Research that Informs Business and Public Policy- Addicted to Oil: U.S. Gasoline Consumption is Higher than Ever Lucas Davis
- I’m Not Really Down with Most Top Down Evaluations Maximilian Auffhammer
- Is the Regulatory Compact Broken in Sub-Saharan Africa? Catherine Wolfram
- If a Tree Falls in the Forest…Should We Use It to Generate Electricity? Meredith Fowlie
Author Archives: James Bushnell
Is US Climate Policy Killing Nuclear Power?
These are strange times for competitive power markets in the United States. Baseload power plants, many of them nuclear, are reportedly struggling to stay out of the red. About 10 years ago, plants like these were thriving with high wholesale prices set … Continue reading
Economists are from Mars, Electric Cars are from Venus
I work at UC Davis, a University with at least two (that I know about) centers devoted to research “aimed at developing a sustainable market for plug-in vehicles.” I run into a lot of researchers and environmental advocates who are … Continue reading
How Can Zero (net energy) be a Hero?
I am frequently asked why people seem to dislike economists so much. It’s a complicated question to answer. There are lots of reasons, many represented in the comments section of this blog. One could be economists’ stubborn insistence on evidence-based … Continue reading
Can California Ignore its Neighbors?
Today’s post is coauthored by Benjamin Hobbs from Johns Hopkins University The U.S., almost alone among developed economies, has operated its power system as a collection of balkanized fiefdoms. Evidence from around the country, from work by Mansur and White , and ongoing … Continue reading
How (and who) will pay for our energy infrastructure?
You may have heard that the Federal highway trust fund is running out of money because, darn it, people aren’t using enough gasoline. The transformation of our energy system is rapidly accelerating the need to confront a long-standing problem with … Continue reading
Remember back when everybody hated electricity deregulation?
Today we take a break from our regularly scheduled blogging about environmental topics to provide a brief message concerning electricity restructuring. Severin Borenstein and I are finishing up a draft paper for the Annual Review of Economics (available as a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged deregulation, distributed generation, electricity, natural gas prices
25 Comments
Cap-and-Trade’s Moment of Truth
With the looming expansion of its cap-and-trade program to transportation fuels like gasoline, California is fast approaching a significant moment of truth for its climate policy. This has some people nervous, and there are growing rumblings of proposals to delay, perhaps … Continue reading
EPA and climate regulation: Mind the gaps
Last week, following years of anticipation, the shoe finally dropped on EPA carbon regulations. Two or three things are notable in this. First, we’re on the road to a national climate policy! Second, EPA is going out of its way to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cap-and-trade, carbon, climate policy, emissions, leakage, low carbon fuel standard, reshuffling
3 Comments
The Politics of Renewable Energy
I found yesterday’s NY Times article on the shifting politics of renewable energy morbidly fascinating on both a political and economic level. Basically the article pieces together anecdotes of odd-couple political alliances between renewable energy boosters and Republicans, Libertarians (e.g. … Continue reading
The Real Balkanization of the Power Grid
A few months ago, The New York Times ran a prominent article that focused on a familiar stalking horse for U.S. energy policy analysts: the difficulties building new transmission. The gist of the story is that we have a system … Continue reading
