“’We fundamentally have to transform our economy in ways that are unimaginable to people who are over 40,’ Tomlinson said. ‘We have to cooperate, innovate and compromise, and most of all, we have to set aside our pride.’”

“[Tomlinson] said there is an unwillingness of pastors of all faiths to address climate change, knowing that many of their parishioners are involved in or invested in oil and gas.”

The Houston Chronicle business editorialist, Chris Tomlinson, is angry, impatient, and closed-minded when it comes to all things climate. A bona fide climate alarmist, he bullies the oil and gas industry to stop what they are doing. He wants Texans to stop eating meat to help save the planet. And he personally tells me in emails that I am not considered for his columns because I am critical about him (so be it).…

“Are RTOs central planning entities subject to the Mises/Hayek/Lavoie critique of access, pricing, and service quality? Is the ‘knowledge problem’ and ‘fatal conceit’ a defining issue for RTOs/ISOs compared to a private sector, unregulated approach to power coordination?”

“Vernon Smith: I don’t know”

It is a strange world in which a classical liberal espousing F. A. Hayek tries to justify a “market” based on a systemic violation of property rights and governmental central planning for an enormous territorial grid.

But this is the case with Lynne Kiesling, and maybe even Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith. I’ll let the reader decide from this social media exchange:

Kiesling: I’m pleased to report a new publication in the journal Energies, “Opening Up Transactive Systems: Introducing TESS and Specification in a Field Deployment,” available to read below.…

“Totally forgotten in this transformation [to mandatory open access] was a simple removal of the regulatory covenant to allow a real free market and genuine entrepreneurial discovery process…. Instead, we were told the ISO/RTO model worked: the planners knew how to price for volume and for reliability with Texas as the national model.”

Classical liberal theory explains market coordination and governmental discoordination, even “planned chaos.” The same intellectual tradition notes the propensity of government intervention to expand from its own shortcomings. Electricity is no exception. The rise and fall of the Texas grid is a case study–just the opposite of what some claiming to be classical liberal thought (see yesterday’s post).

The history of electricity in the U.S. is supportive of an undesigned order, beginning with inventor Thomas Edison and his business protégé Samuel Insull in the 1880s.…

“The propensity of government intervention to have unintended consequences and expand from its own shortcomings has taken over a vital U.S. industry. It is time for fundamental free-market, classical-liberal reform with electricity.”

For some time, I have questioned the work of electricity specialist Lynne Kiesling in regard to classical liberalism, market process economics, and Public Choice theory. She dons the mantle of all three traditions; I believe her approach is the opposite.

There are hidden assumptions and views that she does not want to talk about: climate alarmism; forced energy transformation. (Why?) And down under, her premise is that a “market failure” exists with electricity that necessitates government intervention. And with this intervention, she has fallen into a central planning approach that begs for a classical liberal autopsy and policy reversal.…