Cheap at Half the Price
While I’m at it, the same website has a good explanation of cheap at half the price, a phrase I use relatively frequently.
Curate’s Egg
Tonight, on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board show on CNBC, Tunku Varadarajan used the phrase “curate’s egg.” We could tell in context what he meant, but my husband and I were sufficiently curious to check it out afterward. Here’s a translation from British English to ROW English. The essence is “parts of it are …
With the Bad Comes Good
It’s always refreshing to get a little perspective on these accounting and corporate governance issues. Amity Shlaes’ column from Monday does so, with reference to both the history of the Industrial Revolution and Trollope, one of my favorite authors. Given my background in economic history and technological change and diffusion, this really resonated with me. …
Is Demand Responsiveness Coming to California?
Yes, according to a press release and an order instituting rulemaking from the California Energy Commission yesterday. The Energy Commission?s plan is to work in conjunction with the California PUC, which has itself initiated an order instituting rulemaking to craft ?policies to develop demand flexibility as a resource to enhance electric system reliability, reduce power …
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing
This good TechCentralStation article by Duane Freese lays out the economics and the policy dynamics of nuclear fuel reprocessing as an alternative to schlepping it to Yucca Mountain. Very interesting and thought provoking.
Air Conditioning
Last night Brink Lindsey picked up on the 100th anniversary of air conditioning, on which there was an article in Wednesday’s Washington Post. Certainly, as he says, a triumph of “the Baconian project of power over nature.” I hate heat and humidity, and the confluence thereof, so I fully agree, and celebrated yesterday. My only …
The Well-beaten Dead Horse in California
Yesterday the General Accounting Office released a report on the causes of the wholesale electricity price increases in California August-October 2000. U.S. Representatives Inslee and DeFazio requested the study, which had two objectives: determining whether or not wholesale sellers actually exercised market power to raise price above marginal cost, and determining if the design of …
Read TechCentralStation Today
There’s a lot of good stuff today, including this article by Arnold Kling on the predictive power of Moore’s Law and the future of telephone companies, and this article by Ed Driscoll on the opportunities and roadblocks in the dissemination of wireless networks. A lot of folks, including Virginia Postrel, have thought carefully about the …
Speaking of Tradeoffs
Today’s LA Times has an article on a controversy over Medicine Lake, which is in a geothermally active area in northern California. Calpine is looking into constructing some geothermal generation plants, but local Native Americans worry that this use of the lake will sap it of its cleansing properties and traditional spiritual energy. It will …
Diversify That Fuel Portfolio
RAND has released a report on the consequences of increasingly relying on natural gas as the primary fuel for generating electricity. This very good article in the San Jose Mercury News does a nice job of summarizing the risks inherent in such non-diversification, which the report highlights. Hedge, hedge, hedge; it may mean tolerating spending …