Michael Giberson Bob Jenks of Oregon’s Citizens’ Utility Board, writing at EnergyPulse, explains “Why Smart Grid Advocates Should Learn About Utility Regulation.” Reading between the lines a bit, the reason smart grid advocates should learn about utility regulation seems to be so that they will understand that their talent, inventiveness, and desire to make the …
The Smart Grid and the Regulatory Barriers Thereto Read More »
Lynne Kiesling A team of highly skilled and design-savvy engineers have revealed Nest, an elegant, well-designed thermostat that can learn your preferred settings, analyze your data to spot energy-saving and money-saving opportunities, and look lovely on your wall. Earth2Tech has a review article on Nest, as does Greentech Enterprise. This summary description, from the Earth2Tech …
Nest’s Elegant Learning Thermostat — but is It Transactive? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Here’s an interesting juxtaposition of two prominent executives performing sound public choice analyses, and I think they complement each other, at least in my work! This weekend’s Wall Street Journal featured an interview with Exelon’s John Rowe, A Life in Energy and (Therefore) Politics. Exelon is the third largest investor-owned utility/generation owner in …
Exelon’s John Rowe and Google’s Eric Schmidt: Truth to Power? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Amazon’s announcement yesterday of their Kindle Fire tablet differentiates the tablet market in one discrete jump. Anticipated for months, the Fire does indeed compete head-to-head with the iPad, but not by mimicking its feature-rich and flexible platform. Amazon has made a strong Schumpeterian move to differentiate the market. Amazon’s move follows a storied …
Razor-Razorblade, Printer-Cartridge, … Tablet-Media Read More »
Michael Giberson I second Lynne’s recommendation of Yergin’s column in the Saturday Wall Street Journal. On the topic of Hubbert’s peak and peak oil generally, I particularly recommend these two paragraphs: Hubbert insisted that price didn’t matter. Economics—the forces of supply and demand—were, he maintained, irrelevant to the finite physical cache of oil in the …
Lynne Kiesling As an addendum to my earlier post on the DOJ’s challenge of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, Peter Suderman at Reason has an informative post (with good links@) making essentially the same point as mine. The more the merrier!
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday’s announcement that the US DOJ would challenge the merger of AT&T’s wireless business with T-Mobile’s was surprising, and their approach to the merger seems to be more conventional and rooted in old HHI-market share and price effect metrics. Their analysis suggests that due to the substantial overlap in the existing separate AT&T …
Quality, Broadband, and Spectrum: What the Doj’s At&t/T-Mobile Lawsuit Misses Read More »
Michael Giberson Can Beacon Power patent the idea of using flywheel technology for frequency regulation? Apparently the answer is yes, at least according to Beacon’s press release. “Beacon Power invented the idea of using high-energy flywheels to regulate grid frequency, so it’s appropriate that we’ve now been awarded a core patent for the idea,” said …
Beacon Power Patents Idea of Flywheels for Frequency Regulation? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Appliance and consumer electronics manufacturers are starting to incorporate digital technology with energy-related applications into their products … but as with most new technologies, the first commercial stage of the innovation cycle takes the form of “because we can” product differentiation rather than use-specific innovation. Take the example that Technology Review highlighted this …
Lynne Kiesling In late July I spoke at Cato University, which was great; I met so many interesting and thoughtful people, and learned a lot from my fellow participants and speakers. I’m also happy that Cato has made the presentation notes and recordings of the presentations available on their website, so you can see and …
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive