After a bumpy few years as chairman of the NRC, Gregory Jaczko announced today that he will step down as soon as a new chairman is confirmed. While serving on the NRC, Chairman Jaczko frequently disagreed with the other commissioners and pushed for stronger safety measures.
Links
Gregory Jaczko Resigns As Chairman Of Nuclear Commission (Bloomberg)
N.R.C. Chairman to Resign After Stormy Tenure (NYT)
Posted in News
In Mingo Logan, which I wrote about here, the EPA’s reading of the Clean Water Act was shot down pretty hard by Judge Amy Jackson of the US District Court for D.C., an Obama appointee. Here’s one highlight: “EPA’s interpretation fails because it is illogical and impractical.”
The EPA had sought to essentially revoke a waste disposal permit granted to a coal mining company. The EPA believes that the permit will lead to unacceptable environmental damage.
Despite the somewhat harsh opinion from Judge Jackson, on May 11th the EPA filed a notice of appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court.
Posted in News
Tagged Amy Jackson, Clean Water Act, EPA, Mingo Logan, United States Environmental Protection Agency
China recently began construction on what will be the highest capacity power line ever built. The 2,210km line will transmit approximately 800kV. The line will transmit power from generation facilities, including wind and solar, in the West, to power hungry areas in the East.
The line will be an ultra high voltage DC line, a technology which I have discussed in the past. Questions remain about the feasibility of such a high voltage project though, and there have already been regulatory delays slowing construction. Innovative projects like this one should help to make this technology more mainstream, which will lead to more efficient energy transmission.
Links
China building power transmission line of world’s largest capacity (China Daily)
China starts vital UHV lines to carry wind power from its west (Recharge)
I am thrilled to announce that JECE 3:1 is now available! 3:1 contains four very interesting articles. The full issue is here, individual articles linked to below. We hope that you enjoy this issue, please leave any comments below.
Warren G. Lavey
Assessing Moral Claims in International Climate Change Negotiations
Yoram Margalioth
Elizabeth Barrett Ristroph
Chevron, Greenwashing, and the Myth of “Green Oil Companies”
Miriam A. Cherry & Judd F. Sneirson
Posted in News
Major US natural gas pipeline companies have been warned about an ongoing cyber threat to their networks. Hackers are attempting to access private networks through a “phishing” attack, in which malicious emails are sent to employees.
The attacks appear to have started in December 2011 and are ongoing. The reasoning for the attacks is not clear. Power companies and regulatory agencies have been concerned for some time about the vulnerability of infrastructure to cyber attack, and I believe that NERC has guidelines that they enforce for cyber security.
Congress is debating what role the federal government should play in cyber security. There is a lot of interest in having some sort of federal management of these issues, but there is concern that initiatives will be too costly, both for businesses and the government.
In other news, a friend of mine had an interesting piece published in the New York Times about Keystone and eminent domain issues in Texas. This is an issue that I have been wondering about for a while and that doesn’t seem to get much attention.
Links
Gas pipelines come under cyberattack (The Hill)
Alert: Major cyber attack aimed at natural gas pipeline companies (Christian Science Monitor)
Since the Fukushima disaster, Japan has steadily been shutting down their nuclear reactors. Popular opinion in Japan is severely anti-nuclear, and there seems to be very little trust of nuclear regulatory bodies. As of today, all nuclear reactors in Japan are shut down, for the first time since 1970.
What is next for Japan is unclear. Currently, fossil fuel imports are up. But this is not a reliable strategy, and there may be rolling blackouts again in Japan soon, unless some reactors are restarted. Japan needs to find new ways to generate electricity soon though. Natural gas is one possibility, renewable methods are another.
Links
Japan Nuclear Power Free After Shutdown of Last Reactor (Bloomberg)
With no nuke reactors in operation, Japan struggles to chart new energy strategy (The Mainichi)
Japan shuts down last nuclear reactor (CNN)
Posted in News
Yesterday, FERC and NERC released their joint report on the September 8, 2011 blackout. The blackout left around 2.7 million customers without power in California and Arizona, some for as long as 12 hours. The blackout was triggered by the failure of one transmission line, which cascaded into a massive blackout.
The report declares that the primary causes of the blackout were a lack of planning and a lack of communication and overall awareness. The reports primary recommendations are that power authorities communicate more effectively, so they know the status of other areas, and that they consider the impact of smaller facilities on overall reliability. The report stresses that power operators are part of a larger system, and they need to communicate with other operators in the system, both during normal operations, and during system failures.
Some of the operators singled out in the report have already agreed to make the changes recommended in the report.
Links
Report
Report on massive Southwestern blackout faults human element (LA Times)
FERC News Release
On April 20th, the Virginia Supreme Court decided AES v. Steadfast Insurance (Record No. 100764). AES is one of the world’s largest power companies, based in Arlington, VA. The Native Village of Kivalina in Alaska sued AES and many other parties claiming that the defendants partially caused global warming which damaged the coastal village.
AES asked their insurer, Steadfast Insurance, to defend the claim. Steadfast provided the defense but then sued AES, claiming that they were not responsible for defending AES in the Kivalina suit. In the insurance policies, Steadfast promised to defend AES against injuries caused by “occurrences,” which is defined as being an accident in Virginia. The question for the court was whether global warming was an accident covered by the policy.
An insurers duty to defend is broader than the duty to pay; an insurer must defend any suit in which the allegations in the complaint would fall within the risk covered by the insurance policy. On the other hand, “if it appears clearly that the insurer would not be liable under its contract for any judgment based upon the allegations, it has no duty even to defend.” To decide whether the Kivalina suit must be defended by Steadfast, the Virginia Supreme Court must examine the Complaint filed by Kivalina.
“Kivalina alleges that AES knew or should have known the damage that its activities would cause, that AES was negligent if it did not know, and that AES was negligent in acting in concert with other defendants in creating a nuisance.” Because Kivalina asserts that AES knew or should have known about the potential global warming consequences of their actions, the court finds that this could not be considered an accident, and is thus not an “occurrence” covered by the policy. ”Kivalina does not allege that its property damage was the result of a fortuitous event or accident, and such loss is not covered under the relevant CGL policies.”
Blog News: Finals are over! I will resume updating the blog regularly, sorry for the break.
Links
Opinion
Insurance Companies Face Increased Risks from Warming (Yale Environment 360)
Still No Insurance Coverage for Climate Change Nuisance Litigation — At Least in Virginia (Law & The Environment)
AES Corp v. Steadfast (McKenna Long & Aldridge)
Posted in News
On Wednesday, the EPA released it’s final Oil & Gas rule, previously discussed here. This rule covers the release of various gases from fracking operations. The rule essentially requires certain gases to be either trapped or flared off (burned) before 2015, and captured after Jan. 1st 2015.
This capturing process is known as green completion, and is already used at many wells because the gases can be sold for a profit. The profits from these sales should offset any compliance costs.
EPA estimates the following combined annual emission reductions when the rules are fully
implemented :
o VOCs: 190,000 to 290,000 tons;
o Air Toxics: 12,000 to 20.000 tons; and
o Methane 1.0 to 1.7 million short tons
Overall, this rule seems to be a good compromise that should satisfy both environmental and industry groups.
Links
Final Rule
U.S. Caps Emissions in Drilling for Fuel (NYT)
EPA finalizes first-ever air pollution rules for natural-gas ‘fracking’ (The Hill)
Final EPA Oil and Gas Air Emissions Rule Adopts Phased Approach for “Green Completion” of Gas Wells (King & Spalding)
The EPA’s Fracking Miracle (WSJ)
Posted in News
The D.C. Circuit today decided Mobil Pipe Line v. FERC. Mobil is the owner of the Pegasus crude oil pipeline, which since 2006 has been transporting Western Canadian crude between Illinois and refiners in Texas. Mobil applied to have rates for their pipeline changed from an index system to market-based rates. FERC denied their request, and Mobil appealed under the APA.
FERC Order 572 declares how the Commission will determine whether market based rates will be charged or not. To qualify, “a pipeline must demonstrate that it lacks market power in its product and geographic markets.” FERC did not disagree that the Texas market was competitive, but they claimed that the market in Illinois was not competitive.
FERC’s experts examined the issue, and “did not think this a close case.” Judge Kavanaugh includes about a page and a half of quotations from the experts, all supporting the competitiveness of the market.
The Commission disagreed with these experts though, using a different method to determine how competitive the market was, and claiming that Pegasus had a controlling share. The D.C. Circuit was not convinced though, stating “the critical statistic is that about 97 percent of Western Canadian crude oil gets to refineries by means other than Pegasus.”
The Court finds the Commission’s action to be unreasonable, vacating FERC’s order and remanding for further consideration. I suppose the best takeaway from all of this is that if agency experts all say one thing, directors need to have some sort of basis for their decisions before completely disregarding their experts.
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Opinion
Exxon Wins FERC’s Reconsideration of Pegasus Pipeline Rates (Bloomberg)
Final exams continue here at W&L, so blog coverage will remain somewhat spotty. But, we are starting to look at papers for volume 4 of the Journal, so if you are interested in publishing with us now would be a great time to submit. Call for papers for our 2013 symposium should be going up in the next few weeks as well. More details to follow on that.
Ben Koopferstock
Sam Petsonk
Jeff Wieand
Anthony Raucci