“If there is one thing I have been impressed with over the last decades, it is that when the environmental community defines a number one priority, something happens. Not always something good—but something.”1

Dr. Kenneth L. Lay, Chairman, Enron Corporation, June 1997 (1)

Who was the late Ken Lay, the architect and chairman of Enron throughout its 16-year history? All parties to the current legislative debate on a CO2 cap-and-trade bill should know. After all, Lay’s tireless efforts to promote CO2 regulation and enact renewable energy quotas make him a father figure for HR 2354, the Waxman-Markey climate bill, what I have called the Enron Revitalization Act of 2009.

In his lifetime, Lay did not win CO2 regulation, but he got a very damaging renewable energy mandate passed in his home state of Texas.…

[Editor note: Ken Maize, a long-time energy analyst, joins MasterResource for the first time (see his bio at the end of this post). A MR previous post by Robert Michaels has questioned ‘smart metering,’ part of the ‘smart grid’ concept]

However politically incorrect my conclusion, I’m convinced that the “smart grid” is not smart and even dumb. It diverts attention from what is a more important objective–a strong grid. And it politicizes in the very area where we need more consumer-driven, free-market incentives.

Following the Northeast grid collapse of 2003, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) popped out the smart grid concept, largely the brainchild of then EPRI’s CEO Kurt Yeager. The blueprint was for an interconnected intelligent network reaching from the generating station to your toaster, able to talk up-and-down the line, matching supply and demand seamlessly.…

Yesterday’s post at MasterResource described the failure of the 81st Texas Legislature (aka the “solar session”) to enact a new renewables mandate. Other big news is the rejection of an initial renewable (read solar, biomass) mandate by the Florida Legislature, as well as a sweetheart deal desired by Florida Power & Light (FPL). Nuclear and offshore drilling also came into play in the legislative debate as tie-in’s in the political environment.

All this is instructive for the current federal push for a National Electricity Standard (NES). Florida would be a loser in any national NES–especially given the prohibitive cost of converting sunshine into electricity in any sort of a major way. The age-old promises of solar breakthroughs are a mirage, and Enron’s 1994 contrived Solarex splash should not be forgotten.

As reported by John Dorschner in the Miami Herald, Florida rejected a year-long push by environmental groups and their business allies to enact a renewable quota in the state.…

“We can push solar, and that’s great. But somebody’s got to pay for it. You can’t have those who can barely afford their energy bills subsidizing it.”

– Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner, quoted in the Houston Chronicle

The Houston Democrat made a national statement, not just statewide one, in reference to proposed legislation to surcharge ratepayers to subsidize solar roofs. Such sentiment beat back a well-funded effort by national environmental pressure groups and the solar industry. Has the decade-old Enron-launched artificial stimulus to uneconomic, unreliable renewables reached its apogee? Might existing and planned renewable programs enacted at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers be reconsidered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the 82nd Texas Legislature in 2011?

Background

The Texas Legislature, which meets every two years, fell to Enron and environmental lobbyists back in 1999 when the nation’s strictest renewable energy mandate was passed and signed into law by then Gov.…