Renewable Portfolio Standards: An Avenue for Fostering Alternative Energy Projects
Government’s response to the focus on climate change must be holistic and visionary. One regulatory avenue for fostering alternative energy projects that assist in the battle against climate change is a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). At its core, an RPS is a requirement that retail electricity suppliers purchase a certain percentage or quantity of renewably generated energy. Currently 25 states and Washington DC have mandatory targets for retail electricity purchases and 4 states have non-binding goals. In 2007 the House of Representatives passed an RPS, but the US Senate did not.
While most RPS programs share a common goal of encouraging the production of renewably generated energy, they vary in terms of purchase goals, timeframes for compliance and eligible technologies. Wind, solar, and geo-thermal are eligible under most of the RPS programs, but eligibility criteria varies widely with respect to other technologies and fuel sources such as bio-mass, landfill-gas, municipal solid waste, hydropower, and fuel cells. While the advantages in terms of climate change impacts associated with renewably generated energy may seem obvious (no emissions), less obvious may be the results stemming from the expansion of several states’ RPS programs into non-renewable areas.
Continue Reading...Climate Change and Aviation Fuel: A Tough Problem to Solve
Large aircraft require high energy fuel, and lots of it. But jet fuel is very difficult to clean up to satisfy climate protection imperatives, which has led to a major dispute in the US over the role coal-to-liquids and other alternative aviation fuels may play. Congress, the US Air Force, the major airlines, the US Environmental Protection Agency, its Federal Aviation Administration, a special Defense Department task force, coal-state senators, and many, many others are getting into the dogfight, which may go on for a long time.
Continue Reading...Coal: The Energy Source of the Future?
Gas, oil, nuclear energy, biofuels, other alternative energy, energy conservation – are they enough to cause plentiful, Btu-rich, relatively inexpensive coal to take a back seat to post-Kyoto climate concerns in the developed and developing economies of the world?
With high prices for oil and gas and other promising sources of energy, precisely the opposite appears to be happening, with uncertain implications for carbon dioxide emissions levels and the success of technological fixes for Old King Coal’s dark side.
Continue Reading...NGO Campaign Addresses NEPA and Climate
A recent spate of activities by environmental organizations shows the expanded scope and sophistication of the campaign by non-governmental environmental organizations (NGOs) to convince, or force, federal agencies to analyze potential climate impacts in environmental impact statements mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). A recent blog addressed efforts to get federal NEPA guidelines amended to require this, but this is just one small step in a wider effort.
Continue Reading...Climate Change Tort Suits: Hot or Cold?
Kivalina, Alaska, a village located eighty miles north of the Arctic Circle on a barrier island, is falling into the sea.
Since the early 1980s, sea ice ‑ which offers seasonal protection from storm surges ‑ has been forming later and melting earlier. As a result, the village is exposed to more winter storms of increasing severity.
In 2006, the US Army Corps of Engineers (“CoE”) concluded that the situation in Kivalina had become “dire” and that the entire town would have to be relocated within six years. A group of 400 Kivalina residents have filed suit against twenty petroleum producers, coal-burning utilities, and other energy companies, asserting that their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions create a public nuisance and that they conspired to mislead the public about climate change.
Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. et al., CV 08-1138 (N.D. Cal., Filed Feb. 26, 2008). Citing a report by the CoE, the Kivalina villagers allege that environmental changes associated with global warming have exacerbated flooding and erosion threats to Kivalina and other coastal villages in the Arctic.
They seek recovery of the estimated $400 million cost to relocate their village, which they claim is a result of the defendants’ climate-changing activities.
Who's in the Driver's Seat? Washington vs the States, Agency vs Agency
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently dealt a blow to both EPA and the states by proposing preemptive federal fuel economy standards (corporate average fuel economy or CAFE standards) that not only negate the states’ efforts to regulate fuel economy and vehicle greenhouse emissions but also directly challenge EPA’s leading role in regulating vehicle emissions. Will the courts, Congress, or a presidential administration sort out the traffic jam over authority to reduce vehicle greenhouse emissions? At this writing, the governors of twelve states are weighing in against what they view as a “cynical” power grab by the NHTSA, but resolution is nowhere in sight. [summary]
Continue Reading...The US's Existing Climate Protection Laws: Will They Work?
Congress in 2008
Federal climate change legislation may be on the way. The Senate has targeted a vote in June, and the House by the end of the year, although a bill both chambers can agree upon is unlikely until 2009, if then. It would be a great mistake, however, to view 2008 as a lost year on the climate front. The fundamental elements of Senate and House bills will be debated and accessible to all who probe beneath the surface. The fundamental regulatory structure and economic impact of climate legislation will have been thrashed over thoroughly by the end of the year. To interested stakeholders, the time to weigh in is now. [summary]
