A flurry of comments has been made on the Clean Power Plan proposed by the EPA. Some of those comments came with actual study results behind them. The ERCOT study presents similar results based on my paper published in Fortnightly in the October issue. Texas will likely see a carbon price/cost somewhere between $20-$30/ton depending on the effectiveness in the building blocks described in the plan. I do try to make it clear in my paper, the biggest issue is not the cost, but how that cost is distributed among states.

The one comment making the headlines, which personally resonates with the paper I wrote, is by Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe – The Clean Power Plan Is Unconstitutional. In essence, I discuss this constitutional concern, but arising from the state's economic pain. In my paper, I demonstrate the disproportional economic impact among the states and I actually run a sophisticated power model to do the mathematical calculations of the individual state impacts. Mr. Tribe paper is more eloquently focused on the constitutional merit by saying “… such federal commandeering of state governments defeats political accountability and violates principles of federalism that are basic to our constitutional order.”

The significant rebuttal to Mr. Tribe is his monetary gain from Peabody Energy (BTU), the largest private-sector coal company.  I will not present arguments for Mr. Tribe's potential bias or honor, but I will note my work on the Clean Power Plan was done with ZERO, NONE, NO monetary gain – to the dismay of my family finances. No one commissioned or paid or has paid for my work done on Clean Power Plan. I took time out from my schedule which was focused on launching my new product/service Power Market Analysis (PMA) to produce the paper presented in Fortnightly. The driver was pure intellectual curiosity and the desire for the truth – per my Alma Mata saying “The Truth Shall Set You Free” Hook'em.