Law Commons^™

The Key To Unlocking The Power Of Small Scale Renewable Energy: Local Land Use Regulation, Patricia Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Myriad federal and state programs have been promoted to incentivize the research and development of renewable energy as a means of achieving sustainability and producing more affordable alternative energy systems, and these programs could potentially have a profound impact on the way that electricity is produced and consumed in the United States. Small-scale renewable energy generation from sources such as solar and wind, that can be used at the consumer level as a source of power for homes and small businesses, is an important part of this paradigm shift. However, regardless of the fiscal incentives offered to clean-tech companies to …

Expedited Approval Of Energy Projects: Toward Assessing The Forms Of Procedural Relief, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

If we are to prevent the worst effects of climate change, a major shift in the world’s energy systems will be needed, including the construction of a massive number of clean energy facilities. Under one well-known scenario, this will require — along with many other actions — the construction of 230 wind farms the size of the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound; 1,000 large solar generating facilities of about ten square miles each; 1,400 natural gas-fired electric generating stations; 800 carbon capture and sequestration systems at coal-fired power plants; and 850 new nuclear power plants.

The Cape Wind …

Shale Gas And Clean Energy Policy, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

If we look behind the numbers on energy consumption, how much of that declining consumption is attributable to increases in energy efficiency and how much is attributable to a poor economy? If we look more closely at shale gas production, particularly when we consider hydraulic fracturing, what environmental costs are associated with developing this domestic resource? And, from a broader perspective, what role should natural gas, including shale gas, play in the country's clean energy future? Will we continue to favor fossil-fuel incumbents at the expense of new entrants in renewable resources and energy efficiency? This Article will address these …

Recovering From The Recovery Narrative: On Glocalism, Green Jobs And Cyborg Civilization, Michael Burger

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In this Essay, I make a preliminary foray into new narrative terrain, identifying several emerging legal storylines that have arisen in the wake of climate change disruptions and that I predict will prove influential in the coming years. In Part I, I discuss the ways in which new perceptions of scale are re-defining human beings' attachments to a sense of "place" or "dwelling" and are shaping new attitudes about what constitutes the local, posing potential problems for existing federalism schemes. In Part II, I discuss the ways in which America's long history of nationalizing nature manifests in the discourse surrounding …