The perverse effort of some “free market” and “classical liberal” intellectuals to promote centrally planned electricity markets at wholesale (thus indirectly at retail) is a very curious example in the history of energy thought. Lynne Kiesling and Michael Giberson (see yesterday) are the guilty.

In AI and Economic Calculation (Substack), Kiesling explains the basics of the central-planning debate but ducks the elephant in her room, the centrally planned wholesale power market.

I have emphasized to Lynne Don Lavoie’s critique of noncomprehensive planning that went alongside his work on comprehensive planning, challenging her to forthrightly apply his argument to her beloved mandatory open access/Independent System Operator/Regional Transmission Organization (MOA/ISO/RTO) framework. The “knowledge problem” she champions reflects badly from her own mirror, if she would only see (impartial observer needed).…

“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.…

“The Kiesling/Giberson (et al.) narrative is a call for more government. MORE wind. MORE solar. MORE Batteries. MORE central planning to correct prior. And rationing from ‘smart meters’ to forgive all that came before. Think Big Brother, the Electricity Road to Serfdom.”

Three years ago this month, a prolonged, extensive cold snap did the unthinkable to Texas’s huge electricity grid. The shared narrative from proponents/apologists of forced energy transformation (‘Energy Transition’, ‘Decarbonization’, ‘Net Zero’, ‘Green New Deal’, ‘Virtual Power Plant’) focused on the failure of natural gas infrastructure as the cause of the debacle, a sort of “market failure” from “an Act of God.” The cancer in the system, intermittent wind and solar ($66 billion worth), was forgiven, and central planning of the state’s grid by Austin politicians, regulators, and administrators was treated as a neutrality.…

“Lynne Kiesling is a technocrat whose theories come alive in the governmental domain. She believes she has melded the free market and government planning in electricity. By playing classical liberal in other respects, she has fooled many free market types, while collecting many academic positions for her contra-capitalist views.”

Statism in classical-liberal garb is the story of electricity specialist Lynne Kiesling. This post documents her exchange with Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental studies at the CATO Institute. She shows her style but avoids the fundamental arguments of markets-versus-government in electricity. My interpretation of Kiesling as contra-capitalist concludes this post.

This exchange occurred with a post by Todd Snitchler, head of the Electric Power Supply Association.

Fisher (to Kiesling): in a recent piece you attempt to reconcile designed markets with a Hayekian approach.…