“There is a vast difference between doing the right thing and doing the thing right. In this case, CARB is implementing AB32 in ways that ignore current realities and that likely make matters worse…. It is time for a major reset of the underlying law and its regulatory implementation.” – T. Tanton
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is all-in, damn-the-torpedoes relating to AB 32, the state’s 2006 anti-global warming law, even while acknowledging that it will drive up the cost of energy. CARB chair Mary Nichols confirmed the start of a statewide cap-and-trade auction system November 14 under which industrial firms will buy and sell emission rights for pollutants–despite receiving unrebutted testimony from manufacturers and business owners about the very onerous, and even devastating, impact of moving forward with the auction.…
Continue ReadingThis month, unity was shattered within the wind industry when energy-giant Exelon Corporation broke ranks with other renewable-energy developers and asked Congress to let the production tax credit (PTC) expire in December. Exelon rightfully argued that the subsidy was distorting competitive wholesale energy markets and causing financial harm to other, more reliable clean energy sources.
In a fit of fury, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) voted Exelon “off the island” for insubordination and dismissed their complaint as self-serving, aimed at protecting Exelon’s fleet of Midwest nuclear power plants. AWEA insisted that wind was benefiting ratepayers by driving down consumer electricity prices in the face of “expensive, inflexible generation” like nuclear and coal.
As usual, AWEA position is easily rebutted. Yes, Exelon is concerned about (bizarre) wind pricing on the rates received by its nuclear power plants.…
Continue ReadingTraditional public-utility regulation of interstate transmission of both natural gas and electricity has given way to the open-access era. Rather than a bundled product (transportation and the commodity) delivered at one price, the utility just charges for transmission. Third parties (independent marketers) buy and sell the “unbundled” (gas or electricity) commodity.
Is third-party access (TPA) a step toward free markets compared to what came before? Some say “yes” given that there is a new market with the commodity where, as if led by an invisible hand, a plethora of new pricing terms and services have emerged. This is what led Ken Lay to think of open-access-dependent Enron as a pro-market, pro-competition company. “I believe in God, and I believe in free markets,” he used to say. But Enron was just the opposite, one of the most rent-seeking firms in the history of capitalism.…
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