“The physical operation of the grid can be separated from the economic decisions of what power is generated, transmitted, and sold at wholesale or retail in terms of quantity, cost, and price.”

“Mistakes by ERCOT or the PUCT or Texas legislature make my point–this is a planning failure, not a market failure. Not physics but economics. A historian is weighing evidence about this either being a market or government failure. It is a government failure writ large.” (Bradley, below)

Electricity is different. Power flows must the centrally managed. Ergo, regulators and politicians must manage the grid.

WRONG. The physical operation of the grid can be separated from the economic decisions of what power is generated, transmitted, and sold at wholesale or retail in terms of quantity, cost, and price. Companies themselves, vertically and horizontally integrated, what might be called electricity majors, is the opportunity cost of the present regulatory regime.…

“After a winter storm in Texas earlier this month left the state’s residents to contend with widespread power outages and skyrocketing electricity prices, William W. Hogan, the architect of the state’s energy market system and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, said … the state’s electricity market had ‘worked as designed’ given the conditions.”

“One Texas resident … now owes $16,752 for his energy bill, wiping out his savings. Hogan acknowledged in the Wednesday interview that such situations are ‘terrible.’ Still, he argued the end result could have been much worse.”

– Kennedy School Professor Who Designed Texas’s Energy Market Defends Skyrocketing Prices Following Winter Storm,” The Harvard Crimson (February 26, 2021).

“‘I feel like a caveman,’ said Alexander D. ‘Alex’ Kontoyiannis ’23, describing his experience studying for his organic chemistry midterm Tuesday night.

“To think you are smart enough to control nature and you must force people … to obey? That is the same kind of despotic behavior we have seen out of the worst tyrants.”

– Joe Bastardi (quoted below)

A recent E&E News article, “Fringe weatherman advised Abbott before deadly Texas storm” (February 25, 2021), is the latest marginalization job on a “climate science critic.” Author Scott Walderman begins his piece as follows:

Days before a historic snowstorm crippled his home state, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sought advice from an unusual source: Joe Bastardi, the go-to weather forecaster of Fox News host Sean Hannity.

The hit piece (against Bastardi, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Abbott) goes downhill from there with ad hominem.

Here are the Bastardi quotations in Walderman’s piece:

By Bastardi’s telling, the conversation with Abbott wasn’t groundbreaking or controversial.

This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. Droz is also the author of the popular Substack Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues.

Unreliables (General):
*** The price of energy and the system costs of renewables
Wind turbines and solar panels ONLY generate electricity
California Blackouts Have Begun. Thank ‘Green Energy’

Wind Energy — Offshore:
*** Trump’s Transportation Secretary Terminates $679 Million from Offshore Wind Projects
*** Trump Admin Kills Massive RI Offshore Wind Project
S&P downgrades Orsted credit rating

Wind Energy — Other:
*** A newer Study about the adverse consequences of turbine generated infrasound

Solar Energy:
How Bill McKibben Lost the Plot
South American Cold Underscores Role of Oil and Gas

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:
*** Stossel on the Green Industrial Complex: Power, Panic, and Profits
*** The Supposed Nearly Unanimous Consensus on Climate Change Was A High Stakes Pernicious Deception
UN abandons science and hires climate change zealots who damn the facts
Lobbying Judges Is the Latest Form of Climate Lawfare, A Case of Elites Buying Favoritism from the Courts

Manmade Global Warming — The Science:
*** Interview.…