‘No Holds Barred’ in California Climate Negotiations? - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

...More likely is that the rules that the air regulators have to develop going forward — namely, apportioning out the right to emit greenhouse-gases among various industries, and then slowly lowering the emissions ceiling on all industries — will have to be justified not just within the air agency, but to outside economists who may or may not know about the technical details of controlling air pollution.

“So,” said Tina Andolina legislative director of the Planning and Conservation League, “there’s another agency that has no air quality expertise looking over your shoulder and delaying every needed air-quality and global-warming measure.”

Investor's Business Daily -- About that super-duper smart grid

Among the many claims made for the "economic stimulus" package in front of Congress is that it will "jump-start" a "bigger, better, smarter" electric grid, letting Americans use energy more efficiently.

The package commits $4.5 billion to this, which (says the White House) will help finance 3,000 miles of transmission lines and 40 million "smart meters."

Sounds great.

But it may be mostly hype. For starters, the $4.5 billion is a pittance. An industry study in 2004 — surely outdated — put the price tag of modernizing the grid at $165 billion.

More important, says a report from JPMorgan, the "smart grid" isn't mainly a matter of building new transmission lines or installing new meters. It's more "communications and information processing technology" that allows for more efficient transportation and use of power.

"The smart grid, while a great idea, is basically a software project," says economist Marc Levinson of JPMorgan. "The reason utilities aren't pushing it faster is not lack of money or will, but because there are lots of technical issues and also important compatibility problems so that the various companies' grids can communicate freely with one another."