Energy

If It Quacks Like a Duck: Intermittent Renewables and the Grid

At an energy policy conference that I attended on campus recently, one of the speakers asked how many people in the audience were familiar with the Duck Chart. As someone who tries to stay on top of things in the energy world, I was surprised by how many people raised a hand to express familiarity …

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Congress Increases Climate Research Funding!

…even if they didn’t intend to. The Republican War on Science has morphed into a more general war on knowledge.  As Dan has pointed out previously, the GOP has now declared war on social science funding, and particularly on political science. Last night, the Senate accepted the amendment of Senator Tom Coburn (R – Olduvai …

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Breaking News: PACE Dies in the Ninth Circuit

The West Coast PACE litigation party appears to have ended. After favorable rulings from the California Northern District Court for PACE backers, the Ninth Circuit today dismissed the case outright. As background, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs allow municipal governments to finance residential and commercial energy improvements, with property owners repaying the governments via …

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City of Los Angeles will promote widespread adoption of “cool roof” technology, citing benefits documented in Emmett Center report

One of the core goals of our environmental law programs at UCLA Law is to influence and inform public policy with our research.  I’m proud to say that our Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment is doing exactly that.  The City of Los Angeles, influenced by the Emmett Center’s work, is moving forward …

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New York Times Says Farewell to “Green Blog” and Environment Desk

A few days ago, the New York Times cancelled its “Green Blog,” dedicated to environmental and energy news.  The Times told readers to look for environmental policy news on the “Caucus blog,” dedicated to politics, and energy technology news on the “Bits blog,” dedicated to the business of technology.  The demise of the Green Blog came less than two …

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Who Is Ernest Moniz?

And why should you care? Moniz is a nuclear physics professor at MIT, the director of the MIT energy project, and at least according to a lot of reports, President Obama’s first choice to head the Energy Department.  Anything not to like about that? Well, lots of environmentalists don’t seem to.  The Daily Beast reports …

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Newsflashes from the B-School

You might think that business schools would take the same views of policy as the Chamber of Commerce, but that’s not necessarily true.  The Haas School here at Berkeley has a very interesting energy blog.  I don’t always find their conclusions congenial but they’re always interesting.  Here are some recent posts: Information and energy use. …

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The Ever-Growing Crisis Over the Nation’s Nuclear Waste Non-Solution

The Associated Press reports that six underground storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State are leaking a witches’ brew of high-level nuclear wastes into the soil that threatens regional groundwater supplies. This news highlights a crisis of national proportions that has for too long gone unaddressed. Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear …

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Casting a Shadow on the Future of Shale Gas

Current projections for shale oil and gas are huge.  But are they realistic? An article in the February 21 issue of Nature suggests that these projections may be too optimistic: Wells decline rapidly within a few years. Those in the top five US plays typically produced 80–95% less gas after three years. In my view, the …

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Rubio Resigns: Was CEQA “Reform” Just About Fracking?

With the news that CEQA “reform” champion and State Senator Michael Rubio resigned today to lobby for Chevron, I have to wonder if his push for CEQA reform was really just to benefit oil and gas fracking.  Sure, CEQA reform proponents liked to trumpet how a weakening of the law will help businesses and infill …

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