Kiesling Likes Government Electricity Planning

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 16, 2025

“Kiesling intellectually resides in the government sandbox, where dilute, intermittent, fragile, government-dependent wind and solar is coordinated by ISO/RTO planners. Add (subsidized) storage, then whatever is left on the supply side can be equilibrated on the demand side with ‘smart meters’ (another government play) in your home or business.”

She fancies herself a classical liberal, a free-market type fully conversant with the arguments against central economic planning (Mises, Hayek, Lavoie). But when it gets to government planning of the electricity market, her specialty, the veneer comes off. It is ‘market processes’ within the rigged, governmental market. Welcome to the woman of system, technocrat Lynne Kiesling.

Consider this exhibit:

Kiesling intellectually resides in the government sandbox, where dilute, intermittent, fragile, government-dependent wind and solar are coordinated by ISO/RTO planners. Add storage (another government play), and then whatever happens on the supply side can be equilibrated on the demand side with ‘smart meters’ (another government play) in your home or business.

Hot afternoon and the wind isn’t blowing? Your thermostat flips to 78 degrees. No solar during the night? Can’t turn on some of your appliances. Your ‘smart meter’–expensive but necessary–is boss in her neoclassical ‘efficient’, climate-alarmist ‘decarbonized’ world.

What happens when the Production Tax Credit, the Investment Tax Credit, and the Inflation Reduction Act go away? Wind, solar, and batteries would reveal their true negative economics, to be replaced by reliable government-neutral generation that consumers wanted in the first place. Government sandbox emptied.

What happens to the electricity policy consultants and little generals–the technocrats–when mandatory open access and central wholesale power planning by the Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) go away? Perhaps some will find employment with an integrated electricity major or with independents in the structure of production, adding real value under profit/loss.

A real free market in electricity–studiously avoided by Kiesling–is worth exploring. I have presented the case here. Will she lower her nose and engage?

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Appendix A: Social Engineering

This social media post is indicative of how social engineering is taking over the electricity market in a world of mandatory access and government wind/solar/battery forcing in the market.