Last August I discussed a truce from the left to the right on climate change – Climate Change IV, Diverse Thought Anyone? Last week, to advance the story, I alluded to further potential solutions described by Grist and the "eco right's" bold idea to advance a carbon tax as a solution. Here we go! There are a bunch of reasons a carbon tax is a bad idea, but to my surprise, I was able to conceive a carbon tax plan that may work, be revenue neutral, and not be corrupt. A New Tax Meets With Conservative Principles? First, let me…
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This year ACEEE published a three-part series on why people and companies invest in energy efficiency. First, they provide some guesstimates of energy efficiency investment in the United States. Their researched estimates vary from $60 billion to about $120 billion, annually. Is this a reasonable guesstimate? According to their State Scorecard, program spending on natural gas and electric demand-side management programs held steady at about $7.5 billion in 2016. Check. The International Energy Agency pegs worldwide investment at $231 billion and about $40 billion in the U.S. Check. As a laugh test, $100 billion is a measly 0.5% of the…
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We are taking a break from exergy this week, and we are going to examine what is happening in distorted electricity markets around the country. This will be somewhat of a sequel to Regulating Deregulation and Wind's Other Big Subsidy. Too much of a good thing, or as they say, unintended consequences, is pushing the grid in some places toward instability. By the way, I scoff at the term “unintended consequences.” There are only two types of consequences: intended and ignorant ones.Utility Dive notes that Texas (Electricity Reliability Council of Texas – ERCOT) and the Southwest Power Pool are the…
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