“… the best arrangement for utilizing market forces in electricity … would be the spontaneous, voluntary, indigenous, bottom-up approach for the development of market relationships rather than government mandates.”
“The proper aim of consumer groups and free market advocates should be not to force utilities to allow others to use their private property but to reduce the impediments to competition between existing and new suppliers.”
The prevailing goals sought by those seeking reform in the power market are mandated access and common carriage for state regulated utilities. However, that is not the best arrangement for utilizing market forces in electricity. Far better would be the spontaneous, voluntary, indigenous, bottom-up approach for the development of market relationships rather than government mandates.
The state of Georgia has a system that can be such a free, prosperous market.…
Ed. note: Jim Clarkson, a longtime critic of public utility regulation, as well as the capture of regulators by the regulated in the Southeast power market, penned this mock interview about the Kemper County coal-gasification-and-capture boondoggle. The original $2.4 billion project reached $7.5 billion before abandonment. The plant now runs as combined-cycle natural-gas plant. Other problems and issues with Kemper are described here (2016) and here (2019) and here (2020).
Joe Anchorman: Good evening. The top story we are following tonight concerns a power plant being built in Mississippi, where a carbon capture technology is being attempted to meet political goals.
Southern Company, a large utility holding company, had cut a deal with the Environmental Protection Agency to demonstrate an expensive, but impractical, technology so the EPA can claim it is feasible enough to require its use for all new coal generators.…
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.
The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the USSR in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon. — Newsweek
Another climate-scare article? Yes, but it is from April 28, 1975, almost a half-century ago.
There is nothing wishy-washy about the assertions in popular press stories on the environment.…