“I have to admit, the ERCOT blackouts have shaken me. The amount of physical damage and human suffering they caused is astounding. Obviously, the “market” failed to provide the service reliability that customers expected and deserved.”

– Robert L. Borlick, Independent energy consultant, here

It is tough when your belief system gets rattled by reality. Very few people can handle that well. The best prevention strategy is to keep an open mind, and understand other views about as well as your own. Be polite, and stay modest (‘the higher you fly, the harder you fall’).

One longtime electricity planner, Robert L. Borlick, is angry. His ideal regulatory/planning system, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT/ERCOT), crashed. He is in denial, having claimed:

• The February Texas experience was akin to earlier experienced blackouts (“To be sure, the ERCOT blackout was bad but nowhere as widespread as the Northeast blackouts.

“Rob, you certainly have the right to participate in the discussion but it is clear to me (and others) that you do not understand how the ERCOT market actually functions. Instead you spout off free market economic theories without getting down and dirty into the details of how to apply them to power systems. In the real world the devil is in the details.” (Robert Borlick, below)

“Rob, why are you shilling for the natural gas industry?” (Borlick, below)

Welcome to the political economy of electricity from the expert/planner viewpoint. Electricity is different. Its complexity requires central planning/regulation. The free market does not work. Ergo, free-market theories do not apply.

Bottom line: Experts/planners/regulators/politicians must get “down and dirty into the details of how to apply them to power systems.”

Previous posts (here and here) have chronicled my interaction with electricity planning experts in the wake of the Great Texas Power Blackout of February 2021.…

“By definition a free market means open access and competition. Your interpretation of Hayeck [sic] is flawed.” (Robert Borlick, below)

“Rob … I don’t think you have the foggiest idea of how the Austrian school of economics is relevant to electric power systems.” (Robert Borlick, below)

In the ‘never too late’ category, it’s time to introduce insights from the Austrian School of economics to electricity. Here is a running exchange with some power-market experts on my attempt to do just this.

I should emphasize that I am learning from them, as I hope they are learning from me. I have tested their patience with the notion that regulation/planning/renewables has hurt the Texas system–and hurt it enough to have caused the Great Blackout.

I am introducing new ideas to them, which really aren’t so new (see Raymond Niles in 2008 here).…

“And, frankly, libertarians like you who have supported Trump bear blame for this crap too. You have NO ground to stand on today having enabled this seditious shitty excuse for a human being….” (Steve Horwitz to Rob Bradley, Facebook, January 6, 2021)

“For me, one of the most tragic results of the Trump phenomenon has been to cause good, decent, reasonable classical liberals (libertarians, the good ones, not the zealots, you know what I mean) to yell at each other in anger and frustration.” (Peter Lewin, Facebook, January 8, 2021)

Amid the Capitol violence of Wednesday January 6, Peter Lewin, a notable Austrian-school economist and respected classical liberal, posted on Facebook about the “out of control zealots…. Mob Hysteria ready to explode….” Exchanges followed. I asked some rather civil questions including this one:

I’m not condoning the violence, just trying to put it in perspective…..