Would a CES Raise Electricity Prices?
At the request of House Science and Technology Committee Chair Ralph Hall (R-TX), the Energy Information Administration (“EIA”) released a study this week on the potential impacts of a clean energy standard (“CES”). In January’s State of the Union address, President Obama called for Congress to pass legislation creating a CES, which would require that utilities generate 80% of their electricity from “clean” sources by 2035. “Clean” sources would include not only renewables but also nuclear, natural gas and coal-fired power plants employing carbon capture and sequestration technology.
EU-sponsored conference on "Prevention and Insurance of Natural Catastrophes": a call for increasing public-private partnership
Co-authored by Nora Wouters and Nicolas Croquet
The European Commission organized on 18 October 2011 a conference in Brussels titled “Prevention and Insurance of Natural Catastrophes”. The conference gathered EU officials, a member of the World Bank, representatives of think tanks and of insurance associations, and finally academics. The conference centered around four themes, namely the general framework for approaching the prevention and insurability of natural catastrophes, ‘insurance availability’, ‘public-private interaction’, and finally ‘natural catastrophes and insurance value chain’. Focus here will be on the third theme. In particular, emphasis will be put on the way in which the EU does and can contribute to promoting and fostering public-private partnership (‘PPP’) in the prevention and insurability of natural catastrophes.
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