Notwithstanding the thunderous applause that solar photovoltaic (rooftop) power receives from enlightened opinion, it is not cost-competitive with conventional electricity, and cannot survive without massive subsidies. An army of lobbyists, commentators and…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 26, 2016
Voters in the state of Washington will vote November 8 on Initiative 732, which would impose a “carbon tax” on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and thus on energy, while reducing…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 18, 2016
In a recent editorial in support of a carbon tax, The Washington Post complains that “Americans are burning record amounts of gasoline,” arguing that “one of the most glaring … flaws” of…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 29, 2016
The Beltway lobbying machine is nothing if not inventive. The latest evidence for this eternal truth is a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis arguing that…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 16, 2016
It is hot. It is humid. Even sound intellects have trouble maintaining focus in the dog days of Beltway August, a phenomenon illustrated recently by my esteemed colleague and good…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 15, 2016
I wrote recently about the manipulation of benefit/cost analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and more generally about the adverse implications of the evolution of the federal bureaucracy into an…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 8, 2016
In a recent essay on the solar photovoltaic (PV or “rooftop”) power market, Mark Muro and Devashree Saha of the Brookings Institute applaud the net metering system of subsidizing such rooftop installations,…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 1, 2016
The weather warms. The flowers bloom. The garden parties begin anew, and nothing is worse than waiting day after agonizing day for invitations that never come. So why not make…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 30, 2016
The heat is on. I refer not to the beginning of summer, nor the looming global warming apocalypse for which there is little evidence, nor an election season sure to be characterized by personal…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 27, 2016
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced recently a workshop to be held on June 21, with the title “Something New Under the Sun: Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Power.” Accompanying…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 20, 2016
The modern rationales for energy subsidies have varied in prominence over the decades, but none has been broadly discredited in the public discussion despite the reality that each suffers from…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 15, 2016
This note responds to the FTC request for public comment attendant upon the workshop scheduled for June 21, 2016 on the topic “Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Power,” as described…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 9, 2016
Benefit/cost analysis: It sounds so scientific, so rational, so impartial. So sound as a tool with which to resolve conflicting assertions about the wisdom of regulatory proposals. So divorced from…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 6, 2016
“Sustainability” is a popular buzzword in the public discussion of energy and environment policies generally and in the defense of subsidies for “renewable” energy in particular. But the definition of…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 20, 2016
It is Earth Day, when pieties flow like wine, when the self-applause of the right-thinking is deafening, when the antihuman core of modern environmentalism shines bright, and when the destructiveness of groupthink…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 22, 2016