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- Clean Air Act; environmental justice; coal; solar energy; climate change; renewable portfolio standards; Central Appalachia; Global South (1)
- Life Cycle Analysis; Electric Vehicles; EVs; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Ethanol; Renewable Fuel Standard; California Low-Carbon Fuel Standard; LCFS; transportation (1)
- Renewable energy; renewables; solar; wind; decarbonization; clean energy; energy economics; energy law; environmental law; environmental policy; green energy; energy transition (1)
- Stranded costs; electricity; decarbonization; natural gas; coal; nuclear; grid; investment; regulated industry (1)
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Paradoxes Of “Decarbonization”, David B. Spence
Paradoxes Of “Decarbonization”, David B. Spence
Brooklyn Law Review
Scholars and policymakers continue to debate the shape of a post-carbon world, and how fast the United States can “decarbonize” its energy sector. Recent trends—including the reduced costs of renewables, regulatory and market pressure on coal-fired power, and successful integration of large amounts of wind power into the grid—have fed optimism about the possibility of rapid and “deep” decarbonization. Unfortunately, however, encouraging ever-more substitution of renewables for fossil fuels creates unintended consequences—paradoxes—that stem in part from two sometimes unavoidable and under-appreciated truths. First, the three attributes we value in the electricity system—cost, reliability and environmental performance—are in tension with one …
Environmental Injustice And The Pursuit Of A Post-Carbon World: The Unintended Consequences Of The Clean Air Act As A Cautionary Tale For Solar Energy Development, Shannon Elizabeth Bell
Environmental Injustice And The Pursuit Of A Post-Carbon World: The Unintended Consequences Of The Clean Air Act As A Cautionary Tale For Solar Energy Development, Shannon Elizabeth Bell
Brooklyn Law Review
Most policy decisions aimed at improving the environment have been conceived and implemented without attention to issues of environmental justice, creating what sociologist Julian Agyeman calls an “equity deficit” in the discourse and practice of environmental sustainability. This article presents the unintended consequences of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and its amendments as a cautionary tale for what can happen when environmental regulations are enacted without adequately considering environmental justice concerns. Although the CAA has been responsible for much good in the United States as a whole—including significant reductions in acid rain and health-harming pollutants—it has also brought significant harm …
Life Cycle Analysis And Transportation Energy, Alexandra B. Klass, Andrew Heiring
Life Cycle Analysis And Transportation Energy, Alexandra B. Klass, Andrew Heiring
Brooklyn Law Review
As government actors and the private sector attempt to decarbonize the economy, the role of life cycle analysis (also know as life cycle assessment or LCA) has become increasingly important. In this essay, we explore the use of life cycle analysis in the transportation sector to assess its influence in federal and state policy efforts to move to a low-carbon energy future. We first define life cycle analysis and explain its use in evaluating the environmental impacts of all stages of a product from production, to use, to disposal. We then review the use of life cycle analysis in considering …
Stranded Costs And Grid Decarbonizaiton, Emily Hammond, Jim Rossi
Stranded Costs And Grid Decarbonizaiton, Emily Hammond, Jim Rossi
Brooklyn Law Review
Energy law is well equipped to facilitate the transition to a decarbonized grid. Over the past half century, energy law has endured many stranded cost experiments, each helping firms and customers adjust to a new normal. However, these past experiments have contributed to a myopic regulatory approach to past stranded cost recovery by: (1) endorsing a preference for addressing all stranded costs only after energy resource investment decisions have been made; and (2) fixating on the firm’s financial costs and protection of investors, rather than on the broader impacts of each transition for the energy system. The current transition to …