Tech Central Station Column
I have an article on Tech Central Station this morning, on how markets discipline companies who are not transparent and full of integrity.
Pope And Crane On The Energy Bill
Anytime that Carl Pope of the Sierra Club and Ed Crane of the Cato Institute agree on something, it’s worth reading. Such is the case with this opinion piece in the Washington Post today.
How Cool Is This?
Also courtesy of Slashdot, this New York Times article (registration required) describes the flywheels that the NY Port Authority has installed in the subway to collect and use the energy given off when subway trains brake. What a win-win — their energy bills go down, and subway stations are less hot!
A Wireless Future?
Courtesy of Slashdot, this Business Week article discusses the prospects and hurdles for wireless, “wi-fi” networks. My favorite quote: Adds Ramesh Rao, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology: “History tells us that we cannot rely on the FCC’s ability to anticipate the future and write rules to allow progress.” In the …
Janis Ian Gets It; Why Doesn’t The Riaa?
As Janis Ian wrote in an article on her website, the internet and music downloads can and do benefit artists. This is a well-researched and well-written article. Thanks to my husband for forwarding it to me. UPDATE: I thought that Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit had mentioned this article before, and he did, here, in reference …
Crude Oil Update
We’re drivin’, there’s political uncertainty in the Middle East, and it’s almost August, so U.S. inventories are being depleted in a typical seasonal pattern. Thus, as this Bloomberg News article reports, crude prices have gone up. But they have not gone up much, because the continuing economic malaise is countering the price-increasing factors mentioned above. …
More On Hollywood Hacking
Here and here are two articles from Wired that are good complements to Dan Gillmor’s article referenced below. Not only would this bill have unintended consequences, as the first article discusses, the large media companies would not have to stop their P2P music distribution under this bill.
Schumpeter’s Perennial Gale Of Creative Destruction
This Financial Times article analyzes Dynegy’s recent sale of a pipeline it acquired from Enron to bolster its balance sheet and reduce its debt. Dynegy’s stock price increased accordingly yesterday. The first paragraph of the article says it well: When Dynegy snatched the Northern Natural Gas pipeline company from a collapsing Enron for $1.5bn, it …
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How Markets Discipline Companies
I don’t know whether or not Perot Systems actually did share confidential information about the structure and design of the California electricity market, but as this Financial Times article indicates, what matters is what investors believe, and how they act on those beliefs. As the article says, investors are not convinced by the arguments that …
This Is Great, But …
In this press release titled “LADWP Funds Innovative Energy Efficient Technology Ideas”, the Los Angeles municipal utility announced an initiative to fund innovative energy-efficiency technologies that will particularly reduce peak-load demand. You know, if you just allow for market-based real-time pricing, even just for large industrial users, LADWP wouldn’t have to spend $750,000 on this …