The electricity sector is at an inflection point. The historical model of centralized, monopoly-provided electric service is under pressure from technological change, shifting market forces, evolving policy objectives, and changing…
By Lynne Kiesling | February 27, 2025
Networks shape modern life. From roads to the internet to global supply chains, they enable movement, exchange, and value creation. But networks also suffer from congestion, a problem driven by…
By L. Lynne Kiesling | February 19, 2025
Networks shape modern life. From roads to the internet to global supply chains, they enable movement, exchange, and value creation. But networks also suffer from congestion, a problem driven by…
By Lynne Kiesling | February 19, 2025
America’s system of environmental reviews has been choking progress for a half-century. A key culprit: the National Environmental Policy Act, once a seemingly sensible safeguard that has metastasized into a…
By James Pethokoukis | February 18, 2025
The term “scenario” was introduced by a group of researchers at the RAND Corporation in the 1960s. Herman Kahn explained its origin in 1979: “We deliberately chose the word [scenario] to…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | February 10, 2025
As a follow-on to my previous two posts on regional transmission organizations (RTOs) in electricity, I was heading in a direction that relies on you, dear reader, having a foundational…
By Lynne Kiesling | January 31, 2025
Last year the world experienced the most major hurricane landfalls since records are available, tying only 2015, with 11 storms. Does last year indicate that we have reached a new…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | January 27, 2025
Whether it’s rising electricity bills, reliability concerns, an impetus for decarbonization, or the related importance of grid modernization, power systems in the U.S. and around the world are struggling with…
By Lynne Kiesling | January 24, 2025
The Trump “Day One” executive orders on energy and environment policies are worthy of applause because they implement a shift toward market forces in place of central planning as the dominant institution…
By Ben Zycher | January 24, 2025
Dave Jones, California’s insurance commissioner from 2011 to 2018, explained California’s growing insurance crisis in 2023: Due to the failure to substantially reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S. and globally, we…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | January 21, 2025
The California Air Resources Board last November requested from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a waiver under section 209(e) of the Clean Air Act for implementation of its “In-Use Locomotive Regulation,” an…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 13, 2025
2025 is already shaping up to be a year of change for many reasons related to the economics and technology of energy. Between the uncertainty arising from a political change…
By L. Lynne Kiesling | January 10, 2025
The Office of the Solicitor General — part of the Department of Justice —was created by the Statutory Authorization Act of June 22, 1870. The Act states that there shall be an…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 8, 2025
Last week I wrote about the grid defection discussion circa 2014, motivated by Elisa Wood’s webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University on their new paper in…
By Lynne Kiesling | December 17, 2024
I am the answer to a trivia question. Who is the only person to appear in the leaked 2009 Climategate emails and in the 2016 Hillary Clinton Wikileaks emails? That’d…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | December 16, 2024