Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Sell the Electricity No One Is Using

American Efficient

People keep inventing new things that use electricity. As people use more electric stuff, they need to find electricity to power it. One approach is to build new power plants to generate new electricity, but this is expensive, time-consuming and environmentally problematic.

Another way to get electricity for new stuff is for people to use less electricity for other stuff. Rip out your old energy-inefficient light bulbs or appliances and replace them with new, more-efficient bulbs or appliances. Set your air conditioner to 74 instead of 68. Etc.

You might think that these two approaches — (1) build a ...