Lynne Kiesling While I am musing on the problems with the traditional regulatory model in electricity, as in my prior renewables feed-in reverse auction post, I am going to pile on (yes, it is like shooting fish in a barrel, but it’s the first day after a long holiday weekend, so cut me some slack, …
Another Reason Why Retail Regulation is Obsolete: Atrocious Incentives Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Proponents say yes, but I’m not convinced. Here’s the story: the California Public Utilities Commission is considering some regulatory innovations to increase the share of renewables in the state’s generation portfolio, including a reverse-auction procurement solicitation for the provision of renewable power: In what might be a world first, the California Public Utilities …
Is a Reverse Auction Feed-in Tariff “Market-Based”? Read More »
Michael Giberson At Stumbling and Mumbling Chris Dillow ruminates on “Norms, agency, and competition,” which is just some fancy econo-speak for a post about why football coaches prefer conventional strategies that reduce the chance of their team winning. Dillow notes David Romer’s work (via James Kwak) on American football, which shows coaches punt too often …
Lynne Kiesling This Marketplace story from Wednesday does a really good job of explaining the fundamental economics of new oil field discovery. The context for the story is BP’s discovery of a new oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the largest discoveries in the past two decades. Part of the challenge, though, …
Lynne Kiesling As the demand for hybrid vehicles increases, the consequences of that increased demand flow through to markets for their inputs, some of which are finite natural resources themselves. Increased hybrid vehicle production raises the demand for rare metals, increasing their prices and threatening short-run shortages. Among the rare earths that would be most …
Unintended Consequences, Hybrid Vehicles Edition Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Remember back in October 2008 when I wrote about Andy Stanford-Clark and his tweeting house? And in July 2009 when I wrote about the German company Yellow Strom and its applications to enable its customers to use Twitter and Google’s Power Meter to increase their electricity information and manage their consumption? Now, via …
Lynne Kiesling Over the past week there’s been an interesting online conversation with the participants discussing one of the eternal tautological conundrums: why does politics attract power-hungry narcissists? Matt Yglesias kicked it off with what I think is a pretty naive query about the degree of cynicism and immorality in politics. Such cynicism and immorality …
Eternal Truths About Those Who Are Attracted to Politics Read More »
Michael Giberson Joe Romm, at Climate Progress, offers a public wager to Michael Lynch, of the recent NYT op-ed opposing peak oil. Romm singles out this line from Lynch’s piece: Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward…. And …
Joe Romm to Michael Lynch on Peak Oil: Wanna Bet? Read More »
Michael Giberson A few days ago I mentioned Michael Lynch’s op-ed in the New York Times in which he takes a few swings at peak oil. Nate Hagens, at The Oil Drum, offers the beginning of a response: Peak Oil has never been about the amount of hydrocarbon molecules that exist, but flow rates, timing …
Lynne Kiesling One great thing about being on holiday out of the country is that I have blissfully been spared the annoying, politicized, and frequently wrong-headed and vapid health care policy discussions and media coverage thereof. I read John Mackey’s WSJ editorial with his health care policy recommendations, the top three of which being: •?Equalize …
Health Care Economics Tidbits: Mackey, New York Times, Horwitz Read More »
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