Gas to the Rescue
Shale revolution catches fire, surpassing coal – in America, and soon around the world.
The shale revolution now fueling the American economy appears poised for expansion overseas.
CAA
From Coal to Gas
Regulatory and environmental challenges for power plant conversions under the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
Converting a power plant from coal to natural gas triggers a host of environmental challenges and regulatory issues. Operators could be trading one set of regulatory obligations, liabilities, and costs for another, equally problematic, set of liabilities and costs.
Unleashing Energy Efficiency
The Best Way to Comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan
A framework for measuring the resource value of energy efficiency – touted as the best way for states to comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
EPA's Clean Power Plan: An Unequal Burden
The Clean Power Plan's largest obstacle is how its cost is distributed disproportionately among the states.
How the Clean Power Plan introduced in June by the Environmental Protection Agency will produce widely differing compliance obligations among the states, in terms of emissions targets, likely carbon prices, and effects on wholesale power prices.
Complying with 111(d)
Exploring the cap-and-invest option.
EPA is expected to provide states with latitude in meeting Clean Air Act GHG standards. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) demonstrates an effective and economical approach: “cap and invest.”
Regulatory Gordian Knot
EPA’s new water, waste, and air regulations complicate power plant compliance.
New environmental requirements under the Clean Water Act (CWA) will add to the already complex burden of compliance for power plants. As the Environmental Protection Agency moves forward with cooling water and effluent standards, utilities and generators will have to deal with overlapping rules and conflicting policy goals.
Opportunities for the Brave
Navigating the power and gas markets.
The power and gas markets look very different today from what we were anticipating three to four years ago. Gas has gone from seeming shortage to seeming abundance with recent spot prices falling to well under $3/mcf. Power prices and volatility are down significantly. Demand is soft and excess capacity exists in most of the country. While it might be easy to attribute the conditions in the power markets largely to the recession, the reality is that the fundamentals of the market are materially changing—creating opportunities while revealing new pitfalls.
Climate Exposure
Submitted by meacott on Mon, 2011-12-19 17:03A state supreme court ruled last fall that damage resulting from climate change allegedly caused by power plant emissions was “reasonably foreseeable,” and therefore litigation expenses were not covered under a general liability insurance policy. The ruling creates an unworkable standard and raises questions about insurance coverage for climate-change liabilities.
While the policyholder was left adrift by Steadfast, the climate change insurance ship certainly hasn’t sailed.
On Sept. 16, 2011, the Supreme Court of Virginia became the highest state court in the country to rule on the issue of insurance coverage for climate-change claims under a general liability policy. In AES Corp. v. Steadfast Ins.
Battle Lines:
2011 Groundbreaking Law & Lawyers Survey and Report
With a flurry of major new environmental regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is altering the power generation landscape. But will the new federal rules survive court challenges—to say nothing of next year’s national elections? Fortnightly's Michael T. Burr considers the controversy over new environmental standards. PLUS: Top Utility Lawyers of 2011.
Greenhouse Chill
Has the Supreme Court frozen climate change litigation?
The Supreme Court’s decision in American Electric Power v. Connecticut strongly limits private nuisance actions against greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters by keeping these cases out of federal court. But the AEP decision won’t stop lawmakers from enacting new GHG regulations, and it won’t prevent plaintiffs from suing emitters in state courts.