Michaal Giberson The future of broadband over power lines (BPL) may depend upon the outcome of a battle between an irresistible object and an immovable object. In this case the irresistible object is the potential value created by deployment of BPL, and the immovable object is the well-established law and principles of regulatory ratemaking. Ray …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday the New York Times had an article on a new method of producing hydrogen from electrolysis using nuclear power (registration required). The new technique still is not a net production of energy, but it has drastically cut the amount of energy required to isolate the hydrogen: The heart of the plan is …
Technological Change And Hydrogen By Electrolysis Read More »
Lynne Kiesling On Tuesday afternoon I attended a session at the annual NARUC meetings on the potential for IGCC Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle technology and impediments to investment and implementation. IGCC essentially is a process for turning coal into synthetic natural gas, which puts the coal through a gasifier, extracts pollutants like particulate matter and …
Is It A Market Failure, Or Failing To Allow A Market To Arise? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I’d have to say the simple answer is “yes”, although the nuances of those changes are a lot more difficult to predict. Ronald Bailey writes at Reason about a recent nanotech conference he attended that made some predictions about how nanotech is likely to affect our lives in 2025. Of course, such long-range …
Lynne Kiesling I asked my freshman seminar to write an essay about energy use in the US in the past 50 years based on this EIA data table showing GDP in 2000 dollars, energy consumption in BTUs, population, and other stuff. Here’s what I (and they) learned from the experience. Total energy consumption in the …
What I Learned About Energy Use In The Us From My Students Read More »
Michael Giberson Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell came out in favor of enhancing competition in retail electric power supply in the Pittsburgh area (in this press release): “Enhancing competition in Pennsylvania means working to expand the choices that consumers have by creating more energy options and increasing the supply of energy from a diversity of …
Michael Giberson Platt?s POWER reports that Arizona Public Service Company (APS) has reached an agreement with ?merchant generators and others? that would allow the company ? the largest regulated public utility in Arizona ? to purchase five power plants from an unregulated corporate affiliate, Pinnacle West Energy Corp. (PWEC). Both APS and PWEC are subsidiaries …
Michael Giberson A news report in the Hungry Horse News (Columbia Falls, MT) captures the some of peculiar flavor of federal power marketing in the Northwest: “The price of electricity mirrors the price of natural gas to a certain degree. With natural gas prices up, electricity prices are also up overall. That puts more money …
Lynne Kiesling An unusual and well-done study makes you think differently about something that you think about day and night. The recent General Accounting Office study entitled Electricity Markets: Customers Could Benefit from Demand Programs, but Challenges Remain did just that when I read it. The GAO report is a very useful summary of the …
Gao’s New Study On Electric Power Demand Response And Retail Choice Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Hey, how often do I get to use an Ultravox song title?!? Here’s a cool Wired magazine article on using computer models to estimate the wind power potential of a particular location. Before the development and refinement of such modeling, those wanting to know how much power potential they have would have to …
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