Environmental policy

Is a Reverse Auction Feed-in Tariff “Market-Based”?

2 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Environmental policy / By

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 …

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Does the Wall Street Journal Employ Anyone Who Understands Energy Markets? Three Rejoinders

3 Comments / Electricity, Environmental policy / By

Michael Giberson In Grist, Adam Browing asks, “Does the Wall Street Journal employ anyone who understands energy markets?”  Browning’s question and his answer seem just a little off, as I’ll discuss below, but first an excerpt from Browning: Actually, I think they do.  I think Keith Johnson knows quite a bit about energy markets.  Which …

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Unintended Consequences, Hybrid Vehicles Edition

2 Comments / Economics, Environmental policy / By

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 …

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Appliance Sales to Get ‘cash for Clunkers’ Boost?

1 Comment / Electricity, Environmental policy, Politics / By

Michael Giberson In the news, reports of a “cash for clunkers” program for major appliances: USA Today: Appliances get their own recycled clunkers programs; Business Week:  Latest in Stimulus: ‘Cash for Refrigerators’; Associated Press: Meltdown 101: Government cash for green appliances. From Business Week: Beginning late this fall, the program authorizes rebates of $50 to …

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Crabs and Crabbers: “Interests Are Not Always Aligned”

1 Comment / Economics, Environmental policy / By

Michael Giberson I laughed at this line in an article in the Washington Post: But one survives by catching the other and selling it to be eaten. So, as economists say, their interests are not always aligned. The article discusses the Maryland state government’s attempt to reduce the number of “limited crab catcher” licenses in …

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Highly Recommended Read on Waxman-markey: The Cap-and-trade Bait and Switch

2 Comments / Environmental policy, Politics / By

Michael Giberson David Schoenbrod and Richard B. Stewart explain why the Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” bill isn’t, fundamentally, a market-based approach to regulating greenhouse gasses: As a candidate for president in April 2008, Barack Obama told Fox News that “a cap-and-trade system is a smarter way of controlling pollution” than “top-down” regulation. He was right. With cap …

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Cash for Clunkers, Economics of

9 Comments / Economics, Environmental policy / By

Michael Giberson Christopher Knittel, at UC-Davis, has run some numbers on the “Cash for Clunkers” program and concludes that it is an expensive way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions: The Cash for Clunker program aims to stimulate the economy, provide relief for automobile manufacturers and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this research note, I present …

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Feed-in Tariffs Waste Resources and Make It Harder to Meet Europe’s Renewable Energy Goals

3 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Environmental policy, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson Feed-in tariffs waste resources and make it harder to meet Europe’s renewable energy goals according to a guest post by Omar Abbosh on the Financial Times Energysource blog, at least in the absence of a single, integrated electric power market in Europe.  Abbosh, a managing director at Accenture, notes that generous feed-in tariffs …

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Wind Power, Birds, Public Policy, and the Irrational Fears of Non-voters

1 Comment / Electricity, Environmental policy, Politics / By

Michael Giberson Should public policy accommodate the irrational fears of non-voters? In this case, the phrase “irrational fears” refers to a seemingly innate overwhelming aversion to vertical structures, namely wind turbines and high-voltage transmission lines, and “non-voters” refers to the lesser prairie chicken. A few weeks ago the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal ran a story on wildlife …

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