A Free-Market Energy Blog

“Resilience and Adaptation”: Mitigation Demotion Ahead?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 9, 2024

“Mitigation has had far more attention than adaptation…. So thanks to various people who alerted me to a new guide to the often-ignored subject of adaptation….” (- David Shukman, below)

The failure of climate mitigation policy grows ever more obvious. It was 36 years ago (1988) that the debate began on the front pages of the New York Times and other leading newspapers, and look where we are now. A tripartite fossil fuel boomgrassroot backlash against wind and solar installations … growing federal budget deficits with Green Energy bribes … and a significant divide in regard to nuclear and geoengineering as ‘climate fixers’.

If the crisis is upon us, then the ‘climate dollar’ must go toward resilience and adaptation (R&A), not mitigation that has no effect on global climate for decades.…

Continue Reading

“Free Market Electricity”

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 8, 2024

“A free market in electricity would terminate the current provisions of landmark federal statutes, such as the Power Act of 1935, Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, Energy Policy Act of 1992, Energy Policy Act of 1995, and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”

My new AIER primer defines and applies the free-market classical liberal worldview to electricity. This is particularly important because this sound perspective has been both forgotten and misapplied.

Forgotten regarding the criticisms of traditional public utility regulation that emerged in the 1960s; misapplied regarding the current mandatory open access era involving central planning at the wholesale level with ISOs/RTOs.

My major points with quotations follow:

1. Electricity is a free-market product with a clear free market, classical liberal meaning: the separation of government and electricity in all phases and in the whole.

Continue Reading

Lynne Kiesling: All in with the ‘Virtual Power Plant’ (Biden/Harris policy vs. free markets)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 7, 2024

“The ‘virtual power plant’ is the end-state of electricity interventionism, where government-subsidized wind, solar, and batteries–and in-home regulated (rationed) electricity use, via ‘smart meters’–replace consumer choice and taxpayer neutrality in a free marketplace.”

Lynne Kiesling has long sold herself as a freedom-loving classical liberal. Except she is the opposite when it comes to her specialty, electricity markets. This social media post is illustrative.

The “virtual power plant” is the end-state of electricity interventionism, where government-subsidized wind, solar, and batteries–and in-home regulated (rationed) electricity-use, via “smart meters”–replace consumer choice and taxpayer neutrality in a free marketplace.

Tomorrow’s post, “Free Market Electricity,” will outline the worldview of the missing-in-action alternative to Kiesling’s politically correct statism.

Appendix A: Critical Posts on Kiesling and Electricity

Electricity Statism Conference: Kiesling Rides High (June 25, 2024)

The Great Texas Blackout of 2021: Triumph of the Unreliables (February 20, 2024)

Kiesling vs.

Continue Reading

“Affordable, Reliable and Clean Energy Security Act” (ALEC blueprint for state legislatures)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 4, 2024
Continue Reading

U.S. Offshore Wind: GE Vernova’s Big Problems

By Kennedy Maize -- October 3, 2024
Continue Reading

Rule of Law vs. Eco-obstruction

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 2, 2024
Continue Reading

Eco Complaints at Climate Week NYC

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 1, 2024
Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Review: September 30, 2024

By -- September 30, 2024
Continue Reading

Jail Time for ‘Just Stop Oil’ Destruction (Van Gogh protected)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 27, 2024
Continue Reading

Alaska Energy Policy: An Exchange (RPS in the balance)

By -- September 26, 2024
Continue Reading