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 …
I was intending to comment on all of these commentaries, but some writing has come my way that has taken more time than I thought … in any case, for your convenience and my own, a compendium of commentaries: Robert Kuttner from the New York Times Saturday: no great surprise, he blames deregulation for the …
Monday Afternoon Blackout Commentary Roundup: Nyt and Wsj Read More »
I must take this opportunity to thank those of you who directed traffic this way: Tyler Cowen, Steve Verdon, and Megan McArdle aka Jane Galt all posted links to the Knowledge Problem, as well as offering their own cogent and insightful commentaries. Tyler also mentioned the Watts paper on cascading failures, and has endeared himself …
For you techies out there, here’s a paper by Duncan Watts on cascading failures from the Santa Fe Institute [ironically, I was reading this paper for my own general edification early last week!]. And a knowledgeable reader, Eric Krieg, sends this link to a paper on high-phase power. Eric says Basically, you can pump more …
Tech Central Station has a couple of electricity articles this morning: one by Vaclav Smil on the fragmented nature of our grid and the consequences of that fragmentation, and one by me on how deregulation is not to blame and how retail demand response can make the grid more reliable.
Some articles on the possible causes and the fallout from the blackout: Overloaded power lines in northern Ohio may be to blame, although the utility that owns and operates the lines in question thinks that their imbalances were a symptom of a larger problem: Baird said FirstEnergy is evaluating information that shows there were “unusual …
I’ll have more analysis and commentary on electricity policy tomorrow, after I’ve rested and digested the weekend’s news. Please come back then (or set your aggregator to my RSS feed)!
We have updated Reason’s electricity pages to include a Reason blackout resource center. Transmission-related information will be provided here, updated regularly. One very valuable resource available on our site is Ken Silverstein’s column on the blackout. Ken is a very incisive observer of electricity policy, and he correctly points out that The wires business must …
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