A Free-Market Energy Blog

Electricity Competition in Georgia

By Jim Clarkson -- September 20, 2023

“While limited, customer choice and utility switching in Georgia has a large impact on the utility behavior and regulatory policies. Because of options, utilities try to treat customers like, well, customers. But it is time to promote markets in place of remaining governmental mandates and controls.”

The prevailing goals sought by those seeking reform in the power market are mandated access and common carriage for state regulated utilities. However, this alternative is at odds with unleashing entrepreneurship in this power market. The far better development 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 is near such a market. With a few changes, a truly liberalized market is possible. The ninety different utilities in the state share the high voltage system in common.…

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Update: DOE Appliance Minimum Efficiency Standards

By -- September 19, 2023

“It started with gas cooking.  It will end with getting gas out of homes and business entirely, If they can. Basically, what we’re witnessing is the energy equivalent of ethnic cleansing. I’ve been saying this for years but now it should be obvious.”

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Biden Administration has significantly accelerated the pace of minimum appliance efficiency rulemaking. With this acceleration, there has been a marked decrease in DOE’s analytical quality and transparency. The purpose of this update is to summarize:

  1. Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Conventional Cooking Products
  2. Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Products; Boilers
  3. Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Water Heaters

Note: In DOE-speak, the term ‘consumer’ means non commercial/industrial, or just residential.

Part 1: Consumer Cooking Products

On April 27, 2023, MasterResource published DOE vs.

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‘ExxonKnew’: More Correction

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 18, 2023

Ed Note: The erroneous, agenda-laden ExxonKnew narrative was again in evidence in last weekend’s WSJ News Exclusive, “Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change.” For other rebuttals involving the author, (see here).

“Exxon doesn’t ‘know’ anything. It’s a collection of people and just like any other organization with many people, there are many views and understandings on almost every topic imaginable. I worked with Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Libertarians.” – Glen Lyons, former employee (below)

A sober look at the “ExxonKnew” campaign reveals an anti-fossil-fuel agenda inspiring a myopic view of the company’s old investigations into carbon dioxide (CO2).

There are many corrections to this leaky narrative. First, note that the company assigned the CO2 studies to individuals with their own personal motivations and did not partake in studies on the offsets to CO2 (from sulfur dioxide) or the benefits of CO2 (plant growth and resiliency, global greening, warmer winters).…

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Save Our Cars! (Grassroots pushback against mandated EVs)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 15, 2023
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Grid Wind Power: More Pre-history (1979 DOE bust)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 14, 2023
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Energy Emergency Alert! ERCOT’s Close Call of September 6 (Part 2)

By -- September 13, 2023
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Energy Emergency Alert! ERCOT’s Close Call of September 6 (Part I)

By -- September 12, 2023
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Energy and Environmental Review: September 11, 2023

By -- September 11, 2023
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Why CO2 is Not a Pollutant

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 8, 2023
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Wounded Texas from Wind and Solar (backdoor recognition at the Houston Chronicle)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 7, 2023
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