“This conference is not about free market reform; it is about centrally planned wholesale markets for electricity, as well as open-ended subsidies for wind, solar, and batteries, all at the expense of thermal generation and free-market order.”

The title says it all: Integrating Science and Law & Economics to Inform Energy Policy in a Decarbonized Future.” And the conference is loaded with electricity statists and ‘clean’ energy activists, all experts (as in expert failure and scientism), with plans to tweak/expand government planning in a failed, failing government system. In political terms, it is Biden’s “all of government” all the way.

The premise of the two-day conference is flawed. “Science” in the title suggests the scientific (physical and social) debate behind Net Zero/forced energy transformation. “Law & Economics” is a discipline that certainly questions the vague idea of “decarbonization.”…

“Giberson and Kiesling are all in with the Biden Agenda of the Production Tax Credit for industrial wind; the Investment Tax Credit for solar; pricing CO2, even if that means international ‘border adjustments.’ Two ‘classical liberals’ accepting rather than debating/criticizing climate alarmism and forced energy transformation? They should explain themselves rather than dodge, deflect, pretend.”

He steadfastly refuses to define what a free market is in electricity–and what the end state is for a classical liberal. Bonded with Lynne Kiesling, another pretend classical liberal when it comes to electricity, Michael Giberson can only claim to try to make the politicalized system better. And that is getting harder and harder to do.

Here is my latest exchange with Giberson on social media where he makes a specious argument that a regulated gasoline market at wholesale is analogous to a centrally planned electricity market.…

“Maybe in her Presidential Address (if enough people have read this critical post) she will be compelled to broach the subject of Public Choice and Electricity Planning. And maybe include a mea culpa that she finds herself admitting from time to time. Here’s hoping….”

The strange intellectual case of Lynne Kiesling–the technocratic ‘classical liberal’ championing a government planned, monopolistic electricity market–continues. Think seven Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) that regulate the in-and-out and pricing of grid electricity over multiple utility areas.

Public Choice Society Meeting

Next week is the 61st annual conference of the Public Choice Society, a stellar organization that applies Economics 101 to governmental institutions. “Methodological Individualism … Rational Choice … Politics-as-exchange.” A great tradition, a great conference ahead….

But … Kiesling is presiding as President of an 80-session, 220-presentation conference without a session in her pet area, governmental electricity planning.…

Ed. Note: With the 3rd anniversary of the Great Texas Blackout of February 2021, it is worth remembering the second thoughts that architects of the centrally planned state grid (ISO/ERCOT) had at the time. But have the guilty feelings resulted in a fundamental rethink of government electricity? This post is reprinted from MasterResource (August 5, 2021)

“Arranging deck chairs on the Titanic if no capacity market.” (Joe Pokalsky, here)

“I have stated earlier that the ERCOT market’s reliance on scarcity pricing did not foresee an environment with high penetration of zero-marginal cost resources. Back in 2005 I generically simulated an energy-only market to demonstrate how scarcity pricing would work. I never anticipated the mass introduction of renewables at that time.” ( – Robert Borlick, below)

“(oops!) There is now a need to revise the scarcity pricing framework in the light of recent events, and to reflect ever-changing market conditions.”