A Free-Market Energy Blog

Wind and Solar Bribes: The Taxpayer Pays

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 13, 2023

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Stealth Electricity Statism: Giberson Exchange (for the record)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 12, 2023

“So will Michael Giberson and Lynne Kiesling ever consider the opportunity cost of their politicized electricity ‘market’? Will they consider a real free market that was at the center of the classical liberal debate before mandatory open access (etc.) came along? How much failure–and how far on the ‘road to serfdom’ does U.S. energy policy have to go before mid-course corrections?”

Lynne Kiesling and her close associate Michael Giberson have done great damage to the simple conception of a free-market electricity market and related public policy. By the use of hidden assumptions, cloudy definitions, and disengagement (all to “raise rival’s cost”), they have misled many free-market scholars in regard to a fundamental industry.

I am documenting this as much as I can for the historical record. Kiesling counters that I am ignorant of the technical subject matter and exhibit “aggressiveness” in my quest for clarification and openness.…

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Giberson on Negative Wind Pricing (2008)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 11, 2023

“This seems a little crazy. During these negative price periods, suppliers are paying ERCOT to take their power…. You could … build a giant toaster in West Texas and be paid by generators to operate it.”

Some 15 years ago, Michael Giberson at Knowledge Problem commented on a strange phenomenon–negative pricing by wind power, where operators with very low marginal costs (the wind is free) were paying takers per KWh to gain big tax credits, mostly federal.

Giberson’s analysis (reposted below) identified the malinvestment and ‘big anti-conservation incentive’. But he did not focus on what cumulatively would result from this distortion: a wounded Texas grid from chronic low prices/margins knocking out thermal generation. The unreliables–via government privilege– knocking out the reliables (what Bill Peacock would call predatory pricing).…

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Electric Grid Reliability: Texas vs. EPA

By Ed Ireland -- October 10, 2023
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Energy and Environmental Review: October 9, 2023

By -- October 9, 2023
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Government over U.S. Oil and Gas: A Summary

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 6, 2023
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CO2 Greening: Getting Back to the Basics

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 5, 2023
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ERCOT Readies ‘Retired’ Gas Generation for the 2023/24 Winter Peak

By Ed Ireland -- October 4, 2023
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Horwitz vs. Kiesling on Climate (social science matters too)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 3, 2023
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Julian Simon Memorial Award 2023: Comments of David Simon

By David Simon -- October 2, 2023
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