Lynne Kiesling If you are interested in the ongoing scientific, economic, and political sturm und drang around ethanol, fossil fuels, and food, this WSJ Environmental Capital post alerts us to a new study from the Congressional Budget Office claiming that ethanol production was only responsible for 10-15% of the increase in food prices in 2007-2008. …
Michael Giberson From Environmental Capital, reports that selling all greenhouse gas emission permits under a cap-and-trade scheme may not be politically attractive: Europe already saw what happened when it gave away emissions permits—utilities gobbled up more than 100 billion euros in windfall profits. The pain for the consumer—i.e., the voter–will be the same whether the …
Michael Giberson At the Gulf Coast Power Association meetings last week in Houston, Jay Caspary of the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) was discussing transmission expansion plans, and at slide 20 offered a map showing the overlapping transmission plans of SPP and ERCOT. The purple lines are proposed 765 kV lines in SPP, the red lines …
Overlapping Transmission Grids in West Texas Will Give Power Plants the Power to Choose Read More »
Michael Giberson Last week I attended the Gulf Coast Power Association‘s spring conference. Very good time. More comments later this week after I have time to catch up. Just a note today on the pre-conference power plant tour featuring the Tenaska Frontier Generating Plant in Shiro, Texas (about 50 north of Houston). The 830-MW combined-cycle …
Michael Giberson A story from the Charlotte Observer provides a reminder of the speed at which useful information about the scarcity of resources percolates through regulated electric utility rates: “Duke to seek rate increases.” In brief, Duke Energy is requesting approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission to raise rates beginning September 2009 and continuing …
Consumers Asked to Pay More Next Year for Last Year’s Increases in Utility Costs Read More »
Michael Giberson Wind power has been subsidized by state and federal governments in the United States because it is seen as clean and renewable, and perhaps even because wind power is seen as glamorous. Consumers pay higher electric rates and taxpayers pay higher taxes to support these subsidies, and it is a quite reasonable public …
Environmental Benefits and the Production Tax Credit for Wind Power Read More »
Michael Giberson Carbon tax and cap-and-trade fun, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and bloggers at Common Tragedies. In brief: on Monday the WSJ lead editorial complained about the distributional effects of cap-and-trade, correctly noting that the effect of pricing carbon would depend on consumption but misleadingly illustrated with a chart based on …
Because It is Not News Until It is on Comedy Central; Or, Carbon Taxes Their Brains Read More »
Michael Giberson For class tomorrow I’m reading up on things Enron and California power market melt-down related. I’m a fan, for example, of Jonathan Falk’s 2002 article in the Electricity Journal on the infamous “Smoking Gun” memo which detailed Enron’s colorfully-named trading strategies like “get shorty” and “death star.” Among other things, Falk points out …
Power Market Seams and the Role of Arbitragers in Market Design Read More »
Michael Giberson Last week the New York ISO filed proposed tariff changes with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to revise how it treats wind power generation in its markets. Under the NYISO’s current rules, wind power generators are not treated as flexible resources. When the transmission system is overloaded, other generators can be asked to …
Michael Giberson Following up on a Monday post, in the news another report of a Texas electric power retailer seeking to acquire generation as a natural hedge. From Platts: Direct Energy said Wednesday that it plans to acquire and/or develop new generating capacity in the US to support its electricity retailing business. Direct, a subsidiary …
Retail Electric Power Market Shakeout in Texas, Ii Read More »
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