Kiesling Likes Government Electricity Planning

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 16, 2025 No Comments

“Kiesling intellectually resides in the government sandbox, where dilute, intermittent, fragile, government-dependent wind and solar is coordinated by ISO/RTO planners. Add (subsidized) storage, then whatever is left on the supply side can be equilibrated on the demand side with ‘smart meters’ (another government play) in your home or business.”

She fancies herself a classical liberal, a free-market type fully conversant with the arguments against central economic planning (Mises, Hayek, Lavoie). But when it gets to government planning of the electricity market, her specialty, the veneer comes off. It is ‘market processes’ within the rigged, governmental market. Welcome to the woman of system, technocrat Lynne Kiesling.

Consider this exhibit:

Kiesling intellectually resides in the government sandbox, where dilute, intermittent, fragile, government-dependent wind and solar are coordinated by ISO/RTO planners. Add storage (another government play), and then whatever happens on the supply side can be equilibrated on the demand side with ‘smart meters’ (another government play) in your home or business.…

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Electricity Statism or Free Markets? (Kiesling shows more cards)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 19, 2024 No Comments

“Rob’s snide reference to my ‘chess pieces’ is a reference to my unwillingness to agree with his Utopian dismissal of ISO/RTO organized wholesale markets.” (Lynne Kiesling to Vernon Smith, below)

“Yes, playing with government chess pieces (on-grid solar, wind, batteries, ‘smart’ meters) and a centrally planned wholesale market is Statism writ large.” (Robert Bradley to Kiesling, below)

Electricity specialist Lynne Kiesling champions herself as a classical liberal, free-market advocate. But she is just the opposite and relies on obfuscation and charm to advocate and sell

1) government central planning of wholesale electricity and

2) government-enabled wind, solar, and batteries in place of least-cost (central-station) electricity.

It is her “synthetic regulation” or the highway, premised on a belief that there cannot be private property rights to grid electricity.

This woman of system will not forthrightly define what a free market is with electricity.…

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

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 7, 2024 No Comments

“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.

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Electricity Statism Conference: Kiesling Rides High

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2024 1 Comment

“This conference is not about free market reform; it is about centrally planned wholesale markets for electricity, as well as open-ended subsidies for wind, solar, and batteries, all at the expense of thermal generation and free-market order.”

The title says it all: Integrating Science and Law & Economics to Inform Energy Policy in a Decarbonized Future.” And the conference is loaded with electricity statists and ‘clean’ energy activists, all experts (as in expert failure and scientism), with plans to tweak/expand government planning in a failed, failing government system. In political terms, it is Biden’s “all of government” all the way.

The premise of the two-day conference is flawed. “Science” in the title suggests the scientific (physical and social) debate behind Net Zero/forced energy transformation. “Law & Economics” is a discipline that certainly questions the vague idea of “decarbonization.”…

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Giberson on Centrally Planned Electricity: More Fallacy, Dodging (in the Kiesling tradition)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 18, 2024 1 Comment Continue Reading

Public Choice and Electricity: Kiesling Ducks Again (Plano, Tx. meeting next week)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 8, 2024 No Comments Continue Reading

Pokalsky, Borlick, Kiesling: Capacity Markets Now Essential in Texas (central planning rethink)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 22, 2024 No Comments Continue Reading

Kiesling vs. Cato’s Fisher on Free Market Electricity: For the Record

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 8, 2024 2 Comments Continue Reading

Kiesling: ISOs/RTOs Suffer from “The Knowledge Problem”(!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 1, 2023 No Comments Continue Reading

Horwitz vs. Kiesling on Climate (social science matters too)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 3, 2023 No Comments Continue Reading