organization in Washington DC that represents the wind energy industry, …

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One Year After Superstorm Sandy: Charities, Price Gougers and the State

Popular Mechanics magazine headlined an article with the question, “One year after Superstorm Sandy, has anything changed?” Well, sure: over the last year the state governments in New York and New Jersey have put a lot of time and money into punishing a few businesses that provided shelter and gasoline to people whose lives were …

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Saudi Arabia and Opec Oil Output

A careful comparison of Saudi Arabia’s oil production behavior with rest-of-OPEC production provides a way to see the consistency in Saudi behavior where many analysts have missed it, according to the authors of a report forthcoming in the journal Energy Policy. Sometimes Saudi and rest-of-OPEC production movements are positively correlated and other times negatively correlated–a …

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Debating Wind Power Cost Estimates – 4

[Series header: On the Morning of October 15 the Institute for Energy Research in Washington DC released a report I’d written about the federal government’s wind power cost estimates. (Links available here.) Later that day Michael Goggin of the American Wind Energy Association, the lobbying organization in Washington DC that represents the wind energy industry, …

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