IER has prepared the following to assist people to understand what the hurdles are regarding the renewable electricity mandates currently under discussion in various forms.   Because of the language invoked by proponents of the various renewable portfolio standards/renewable electricity standards/renewable electricity mandates, there has been scant attention paid to the scale of the hurdles being [...]

 
The editor of National Journal’s Energy & Environment blog recent asked the following question of some policy experts:
A cross-section of Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are backing legislation that would require U.S. electric companies to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources of energy and to demonstrate annual electricity savings [...]

Updated February 2nd, 2010

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The Energy Information Administration (EIA) produces forecasts of energy supply and demand for the next 20 years using the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS)[1]. These forecasts are updated annually and published in the Annual Energy Outlook (AEO).[2] All sectors of the energy system are represented in NEMS, including the electric [...]

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In the ongoing debate over “renewable energy,” one of the primary sticking points is the compliance costs that government mandates would impose on utilities, consumers and the broader economy. Critics of a federal electricity mandate have warned that the Southeast in particular would be hard-hit by proposals to produce a certain percentage of electricity from [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6, 2009
CONTACT:
Laura Henderson (202) 621-2951
Fantasy Land: Salazar Announces that East Coast Windmills Could Provide 100 Percent of Nation’s Electricity
WASHINGTON, D.C. – IER President Thomas J. Pyle today issued the following statement in response to Secretary Salazar’s assertion that windmills off the East Coast, “could generate 1 million megawatts of power, roughly the [...]

Robert J. Michaels*
It is no secret that the stimulus bill contains both wasteful spending and economically destructive policies. However, one of the bill’s most alarming provisions is little known and difficult to understand: electricity revenue decoupling. Decoupling, another in a long line of anti-consumer energy policies, will force utility companies to raise electricity rates in [...]

Robert J. Michaels
I. Compounding the Inefficiencies of Regulation
Erroll Davis, the former CEO of Wisconsin Electric Power (now a unit of WE Energies) was a rare utility executive. As competitive power markets evolved in the 1990s his low-cost company was ready to move aggressively. And well it should, thought Davis. Almost all utilities enjoyed regulated terrritorial [...]

GREEN JOBS: Fact or Fiction?
An Assessment of the Literature
January 2009
By Robert Michaels and Robert P. Murphy

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Introduction and Executive Summary
I. Green Recovery, Center for American Progress
II. Job Opportunities for the Green Economy, Political Economy Research Institute
III. Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy, Global Insight
IV. Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, American Solar [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 18, 2008
CONTACT:
Brian Kennedy (202) 346-8826
Chris Tucker (202) 346-8825
IER CEO: Obama Energy Plan Resurrects Malthusian ‘Limits to Growth,’ Enron ‘Green’ Energy Plays

HOUSTON – History warns against the energy plan proposed by President-elect Barack Obama, according to a new book written by the CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research.
“The heavy [...]