“The ‘virtual power plant’ is the end-state of electricity interventionism, where government-subsidized wind, solar, and batteries–and in-home regulated (rationed) electricity use, via ‘smart meters’–replace consumer choice and taxpayer neutrality in a free marketplace.”

Lynne Kiesling has long sold herself as a freedom-loving classical liberal. Except she is the opposite when it comes to her specialty, electricity markets. This social media post is illustrative.

The “virtual power plant” is the end-state of electricity interventionism, where government-subsidized wind, solar, and batteries–and in-home regulated (rationed) electricity-use, via “smart meters”–replace consumer choice and taxpayer neutrality in a free marketplace.

Tomorrow’s post, “Free Market Electricity,” will outline the worldview of the missing-in-action alternative to Kiesling’s politically correct statism.

Appendix A: Critical Posts on Kiesling and Electricity

Electricity Statism Conference: Kiesling Rides High (June 25, 2024)

The Great Texas Blackout of 2021: Triumph of the Unreliables (February 20, 2024)

Kiesling vs.…

“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.…