Big Brother Warning: Banning gas stoves is just the start. A long list of household appliances are on the federal hit list to be either banned, made ineffective, or made too expensive to buy.

“Something is terribly wrong with the current direction of federal regulation. Not only are the number and scope of new rules out of control, but many are driven by the blind ambition to ban the use of fossil fuels without regard for the stability of the power grid or the actual health and safety of citizens.”

While EPA is finalizing rules that will essentially ban natural gas and coal-powered electricity generation, risking blackouts according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, other federal regulators are working on plans to ban gasoline-powered portable generators. The very thing that people need when the power goes out, backup generators, will soon be back-door banned just in time for the power blackouts that the new EPA rules are poised to cause.…

“The separation of government and electricity (six words) or, more precisely, the separation of government and the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity (twelve words) is simple enough…. Why deny this Political Economy 101 definition between free-market reliance and government intervention?”

The separation of government and electricity is a straightforward, time-honored application of classical liberalism (or the free market). It has existed as long as I have been in the debate (the 1990s) and probably since the beginning of the industry. In contrast, restructuring, partial deregulation, or reregulation connotes the mixed-economy alternatives of market here-government there in this sector.

Deregulation as an escape from public utility regulation harks back to the Reason Foundation and Robert Poole Jr. in the early 1980s. In 1985, Poole’s Unnatural Monopolies: The Case for Deregulating Public Utilities (Lexington Books) challenged the “natural monopoly” case for franchise protection and rate-and-service government regulation in the different industries.…

“While solar and wind receive huge subsidies, the end user pays for the party.”

“The dream of a solar and wind grid is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.”

The following LinkedIN discussion is notable for its insight and reader reaction–and timely with summer concerns about grid reliability, given the wind/solar penetration at the expense of reliables.

Oscar L. Martin teed things off with this post:

Early adopters of solar and wind such as Texas or California are starting to see alarming signs of saturation even when the total energy production of intermittent sources barely reaches 24% of the total in those areas. Basically the dream of solar and wind is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.…

“(Disclosure: My wife works for a private equity firm that invests in clean energy companies, and they have projects in Texas. But my interest in climate change and energy dates back 30 years, and like most spouses, my wife will tell you she has little influence over my opinions.)” – Tomlinson (below)

It is a start—but only a start. In a recent lobbyist-like editorial for the Houston Chronicle, the climate-religionist, bully-like, cut-the-beef Chris Tomlinson confessed to a conflict-of-interest. But the conflict is more than being married to a person that “works for a private equity firm that invests in clean energy companies”; his wife is a multi-millionaire rainmaker in wind and solar–the very two energies that Chris champions so completely and extensively.

His term “clean energy companies,” moreover, euphemizes the deep nature of wind and solar: government-enabled, cost-inflating, dilute, intermittent energies.…