Energy

David Owens Overstates the Rebound Effect’s Relevance

Here is an impressive blog post. I didn’t write it!   Shakeb Afsah and Kendyl Salcito present a data filled post that takes David Owen’s Rebound Effect quite seriously. I respect hypothesis testing! Owen’s sexy hypothesis is that the Prius actually contributes to climate change!  How could this happen?  The Prius has such a high MPG that it effective …

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The Commerce Department Undercuts Clean Energy

The Commerce Department’s decision to levy tariffs on Chinese solar panel imports has been in the news for a couple of days, but should receive more attention for envir0nmental policy wonks than it has so far.  The Obama Administration has basically decided to impair clean energy production with its decision, even if the tariffs are …

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Attack of the Dim Bulbs (A Dismayingly On-Going Series)

And the government would have banned Thomas Edison’s light bulb. Oh yeah, Obama’s regulators actually did just that. That was Governor Romney on March 19.  I hope he was more careful with the facts when he worked for Bain. If not, he would have cost lost a lot of money, not to mention the liability …

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Energy Scholarship Symposium in the Journal of Economic Perspectives

As I argued about three months ago, the Journal of Economic Perspectives ought to be on the regular reading for anyone interested in environmental law and policy.  The most recent quarter’s issue shows why: it features a fascinating symposium on “Energy Challenges”.  Not all of the articles will be music to environmentalists’ ears: for example, …

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A Post Script to Steve’s Post about the Nuclear Renaissance

This just in from the NY Times: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a June breaker fire at the 478-megawatt Fort Calhoun nuclear plant was of “high safety significance,” increasing work the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) must complete before the troubled unit can restart. The NRC’s preliminary “red” safety violation, the agency’s most serious classification, …

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Betting on the Nuclear Renaissance

For many years, there has been a healthy debate in the United States about the role nuclear power should play in our future energy plans. In the energy law courses that I teach, I have been struck with the consistent support among students for expanding our reliance on nuclear power as part of a comprehensive …

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Going Beyond the “Design-Basis Event”

A conventional approach to safety is based on the concept of design events.  A building code might say, for example, that a building should be able to survive a 7.0 earthquake.  This approach has been basic to the regulation of nuclear reactors.  As the interim report of the post-Fukushima NRC task force explains: [The regulation[ …

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Heat Waves, Droughts, and the Energy System

According to the IPCC,  it “is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” For instance, by midcentury, the number of heat wave days in Los Angeles is expected to at least double over the late twentieth century, and quadrupling is expected by the end of …

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Obama’s Dormant Carbon Tax

In many respects, public subsidies for clean technology research and development,  public investment in urban redevelopment, and elaborate cap-and-trade programs are all essentially clunky political substitutes for a carbon tax.  If we priced carbon accurately to reflect its true cost to society, in terms of public and environmental health impacts (aka “externalities”), much of this …

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BP Reaches Partial Settlement in Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation

Late Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier announced a legal settlement between British Petroleum and thousands of individuals and businesses that had sued BP for damages arising out of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a New York Times report, BP has agreed to pay $7.8 billion …

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