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Energy Policy Act

Michaels Energy – The Early Years Through Deregulation

By Energy Rant No Comments
1984 This year is our company's 40th anniversary. Michaels Engineering launched on Friday, March 23, 1984. What else was going on in 1984? Apple launched the Macintosh, the first computer on sale with a mouse and a graphical user interface; sale price: $2500, which has the purchasing power of $7,700 today. I'm surprised Steve Jobs allowed that ugly disk drive slot in the front of the machine. C'mon, Steve. Jobs produced the greatest television ad of all time to promote Macintosh in a one-minute Super Bowl ad. "You'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984." Soviet bloc nations boycotted the…
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Phony Avoided Cost Models in a Free-Agent Market

By Energy Rant No Comments
The last two posts, Nuclear Power over the White Rabbit and the Clean Power Plan Corpse, demonstrated the fruits of an undiversified baseload fleet of power generation. Electricity prices, which were so low during most of my career that few cared about them, are soaring as natural gas - the basket in which all eggs lie - has become a global fuel. I predicted this as recently as 2017; Reverse Diversification Coming to a Utility Near You. Solar, wind, and storage will never compete with thermal baseload power generation in our lifetimes. I’m covering three things in this post due…
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Minimum Offer Price Rule

Know Grid History and the MOPR

By Energy Rant No Comments
The electric grid is the most complex beast on the planet, ever. Let’s set the table. Electricity has been inexpensive and very reliable in the US for the better part of 100 years. At first, electric utilities were hub and spoke systems that sent power from the hub (power plant) to customers around its service territory. Then, high voltage transmission systems were used to interconnect the hubs for reliability-sake, redundancy, and likely lower prices. Neighboring utilities cut deals to buy and sell power to each other to further keep prices low for their customers. And, of course, electricity sales kept…
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