Among the many complex issues of technology, governance, and market design affecting the electricity sector, climate policy has become dominant. From the perspective of a nonspecialist looking at this changing dominance, a quiz illuminates some of the peculiar uses of language one can find in...

The distribution grid for delivering electricity to the user has been paid for as part of the charge per kilowatt-hour that covers the cost of the energy itself. Conservation advocates have promoted the adoption of policies that “decouple” electric distribution company revenues or profits...

Reliability in electricity markets is, in many respects, a public good, in that one supplier’s failure to meet its customers’ demands can cause failure throughout the grid. This creates a blackout externality. One of the remedies for a blackout externality is a reserve requirement, where...

For a host of economic, geopolitical, and environmental reasons, the security of energy supplies has moved to the forefront of U.S. policy concerns. Here, I address the extent to which the U.S. electricity sector is affected by these factors and, in turn, whether increased electricity...

To assess compensation for regulation-induced "takings," the authors model political support for regulation as a function of externalities, landowner wealth, and tax burdens. When competing social interests have equal influence on political outcomes, compensation should not be paid. However,...