“It’s policy, it’s regulation, it’s industry structure and it’s incentives . . . It’s not physics, it’s not chemistry, it’s not even the electric grid. It’s what we decide we want.” – Ron Binz
“Postmodernism … can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.” – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A small victory for consumers and free-market energy policy came yesterday when energy statist Ron Binz withdrew as a nominee to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Washington, D.C.
Binz put the blame on others rather than his own postmodern energy philosophy and coercive energy-policy views, which he unsuccessfully tried to hide before Congress.…
Continue Reading[This MasterResource post from February 2011 is reprinted for its relevance with the start of ObamaCare today. An uncomfortable question must be asked: what will happen in the health waiting rooms given what happened in the 1970s gasoline lines?]
For decades I have enjoyed the opinion-page editorials of the Wall Street Journal, both the unsigned editorials and the guest opinions. During the 1970s energy crisis, and today amid climate alarmism and the futile crusade to regulate carbon dioxide, the Journal has been a bastion of sound economic thought.
I was recently reminded of perhaps my favorite WSJ energy editorial of all, “Buffer of Civility,” published during the dark days of energy rioting in summer 1979 (yes, the U.S. experienced fuel riots from federal price controls that caused energy shortages).
What brought this to mind was another WSJ editorial, “Sebelius’s Price Controls,” which reported on a 136-page price-regulating rule under ObamaCare–and this message to state governors from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
… Continue Readingurging them “to prevent unjustified and excessive health insurance premium growth.”
“It’s these subsidies and unfair billing credits–coupled with the intermittent nature of solar energy–that has utilities, utility customers, and taxpayers questioning the expansion of solar power. Until the solar industry can effectively operate in a free market and not burden consumers who cannot or choose not to install rooftop solar, this debate will continue.”
Solar power generation in the U.S. rose nearly 600% from 2000 to 2010 (NREL), and this trend is continuing. Fueled by an array of federal, state and local subsidies along with utility-bill credits, the economics of photovoltaic (PV) energy might seem too good to pass up. This is especially the case with residential or rooftop solar systems.
However, a closer look at industry subsidization, the unique properties of PV, and controversial billing practices for solar users, such as Net Metering, show that solar power is not as great a deal as its supporters would have you believe.…
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