In a LIVE! recording at GridLiance’s 2024 Transmission Symposium, Crystal Ball hosts a competition between Mark Nelson and Emeka Anyanwu to determine the most creative prognosticator of energy headlines for 2025.

The episode is un-edited and available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. A video recording is also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ABUXJsdjbBc

It’s a special “afterparty” edition, since it was recorded after the party of special significance commemorating the season and series finale. Thanks for staying subscribed. There may be more afterparties in the future. Stay connected at publicpowerunderground.substack.com

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

[recorded August 28, 2024] Tony Reames and Salma Elmallah discuss their work and research on energy justice in a special episode recorded after the season and series finale.

In a much anticipated episode recorded on August 28, 2024, Dr. Tony Reames and Dr. Salma Elmallah join Paul Dockery and Dr. Ahlmahz Negash to discuss their paper on frontlining energy justice.

Elmallah, S., Reames, T.G. and Spurlock, C.A., 2022. Frontlining energy justice: Visioning principles for energy transitions from community-based organizations in the United States. Energy Research & Social Science, 94, p.102855.

The episode is audio-only and un-edited available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s a special “afterparty” edition, since it was recorded after the party of special significance commemorating the season and series finale. Thanks for staying subscribed. There’s at least one more of the after-party episodes.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A party of special significance to celebrate the eleventy-first and final episode with an energy system analogy world cup championship tournament, celebrity guests, and stump speeches

Friends-of-the-Underground participated in a special, in-person recording of the eleventy-first and final episode of Public Power Underground celebrating our community of electric utility enthusiasts. The episode includes a live performance of Roll On, Enthusiasts with special musical guest Daryl Wayne Dasher joining Arin Guillory and Ian Bledsoe. It also closes the Season 6 Energy System Analogy World Cup with celebrity judges Debra Smith and Daniel Kirschen picking winners in an 8-analogy, single elimination Championship Tournament. And, just like Bilbo Baggins ended his eleventy-first birthday celebration giving a speech on a stump, the season ends with open-mic stump speeches from electric utility enthusiasts. 

07:11 - Short-to-Ground, Analogy Edition

• Top 8 seeds for Energy System Analogy World Cup Championship Tournament
• All 20 Grand Analogies of the Energy System from Season 6

15:51 - Energy System Analogy World Cup Championship Tournament

37:01 - Kurt Miller Stump Speech

40:05 - Crystal Ball Stump Speech

42:42 - Debra Smith Stump Speech

44:02 - Pamela Sporborg Stump Speech

45:50 - Robb Davis Stump Speech

48:54 - Sarah Edmonds Stump Speech

50:34 - Megan Capper Stump Speech

52:16 - Scott Corwin Stump Speech

54:01 - Farhad Billimoria Stump Speech

55:48 - Eric Hiaasen Stump Speech

59:07 - Matt Schroettnig Stump Speech

1:01:44 - Kieran Connelly Stump Speech

1:03:21 - Mary Wiencke Stump Speech

1:05:42 - Doug Marker Stump Speech

1:09:08 - Nicole Hughes Stump Speech

1:10:29 - Conleigh Byers Stump Speech

1:12:00 - Chris Roden Stump Speech

1:15:02 - Ryan Neale Stump Speech

1:16:47 - Humaira Falkenberg Stump Speech

1:20:20 - Closing thoughts from Ian Bledsoe, Arin Guillory, and Ahlmahz Negash

1:24:00 - Closing thoughts from Paul Dockery

If you stay subscribed to Public Power Underground, you may find interesting items in your feed from time to time. Thank you for being a friend of the underground. I hope you have enjoyed the content and feel valued and appreciated.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A discussion of the building blocks of a just energy transition with Professor Erin Baker, the Faculty Director of the Energy Transition Institute at UMass Amherst.

Professor Erin Baker visited with Ahlmahz Negash and Paul Dockery in-person at the office of the Pacific Northwest Utility Conference Committee (PNUCC) about energy justice, meaningful metrics, and the Holyoke Community Energy Project. The discussion is wrapped by insightful commentary on energy justice from hosts Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, Paul Dockery, and Ahlmahz Negash.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

2:58 - 30 seconds of theory

• What is energy justice?

Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R., 2016. Energy justice: A conceptual review. Energy research & social science, 11, pp.174-182.

• 3 core tenets of energy justice

Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R., 2016. Energy justice: A conceptual review. Energy research & social science, 11, pp.174-182.

• 5 categories of energy justice metrics

Baker, E., Carley, S., Castellanos, S., Nock, D., Bozeman III, J.F., Konisky, D., Monyei, C.G., Shah, M. and Sovacool, B., 2023. Metrics for decision-making in energy justice. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 48(1), pp.737-760.

11:31 - Interview with Prof. Erin Baker

58:22 - Debriefing from interview w/ hosts Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, Paul Dockery, and Ahlmahz Negash

1:33:00 - Closing Thoughts from Conleigh Byers & Farhad Billimoria

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

The electric sector is evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift; at least that's the hypothesis that Commissioner Ann Rendahl and Gen-Z-Swiftie Scholar, Sherry Zuo, consider in a special episode.

Commissioner Ann Rendahl and Sherry Zuo join hosts Paul Dockery and Crystal Ball to consider how the electric sector is evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift. Paul and Crystal joined Commissioner Rendahl at the offices of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and Sherry joined remotely from Cornell University where she is a PhD candidate in the Mays Group.

Agreeing on the eras of the electric sector and how they map to the eras of Taylor Swift is no small task. To facilitate the conversation we put together some reference materials including a summary of the proposed timeline with sector milestones and representative songs.

The discussion considered how the eras of the electric sector fell on a quadrant map that mapped along vectors of structured ←→ chaotic and building ←→ optimizing.

The quadrant mapping was compared to the eras of Taylor Swift mapped along the vectors of career ←→ romantic and confident ←→ pensive.

The conversation also used a 40”x30” histomap of organizing activities across the eras of the electric sector that I presented at the 2024 Macro Energy System workshop.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

For additional reading, Commissioner Rendahl recommends the following:

• Prophets of Regulation
• Electricity Regulation in the U.S.
• The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

You can also listen to our eras of the electric sector playlist on Spotify!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

a special, bonus episode recorded at the Western Power Pool with celebrity guests Sarah Edmonds, Bob Rowe and Debra Smith

Crystal Ball and Matthew Schroettnig host a conversation with Sarah Edmonds, Bob Rowe and Debra Smith about their “Theory of Change” for expanding high voltage, long distance transmission in the West.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

Western Transmission Expansion Coalition (WTEC) is a West-wide effort to develop an actionable transmission plan to support the needs of the future energy grid.

The Western Transmission Consortium aims to support the development of transmission infrastructure in the West through a collaborative process involving infrastructure owners and investors.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A trip to the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project to talk about power system inertia with Seattle City Light operators, plus a discussion of popular fallacies and unpopular opinions with the hosts.

To experience the visceral sounds and sights of big synchronous generation, an interview with Mike Haynes, Will Andersen, and Brandt March was recorded in-person at Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. To start the episode Ahlmahz, Paul, Farhad, and Conleigh discuss popular fallacies of the energy system and share some of their own unpopular opinions.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

03:17 - Popular Fallacies & Unpopular Opions

52:08 - Big Synchronous Generation - Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ben Serrurier returns to Public Power Underground to share some maybe-good-maybe-bad-but-definitely-not-thought-out ideas with Ahlmahz Negash, Paul Dockery, and Farhad Billimoria in a returning segment, Half-Baked Ideas. Then Irina Rasputnis, Madeline Kostic, and Eric Strandberg from the Seattle City Light’s Lighting Design Lab sit down to talk with Paul Dockery about innovation in building electrification. 

13:19 - Half-Baked Ideas

• Inspiration for the segment comes from the Bill Simmons Podcast
• Ben’s prior appearances on the podcast

52:51 - The Lighting Design Lab

1:30:25 - Invitation to the Eleventy-First and Final episode of Public Power Underground

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A discussion about public goods and what classifying services as common pool resources, congestible public goods, or club goods means for grid planning and market design.

Lynne Kiesling joins Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, and Paul Dockery to discuss the classification system used in economics to distinguish public goods from private goods and what classifying some services as common pool resources means for grid planning and market design.

Lynne Kiesling is an economist focusing on regulation, market design, and the economics of digitization and smart grid technologies in the electricity industry. She is Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics in the Center on Law, Business, and Economics, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability program, both at Northwestern University. She is also a Research Professor at University of Colorado Denver, a member of the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

In addition to her academic research, she is currently a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee, has served as a member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Smart Grid Advisory Committee, and is an emerita member of the GridWise Architecture Council. Her academic background includes a B.S. in Economics from Miami University (Ohio) and a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

05:07 - 30 seconds of theory

• Ahlmahz: Public Good
• Farhad: Common Pool Resource
• Conleigh: Club good
• Lynne: The pacing problem
• Ahlmahz: The collective action problem
• Farhad: The tragedy of the commons
• Conleigh: Induced demand
• Lynne: The Knowledge Problem

39:02 - What is and what is not a public good in the electric system

Billimoria, F., Mancarella, P. and Poudineh, R., 2022. Market and regulatory frameworks for operational security in decarbonizing electricity systems: from physics to economics. Oxford Open Energy, 1, p.oiac007.

51:06 - Is transmission a Public Good?

1:16:22 - Implications for planning and market design

1:40:06 - National Treasure, Public Good, or Excludable - a Public Power Underground game

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ari Peskoe describes himself as an electric utility critic and has advice for electric utility enthusiasts.

Ari Peskoe is the Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program and a prolific writer about regulation of the U.S. power sector on issues ranging from constitutional challenges to states’ energy laws to interstate transmission development. The interview is wrapped in commentary from co-hosts Paul Dockery, Ahlmahz Negash, and Farhad Billimoria.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

03:11 - 30 seconds of theory

• Farhad on Cost of Service vs Incentive based regulation
  • Joskow, P.L., 2024. The Expansion of Incentive (Performance-Based) Regulation of Electricity Distribution and Transmission in the United States. Review of Industrial Organization, pp.1-49.
• Ahlmahz on Procedural Justice
  • Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R., 2016. Energy justice: A conceptual review. Energy research & social science, 11, pp.174-182.

11:01 - Ari Peskoe on Governance

• 11/01/2023 - CleanLaw Podcast - Electricity Law Initiative
• CleanLaw–Replacing the Utility Transmission Syndicate’s Control, Hannah Dobie interviews Ari Peskoe about his new article in Energy Law Journal
• Peskoe, A., 2023. Replacing the Utility Transmission Syndicate's Control. Energy LJ, 44, p.447.
• Market Configuration Matters; Effects of Market Choices on Consumers in the Northwest US

51:10 - Ranking Governance, Configuration, and Market Design

59:37 - Ari Peskoe’s Energy System Analogy

1:04:48 - Debriefing on transmission, governance, and public power with Ahlmahz Negash and Farhad Billimoria

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!