Lynne Kiesling I think the past 18 months have been disappointing for consumer-centric smart grid proponents and companies. In January 2010 the incisive Katie Fehrenbacher pronounced 2010 the year in which the consumer would be the king of home energy management, and this pronouncement has not come to fruition. I’ve been formulating some ideas about …
Will Android@Home Help Make Smart Grid More Consumer-Centric? Read More »
Michael Giberson A handful of stories raising power market design issues: The Oregonian, “Northwest wind power to double but inconsistency creates nightmare“: “The value of BPA’s surplus power sales are already being undermined by wind energy sloshing into the market. That ultimately increases rates for its public utility customers, who are loathe to absorb any additional …
Michael Giberson Francis Fukuyama’s review of the new edition of F. A. Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” has prompted a small eruption of commentary in the econoblogosphere. (See here and here, for example.) I thought there might be some interest in Sidney Hook’s review of the original edition of “The Constitution of Liberty,” published in the …
Sidney Hook’s 1960 Review of Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Since we’re riffing off of Hayek today, I’ll take one of his most pithy and insightful quotes, from The Fatal Conceit: The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. I want to use that quote to tee up a …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday was F.A. Hayek’s 112th birthday, and as Hayek’s work inspired the name of this blog, and continues to inspire my work every day, I encourage you all to celebrate this anniversary by reading (or re-reading, I hope!) his seminal Use of Knowledge in Society (1945): The peculiar character of the problem of …
Michael Giberson The Sunday New York Times Book Review carried a review by Francis Fukuyama of the new edition of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty. The review does Hayek the favor of distinguishing his views from those of a certain recent talk-radio enthusiast. Fukuyama noted that Hayek’s views are more complex than they are usually …
Fukuyama Reviews New Edition of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Over the past six months the TSA has started using whole-body imaging scanners as primary screening devices without explicit Congressional authorization. Congress has only authorized the TSA’s privacy officer to solicit public comment and publish a privacy impact statement (according to EPIC’s lawsuit), and their authorization of TSA practices is implicit in their …
Homeland Security: Eroding Your Human Rights Without Any Benefit-cost Analysis Read More »
Michael Giberson At the Freakonomics blog, guest Charles Fishman explains “Why water will never be the next oil.” A sample: If you leave aside the somewhat silly world of bottled water, there has been almost no innovation in the industry of water for decades. A water facility today uses the exact same technology it did in 1973. In what …
A Wal-mart Long-haul Truck Has More Intelligence in It Than a Typical Water System Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Today the Energy Information Administration released the 2011 Annual Energy Outlook (link is to executive summary). This year’s outlook explores scenarios that include updated forecasts of shale gas production, which have changed considerably since last year’s outlook, as KP readers know due to Mike’s excellent analyses. Another aspect of the analysis that will …
Lynne Kiesling It shouldn’t surprise you to find, given my recent working paper on Adam Smith, sympathy, and mirror neurons that I am an avid reader of neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer. His post today riffs off of President Obama’s birth certificate to muse on voter ignorance. In discussing some research on the subject, he observes …
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