Tom A’s Recent Comments

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  Adam,

  
  The market price referent cost calculation you refer to does assume sky-rocketing gas prices (approx $10/MMBtu compared to todays NYMEX Henry Hub future price of $2.73/MMBtu and EIA's gas price forecast of about $5-6.5 for the coming decade). It also appears to assume a carbon price of about $30 in 2020. My point being that this is quite far removed from current market conditions and therefore does not give a good estimate of current generation costs.

   

   

   

   

  On Does the Wall Street Journal employ anyone who understands energy markets? posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago 14 Responses

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  While I agree that the Spansih study may not be applicable to the US (and more importanly; may be fundamentally flawed), your generation costs look a bit off. Natural gas prices would have to sky-rocket (x5 or so) for natural gas fired combined-cycle plants generation costs to reach $130 MWh.

  On Does the Wall Street Journal employ anyone who understands energy markets? posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago 14 Responses

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  Thanks for an interesting post,

  
  My only comment is that your assessment of the carbon price required to make existing coal uneconomic seems very high. Most estimates I have seen are in the $50 to $100 per ton range. These are still high carbon prices, but nowhere near the $1000 you claim here. I'd be equally concerned with whether the $50 per MWh alternative complaince credit price of the current Markey Waxman RPS scheme is sufficient to push out existing coal generation.

  On Why mandate renewables if we already have a cap on CO2? posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago 7 Responses