Sarah Palin has announced she’d be interested in becoming Donald Trump’s Energy Secretary before abolishing the department and relinquishing power to individual states. [Vox] Job cuts in the petroleum industry reached nearly 196,000 globally last week after ConocoPhillips said it would cut 10 percent of its workforce and other energy firms announced more layoffs. [Fuel Fix]… Keep reading →
When it comes to energy and politics, the United States is not what it appears. Deregulation of the power markets is one example. Some regions of the nation have developed robust power markets. Others regions do not and they don’t want it.
The regionalization of the power markets means there is no such thing as a national grid. According to The ISO/RTO Council, the United States has seven formalized power markets and vast regions where no markets exist at all. Approximately two-thirds of US consumers are served by the seven deregulated power markets. The objective of these markets is to provide buyers and sellers price discovery, liquidity, and non-discriminatory access to wholesale power. Keep reading →
