Law Commons^™

Implications Of A Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard: Will It Supplement Or Supplant Existing State Inititives?, James M. Van Nostrand, Anne Marie Hirschberger

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Design Principles For Carbon Emissions Reduction Programs, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The goal, articulated by President Obama in 2009, of reducing U.S. carbon emissions 17% from the 2005 level by 2020 iseminently achievable without new technology or appreciable sacrifice by energy users. However, achieving it will in part require sophisticated energy efficiency and conservation programs. To overcome institutional and behavioral barriers, these programs will need to implement six principles of effective design derived from 30 years of behavioral and social science research. We focus on the household sector, but believe our general conclusions likely apply to other sectors as well.

We recently developed an analysis for the household sector--energy use in …

Agenda: The Promise And Peril Of Oil Shale Development, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Fully one-half of the world’s oil shale lies within 150 miles of Grand Junction, Colorado, and about 80% of these reserves are on federal land. Estimates of recoverable reserves in the Green River Formation range from 500 billion to 1.53 trillion barrels. At present consumption rates, this is enough oil to satisfy 100% of U.S. demand for well over 100 years.

Development of oil shale could cause significant impacts on the Colorado Plateau. It would provide for …

Slides: The Elusive Bonanza, Randy Udall

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: Randy Udall, Co-founder, Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA

62 slides

Believe, Taggart Hutchinson, Shauna Stringham, Beth Grasso, Will Tilburg

Student Environmental Law Films/Golden Tree Films

The student created film “Believe,” a parody of the notion of clean coal, won the “Golden Tree” for Best Use of Humor. Produced by Taggart Hutchinson, Shauna Stringham, Beth Grasso and Will Tilburg, the film featured Tagg showering with coal-based soap, using a coal lightbulb, and cooking with coal.

Emerging Law Addressing Climate Change And Water, Elizabeth Burleson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The World Economic Forum recognizes that while restrictions on energy affect water systems and vise versa, energy and water policy are rarely coordinated. The International Panel on Climate Change predicts that wet places will become wetter and dry places will become dryer. Transboundary water, energy and climate coordination can occur through international consensus building.

Colorado’S Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act: Encouraging Conversion Of Coal Plants To Natural Gas, Jonathan Talamini

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The State of Colorado's recently-enacted Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act (CACJA) requires utilities to create plans that reduce NOx emissions by 70% at a specified portion of their coal-fired electricity generation facilities by the end of 2017. It allows utilities to use many different methods to achieve those reductions, but encourages and incentivizes the replacement of coal-based generation with natural gas. Utilities must seek approval for their plans from state agencies and must work closely with those agencies in designing the plans. This paper discusses the legal, political, and economic context for CACJA, and highlights the bill's advantages and disadvantages as …

Energy Justice And Sustainable Development, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

Sustainable Development ("SD")--an expression of distributive justice--is the foundational premise of international energy and environmental law. It posits that international answers to environmental and energy problems cannot be pursued as independent and autonomous objectives but must be addressed within the framework of economic and social development. SD has been politically institutionalized in the Millennium Development Goals and a plethora of significant international instruments. Perhaps more importantly from a legal standpoint, SD is unequivocally codified, in the most widely accepted international energy and environmental treaties. This Article affirms the importance and continuing applicability of SD to the "other" third of the …