A free-market energy economy promotes and rewards the creators and producers. Parasites and glad-handers need not apply. (below)
Free-market entrepreneurs and their workforce are creators, providing not only for themselves but for the wider good. They do not bank on government mandates or subsidies but on the needs of consumers, existing and new. They seek good profit, defined as creating real consumer value.
The fossil-fuel industries from top-to-bottom would qualify in the great majority of instances. In fact, most of its members, at present, are overcoming government intervention rather than depending on it.
It is just the reverse with the renewable industries, except for off-the-grid where there is no plug-in power. (David Bergeron, an author at MasterResource, is an example of a remote solar entrepreneur.)
The wind power industry, in particular, is made up of rent-seekers who have put themselves in the business of deceit, exaggeration, and half-truths.…
“Classical liberalism does not have a long resume in the history of energy thought. Prior to the 1970s energy crises, it was a backwater for free-market intellectuals, although the opportunity was there for both scholarship and political advocacy.”
I recently constructed a new home with a two-story library, ladders and all. On one side are my energy-related books; on the other, economics. Several thousand volumes are, for the first time, organized in one place. Better late than never as I am in my 66th year.
The energy books, many unearthed from storage, bring back a lot of memories. Some observations follow.
Classical liberalism (or the political term, libertarianism) does not have a long resume in the history of energy thought. Prior to the 1970s energy crises, it was a backwater for the free market intellectuals, although the opportunity was there for both scholarship and political advocacy.…
“You may be right. 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, electricity expert (below)
The once-proud, sturdy Texas electric grid is under severe stress–yet again.
Growing demand (electricity is life!), hot (almost) summer weather, and disappearing renewables (wind in the day, solar at night) have exposed a wounded grid.
The wounds are evident in prematurely retired natural gas and coal generation capacity, as well as a lack of new capacity. Why? Renewable energy severely diminished incentives for baseload generation that would have prevailed without (government-enabled) wind and solar capacity.…