Energy markets are supposed to make power cheaper and more reliable. Instead, we’re watching high prices, slow infrastructure buildout, and policies that reward scarcity instead of abundance.

I’ve been digging into this lately, and the more I learn, the more I realize our energy problems aren’t just technical, they’re policy failures.

  • Cheap power is being blocked by outdated regulations. Transmission that could lower prices sits in permitting limbo for years.
  • Texas has quietly proven renewables are winning on price. So why are some policymakers trying to tilt the playing field for gas instead?
  • We could lower bills today with demand response & efficiency. But utilities have no incentive to push for it.

This came up in a conversation I listened to recently with John Arnold, a guy who made millions trading gas, then quit to focus on fixing the system. His take was that markets work when the incentives are totally broken, which is so frustrating because they are definitely broken.

🚨 We already have the solutions. So why aren’t we using them?

I pulled a ton of these ideas from this podcast episode, definitely worth a listen: https://www.douglewin.com/p/the-energy-system-we-need-with-john

Markets work when the incentives aren’t totally broken. Let’s fix this.
byu/EnviroMaverick inenergy



by EnviroMaverick

6 comments

  1. Capitalism is fundamentally opposed to anything that stands in the way of capital. You can’t build guard rails big enough or strong enough to stop the erosion. Governments can push back but only with overwhelming public support and constant public vigilance. Which is why we see the economics of better power systems but the old ways still dominate.

  2. The markets hate instability, can you guess who in the last month has been creating instability day after day???

  3. Texas? Renewables beacon?? Is this a joke or are you regarded

  4. As long as private industry and political corruption are allowed to constantly attempt to break those incentives, it won’t happen. The constitution made a serious error when not including the market and private wealth within their framework of the division of powers. The private market is now where psychopaths and sadists have the most freedom to empower themselves and launch attacks on that government framework of power. Citizens United alone was a massive win for the corruptible influence of private wealth.

  5. A couple of ideas that work for my town.

    1) Electricity is provided by a cooperative, this eliminates the profit component and invents the coop to balance costs with service levels.

    2) The coop relies principally on Renewable energy, and will continue to do so regardless of who is in the oval office. The mix is Hydro and solar. The cost is 4.1 cents per kWh ( the national average is 17 cents ),…. Which also provides a massive incentive to drive plug in cars.

    The average household uses 10,800 kWh per year at a cost of about $1,800, or about $1,350 more than I pay. If you have a plug in, then add in about $1,500 savings in gas for the car each year, and it starts to add up. To me, anyone who is heralding fossil fuels over renewables must have money to burn, and a screw loose.

  6. We have about 3000 electric utilities in the US. Some are publicly traded, some co-ops, some publicly owned!utilities. In the lower 48 states, they deal with 48 state governments and sets of laws. They also deal with federal laws, you’ve got 7 primary grid and transmission operators, and then a cross border organization that oversees transmission between the US Mexico and Canada.

    Scrap it all. Roll it all into a single publically owned utility, regulated on a single set of federal laws. You’re never going to get market efficiency with this scattered of a system. Especially when you’ve got a couple hundred utilities and generators whose primary concern is maximizing shareholder value.

    Treat electricity like a public service that makes the economy and society function.

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