This month, unity was shattered within the wind industry when energy-giant Exelon Corporation broke ranks with other renewable-energy developers and asked Congress to let the production tax credit (PTC) expire in December. Exelon rightfully argued that the subsidy was distorting competitive wholesale energy markets and causing financial harm to other, more reliable clean energy sources.
In a fit of fury, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) voted Exelon “off the island” for insubordination and dismissed their complaint as self-serving, aimed at protecting Exelon’s fleet of Midwest nuclear power plants. AWEA insisted that wind was benefiting ratepayers by driving down consumer electricity prices in the face of “expensive, inflexible generation” like nuclear and coal.
As usual, AWEA position is easily rebutted. Yes, Exelon is concerned about (bizarre) wind pricing on the rates received by its nuclear power plants.…
Continue ReadingTraditional public-utility regulation of interstate transmission of both natural gas and electricity has given way to the open-access era. Rather than a bundled product (transportation and the commodity) delivered at one price, the utility just charges for transmission. Third parties (independent marketers) buy and sell the “unbundled” (gas or electricity) commodity.
Is third-party access (TPA) a step toward free markets compared to what came before? Some say “yes” given that there is a new market with the commodity where, as if led by an invisible hand, a plethora of new pricing terms and services have emerged. This is what led Ken Lay to think of open-access-dependent Enron as a pro-market, pro-competition company. “I believe in God, and I believe in free markets,” he used to say. But Enron was just the opposite, one of the most rent-seeking firms in the history of capitalism.…
Continue Reading“[T]he climate effect of greenhouse gas emissions from the production from fossil fuels appears to be less than it is being projected by the world’s best climate models. Yet all climate models agree that U.S. actions alone in reducing greenhouse gas impacts will not have practical impact on the climate. Ipso facto, arguments about energy policy should not be grounded in terms of real-world climate change, present or future.”
With the first presidential debate this Wednesday, and since both candidates have made recent high profile references to climate change and its impacts, perhaps this is a good time to review some basic climate change talking points that each candidates should have at his disposal.
Climate During the Obama Administration
• Over the course of the Obama presidency the rate of global warming has declined.…
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