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Regulating Deregulation and Wind’s Other Big Subsidy

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
Last week we examined the startup of deregulation, why a competitive market for electricity is difficult and early failures. This week, we look at the price impacts and some long-term implications of deregulation. It seemed to me that deregulation of the electricity market had been a disaster: bankruptcies, soaring prices, and most recently, stranded baseload assets. There was a lot of evidence in that, but lately, prices have improved, but other challenges are emerging. Deregulation’s Impact on Pricing I realized that searching for comprehensive data showing the impact on electricity costs for regulated versus deregulated is impossible. Lucky for you,…
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deregulation

Betting with Deregulation – A Risky Proposition

By Energy Rant No Comments
Energy is a commodity, and like all commodities, it is wise to hedge risk; not go the other way and place bets. Unless you are a certain presidential candidate with privileged information on cattle futures, I would stay away from betting, er investing in, commodities in general, and energy specifically. To digress for a moment, recall when gasoline cost $4 per gallon, there were all kinds of calls to investigate price gouging and rigging the market. Bill O’Reilly would ignorantly rant about the “speculators”. I said then, in 2008 just before this blog was born, that was poppycock. Senators Chucky…
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