Yesterday I had a lovely conversation with Don Luskin while he was working on his National Review Online column and his blog post on Paul Krugman’s silly column on the blackout. It was a delightful chat about deregulation, the benefits of being more interconnected, and the value creation that comes through markets. Don said it …
My Conversation With Don Luskin About Electricity Read More »
This New York Times article suggests that sharp wholesale electricity price spikes last Friday dissipated quickly, and did not result in a lot of profits for the traders.
NIMBY concerns threaten to stymie attempts to build more power lines, which is one reason why we should enable customer retail demand response as a tool to empower consumers and to stabilize the grid.
Vernon Smith and I have a commentary in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required). A systematic rethinking of the power demand and supply system — not just transmissions lines — is required to bring the energy industry into the contemporary age. Eighty-five years of regulatory efforts have focused exclusively on supply — leaving on dusty …
This Chicago Tribune article provides an example of how technology and intelligent monitoring can empower customers to use less energy, just by being informed about your actual consumption, which is a capability that the standard watt meter does not possess.
Here are a couple more articles on the obstacles facing a national energy policy: this New York Times article on how the nation’s governors have difficulty speaking with a unified voice on energy matters, and this New York Times article on the difficulties Congress faces in separating out an electricity bill from the large omnibus …
The blackout last Thursday has produced some hyperbolic hysteria about the perils and vulnerability that come with being so interconnected. But decentralized interconnection is also a source of stability and growth, both physically and economically. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, a physicist and author of Linked FINISH, had an oped in Saturday’s New York Times about the pros …
Randall Parker has a nice post on nuclear power, citing a NYT oped and a study by two MIT professors. They claim that nuclear will become an economical alternative if regulation of carbon dioxide proceeds. Very interesting analysis.
I have a Reason commentary on natural monopoly theory. Excerpt: Many technological and market innovations have reduced the natural monopoly rationale for traditional electric industry regulation. For example, consider distributed generation. Distributed generation (DG) is the use of an energy source (gas turbines, gas engines, fuel cells, for example) to generate electricity close to where …
Time To Rethink The Natural Monopoly Theory Of Regulation Read More »
I strongly recommend these two articles if you want a good, thorough analysis of what’s going on with electricity: This Wall Street Journal article by Rebecca Smith is a really thorough study. The main defects are transmission systems badly in need of improvement and a chaotic combination of regulated and deregulated markets. The unsteady regulatory …
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