“The failure of the uncompleted V.C. Summer Units #2 and #3 ($10 billion), and the continuing woes at Vogtle, have marked the complete failure of Congress to create a ‘nuclear renaissance’ through the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The act provided for up to $8 billion each in ‘loan guarantees’ for new nuclear plants.”
“Nuclear ‘loan guarantees,’ it turns out, is a politically constructed term to cover the fact that the ‘guarantees’ are actually Treasury funds, and loan payments are made to the Treasury.”
The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. And Southern Company announces further delays in the startup of Georgia Power’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4, the only nuclear power plant under construction in the U.S.
In its annual financial report issued Feb. 16, Southern said it will push back the startup date for Unit 3 of the two-unit, Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor project to May or June of this year. …
Continue Reading“Are RTOs central planning entities subject to the Mises/Hayek/Lavoie critique of access, pricing, and service quality? Is the ‘knowledge problem’ and ‘fatal conceit’ a defining issue for RTOs/ISOs compared to a private sector, unregulated approach to power coordination?”
“Vernon Smith: I don’t know”
It is a strange world in which a classical liberal espousing F. A. Hayek tries to justify a “market” based on a systemic violation of property rights and governmental central planning for an enormous territorial grid.
But this is the case with Lynne Kiesling, and maybe even Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith. I’ll let the reader decide from this social media exchange:
Kiesling: I’m pleased to report a new publication in the journal Energies, “Opening Up Transactive Systems: Introducing TESS and Specification in a Field Deployment,” available to read below.…
Continue ReadingWho should manage and be accountable for electricity in Texas? Politicians and bureaucrats with special interests everywhere? Or corporations with their own capital on the line?
In light of the second anniversary of the Texas Power Crisis of February 2021 (see yesterday), the answer would seem obvious. Grade A corporations, with the legal responsibility to customers, not politicians.
I was reminded of this when I read a Fox News story (February 7, 2023), “Texas State Senator Arrested for Drunk Driving.” Charles Schwertner, a Republican, “was set to preside over a Senate committee meeting at 11 a.m. regarding Texas’ power grid and recent winter outages.”
Another news account stated:
… Continue ReadingSchwertner, who leads the Senate’s Business and Commerce Committee, was expected at the Capitol at 11 a.m.