So Many Issues, So Little Time
Steve Mitnick has authored four books on the economics, history, and people of the utilities industries. While in the consulting practice leadership of McKinsey & Co. and Marsh & McLennan, he advised utility leaders. He led a transmission development company and was a New York Governor’s chief energy advisor. Mitnick was an expert witness appearing before utility regulatory commissions of six states, D.C., FERC, and in Canada, and taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics at Georgetown University.
I want to write about the tradeoff between the pace of decarbonization and customer affordability. I want to write about the free lunch that many expect though few admit is absent in utility regulation. I want to write about the historic reversal in intergenerational equity from struggling households disproportionately older in age to struggling households disproportionately younger in age. And the implications for our industry.
I want to write as well about what’s happening or not happening on the journey toward greater diversity in the workforce and across suppliers. I need to update my research on the progress of women leading utilities now that my book is nearing three years old. And I must ramp up my research and writings on Lewis Latimer so that a broader readership can appreciate his genius and humanity and how that informs us about the challenges of today and tomorrow.
I’d like to get to writing about the twists and turns in the history of utility regulation’s most misunderstood and misused idea, the Averch-Johnson Effect. And the similarly weird evolution of equity rate of return estimation and the consequences for regulatory proceedings.
These are but scratching the surface of what I want to write about. What do you want to write about, to impact the sustainable resilient affordable debate?