A Free-Market Energy Blog

Charles Koch on Cronyism: More for the Record (Washington Post interview)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 15, 2016

“I’d like to see a rebirth of the country — go back where there’s equal rights for everybody, as I said, and that people succeed to the extent that they help other people improve their lives. To lead toward a society that maximizes peace, civility, and well-being for everyone.”

A series of posts at MasterResource has examined the views on business/government relations by classical-liberal entrepreneur Charles Koch, who has become a rare voice for government-neutral business relations. These post include:

Charles Koch: An Entrepreneur for Liberty

‘Good Profit’: Charles Koch on Cronyism (Part 2)

Charles Koch on Cronyism (Part 1)

Who is Charles Koch? (A builder of business and critic of political capitalism)

Charles Koch’s most recent thoughts on cronyism have been provided in an interview by the Washington Post’s Jim Tankersley (misleadingly titled “‘I don’t like the idea of capitalism’: Charles Koch, unfiltered.”

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Evaluating Wind Impact (Part III — Fuel Consumption and Emissions Evaluation)

By Kent Hawkins -- August 11, 2016

“The best approach to understanding wind’s impact appears to be that properly structured ‘bench’ tests should be performed, and results made publically available, on actual fossil fuel plants under the full range of conditions experienced in balancing the effect of the presence of wind’s generation behavior.”

Part I on Tuesday and Part II yesterday focussed on the greater range of variations and the increased ramping levels caused by wind in short time intervals of a few minutes or less, and introduced some of the complexities involved in analysis of the impact of wind in an electricity system.

This post looks at the analysis of published fossil fuel consumption and emissions information and addresses two major issues:

(1) the questionable nature of the published information, and

(2) the questionable attempts by external analysts (those outside the information publisher organizations) using this information to determine the cause and effect relationship between wind production and fossil fuel consumption and emissions leading to the determination of savings with wind.…

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Evaluating Wind Impact (Part II — Ramping)

By Kent Hawkins -- August 10, 2016

“Understanding the impact of wind requires very detailed analysis of ramping events on a short term basis. The analysis provided here raises even more questions, so there is still much to be learned to properly quantify any impact from the presence of wind on fossil fuel or emissions savings. Arguably the complexity involved defies analysis.”

“Wind increases the magnitude of the balancing activity by increasing the ramping over load alone with a notable number of large ‘outliers’. The dynamic impact of this can substantially increase the rate of fossil fuel consumption and emissions in fossil fuel plants in the net load balancing role over that claimed by any less rigorous analysis.”

Part I yesterday in this three-part series examined wind intermittency/integration basics. Part II today focuses on the ramping impacts of the combination of load and wind (net load).…

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Evaluating Wind Impact (Part I — Basics)

By Kent Hawkins -- August 9, 2016
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Green Party Energy: Front Door Cronyism, Back Door Poverty (convention concludes in Houston)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 8, 2016
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Call for Clexit (as in EU CLimate Exit)

By Viv Forbes -- August 4, 2016
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‘Fear Not: The Malthusians Are Wrong’ (2000 Op-Ed for Today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 3, 2016
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Anti-Public Utility Regulation, Pro Business (political vs. free-market capitalism)

By Jim Clarkson -- August 2, 2016
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Energy & Environmental Newsletter: August 1, 2016

By -- August 1, 2016
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Federal Coal Leasing: First, Do No Harm (to consumers, taxpayers, industry)

By Betsy Monseu -- July 28, 2016
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