Energy markets

Texas Does Carbon Big, and That’s Not All…

Michael Giberson … Texas does the non-carbon thing in a pretty big way, too. Tom Fowler, at NewsWatch: Energy, pulls together some numbers. Among his points (edited and slightly rearranged): Texas leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions; and If Texas were a country, it would rank seventh in the world in greenhouse gas emissions. …

Texas Does Carbon Big, and That’s Not All… Read More »

Can Arizona Become the “Persian Gulf of Solar Energy”?

Michael Giberson Spanish company Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Company have announced plans to build a large solar powered electric generator, to come online in 2011, but like many such announcements it comes with a couple of public-policy related “ifs”; they’ll build it if they get the necessary approvals from the Arizona utility regulator, …

Can Arizona Become the “Persian Gulf of Solar Energy”? Read More »

Texas Wind Power: Gets by with a Little Help from Tax Credits

Michael Giberson Out in west Texas you can still see the occasional old-style wind mill on a farm or ranch, dutifully pumping up water when the wind blows. A much more common sight these days is the new, sleek wind power generator. A combination of good fundamentals for wind power, federal tax credits, state renewable …

Texas Wind Power: Gets by with a Little Help from Tax Credits Read More »

Biofuels and Carbon: Changing Land Use Makes Ethanol Increase Carbon Concentrations

Lynne Kiesling This new article in Science tackles a question that I’ve had for years, and is creating a stir in the process: once you take into account the emissions of carbon during the corn growing process, what is the net effect of ethanol production and use on carbon concentrations? Most prior studies have found …

Biofuels and Carbon: Changing Land Use Makes Ethanol Increase Carbon Concentrations Read More »

Texas Electric Choice: The Power is Yours. Use It.

Lynne Kiesling I declare our conference on the experience of electricity restructuring in Texas on Friday at AEI a success! In regulatory policy analysis we usually don’t do a good job of telling the stories of successful institutional change, so I thought it was really important to highlight the Texas experience so that other regulatory …

Texas Electric Choice: The Power is Yours. Use It. Read More »

Upcoming Aei Conference: Texas Electricity Restructuring

Lynne Kiesling My colleague Andy Kleit and I are co-editing a book on electricity restructuring in Texas: A number of states have recently sought to increase competition in the electricity industry to drive down prices, increase supply, and improve service quality. Yet in the aftermath of the rolling blackouts and power shortages that afflicted California …

Upcoming Aei Conference: Texas Electricity Restructuring Read More »

More Coverage of the Gridwise Olympic Peninsula Project and Smart Grid

Lynne Kiesling Since last week there’s been more discussion of the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Project that I discussed last week: a Business Week article on the project and a Gristmill post, a CNN Money article, the Solve Climate blog, and an Associated Press article that ran in USA Today. The last article also quotes me, …

More Coverage of the Gridwise Olympic Peninsula Project and Smart Grid Read More »

Programmable Thermostat Regulations in California: Big Brother or Control Freaks?

Lynne Kiesling Over the past week there has been quite a discussion online of the California Energy Commission’s proposal requiring mandatory customer thermostat reponse to emergency demand reduction signals. This New York Times article from Friday also discusses the CEC proposal, as does this ABC news affiliate story from San Francisco. See also the discussion …

Programmable Thermostat Regulations in California: Big Brother or Control Freaks? Read More »

Gridwise Olympic Peninsula Project Final Report: Prices to People and Their Devices Lead to Savings and Reliability

Lynne Kiesling Today’s New York Times has an article describing the results of the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Project, the year-long smart grid research project on price-responsive household technology, dynamic electricity pricing, and consumer behavior in which I participated: The demonstration project was as much a test of consumer behavior as it was of new technology. …

Gridwise Olympic Peninsula Project Final Report: Prices to People and Their Devices Lead to Savings and Reliability Read More »