Early Reactions to the Doe Grid Reliability Study

The much anticipated, objected to, lobbyied about, editorialized on US Department of Energy study on electric grid reliability, markets, and policy has finally been released. Finally us commenters will actually know what we are talking about. Maybe. You can find the report on the DOE website along with Secretary Perry’s cover letter. I may comment

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Solar Eclipses and the Electric Grid: Markets and Automation

Yesterday’s solar eclipse across the US amplified a dominant issue in electricity policy discussions over the past couple of years — does increasing use of distributed energy resources like solar photovoltaics make the grid more resilient, or does it lead to imbalance and inadequacy? In California during the eclipse (Financial Times), solar generation dropped compared to

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Creating a Culture of Innovation: East Bay Punk Version

She’s from Salinas, oh oh oh And she looks like Venus, oh oh oh She’s from Salinas, oh oh oh And she looks like Venus – chorus from “She’s from Salinas” by The Sweet Baby Jesus Not the most inspired lyrics produced in the name of rock and roll, but it endures as a part of

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Announcement: New Job at Purdue

This week is an exciting one for me, as I’m starting a new job. I have left Northwestern University and have started in a new position at Purdue University, where I will be a faculty member and the Associate Director of the Purdue University Research Center in Economics. The research center emphasizes applied microeconomic policy research,

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Utahns Get Low-cost, Reliable Electric Power. What is Wrong with That?

Utah is doing just fine with monopoly electric service, says a state legislator who oversees the Utah Public Utilities Commission. The legislator, Carl Albrecht, was responding to an op-ed appearing in the Deseret News the week earlier by Ethan Dursteler and me in which we encouraged Utahns to consider retail electric competition. Albrecht is right

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Fun with Footnotes (a Game of Scholarly Discovery)

“Let’s … have … fun … with … footnote[s],” MacLean said.* Here is a simple game of scholarship that anyone can play and everyone who plays by accepted norms of scholarship wins!** How to play: Take the recently published book Democracy in Chains, open it randomly to a page in the text, find a footnote

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Lobbyists for Wind and Solar Energy Ready to Fight Doe Grid Policy Study

Soon after Energy Secretary Rick Perry requested DOE staff to prepare a report on how public policies affected the electric power grid, lobbyists for the wind energy and solar energy industries struck back. In an op-ed appearing in The Hill, Megan Hansen and I identify why we think the renewable power industries are so sensitive

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Kiesling & Munson: A Revolution in Power

Dick Munson, Environmental Defense Fund’s Midwest clean energy director, and I have been working with, thinking about, and doing research on the evolution of technologies and regulation in the electricity industry for a long time. I have used Dick’s book From Edison to Enron in my own work, and his blog posts at EDF are

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The Weak Case for Continued Regulation of the Electric Power Industry

In today’s Wall Street Journal special section on energy issues, a pair of articles presents the case for and against restructuring the electric power industry to introduce more competition. In favor of reform is Andrew Kleit: “YES: It Is the Best Way to Lower Costs and Increase Innovation.” In favor of the traditional regulated electric utility

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