FYI. The Tulsa Law Review has just released a special symposium issue on climate change geoengineering; I have included the Table of Contents below. wil

Tulsa Law Review

Volume 46                                             Spring 2011                                               Number 2

Symposium:

geoengineering

 

Geoengineering and Climate Management:

From Marginality To Inevitability                                   Jay Michaelson       221

 

Framing The Social, Political, And

Environmental Risks And Benefits

Of Geoengineering: Balancing The Hard-

To-Imagine Against The Hard-To-Measure                       Gareth Davies       261

 

Geoengineering the Climate:

An Overview of Solar Radiation

Management Options                                               William C.G. Burns       283

 

Geoengineering and International Law:

The Search For Common Legal Ground                               Ralph Bodle       305

 

Colorado Residential Property Owners

And Their Cloudy Right To

Precipitation Capture                                                     Ryan S. Hansen       323

 

A Navigational System For Uncharted Waters:

The London Convention And London

Protocol’s Assessment Framework

On Ocean Iron Fertilization                                                Melissa Eick       351

 

 

 

There was an extremely informative article in the April 9 edition of the Financial Times describing a precipitous decline in U.S. petroleum refining capacity and its implications for U.S. energy markets. Among the article’s take-aways:

1. Half of the refining capacity on the U.S. East Coast is set to be shut down.
   1. Many refineries on the U.S. East Coast face ;very high costs associated with importing oil from countries e.g. Nigeria, Norway and Angola, resulting in negative margins for some refineries. While oil from domestic sources, e.g. Texas, would be far less expensive, there are no available pipelines. On the other end of the equation, refineries have suffered from weak consumption in the United States, a fact mirrored in Europe;
2. While more than 3 million barrels of daily refinery capacity have closed in western countries in recent years, while refining capacity has increased by 4.2 million barrels per day, with an additional 1.8 million barrels per day expected this year;
3. World demand has increased in recent years, however, buoyed primarily by rising demand in Brazil, India, China and Saudi Arabia;
4. While U.S. crude production is at its highest level,. the U.S. market is now “really four markets when it comes to products,” with substantial exports from the Gulf of Mexico, home to 43% of U.S. refining capacity, a surplus of supplies in the inland regions of the United States, a west coast largely isolated from the rest of the country, and the East Cast increasingly relying on imported fuel;
5. One of the most likely future incremental suppliers  to the East Coast is India; however, longer supply chains could result in heightened price volatility.

This article could stimulate some good class discussion, including whether the U.S. should aggressively seek to expand pipelines between oil-rich domestic regions and East Coast refineries, as well as whether there any longer is any validity to the argument that U.S. environmental laws has interfered with the development of refinery facilities, resulting in increased prices to U.S. consumers.

 

FYI. The SUN DAY campaign is an extremely helpful source of information on U.S. renewable energy policy.

News Advisory

RENEWABLE ENERGY EXPERIENCES EXPLOSIVE GROWTH
DURING FIRST THREE YEARS OF OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

RENEWABLES EXPAND 27% SINCE 2008
NOW 12% OF DOMESTIC ENERGY PRODUCTION

ELECTRICAL GENERATION FROM
NON-HYDRO RENEWABLES INCREASES BY 55%

For Immediate Release: Monday – April 2, 2012

Contact: Ken Bossong, 301-270-6477 x.11

Washington DC – According to the most recent issue of the “Monthly Energy Review” by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), with data through December 31, 2011, renewable energy sources expanded rapidly during the first three years of the Obama Administration while substantially outpacing the growth rates of fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2011, renewable energy sources (i.e., biofuels, biomass, geothermal, solar, water, wind) grew by 27.12%. By comparison, during the same three-year period, total domestic energy production increased by just 6.72% with natural gas and crude oil production growing by 13.66% and 14.27% respectively. Moreover, during the same period, nuclear power declined by 1.99% and coal dropped by 7.16%.

Looking at all energy sectors (e.g., electricity, transportation, thermal), renewable energy sources accounted for 11.74% of domestic energy production in 2011 – compared to 9.85% in 2008. In fact, renewable energy sources provided 10.90% more energy in 2011 than did nuclear power, although nuclear still provides a larger share of the nation’s electricity. (On the consumption side, which includes oil and other energy imports, renewable sources accounted for 9.29% of total U.S. energy use during 2011.)

During the first three years of the Obama Administration, geothermal grew by 15.63%, hydropower by 26.28%, solar by 28.09%, biofuels by 46.58%, and wind by 113.92%. Only biomass dipped – by 1.21%. Hydropower accounted for 34.62% of domestic energy production from renewable sources in 2011, followed by biomass (26.75%), biofuels (22.20%), wind (12.75%), geothermal (2.42%), and solar (1.24%).

Looking at just the electricity sector, according to EIA’s “Electric Power Monthly,” with data through December 31, 2011, net electrical generation by non-hydro renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, wind) grew by 54.6% during the first three years of the Obama Administration. During the same period, conventional hydropower expanded by 27.6%. Combined, electrical output from renewable energy sources was 36.5% greater for calendar year 2011 than it was for calendar year 2008. By comparison, between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2011, natural gas used in electrical generation grew by 15.1% while nuclear and coal dropped by 2.0% and 12.7% respectively.

During 2011, hydro and non-hydro renewables combined accounted for 12.67% of net electrical generation compared to 9.25% in 2008. Comparing the 12-months of 2011 against the same time period in 2008, wind grew by 116.3%, solar by 110.0%, hydropower by 27.6%, geothermal by 12.5%, and biomass by 3.1%. For all of 2011, non-hydro renewables accounted for 4.75% of net electrical generation while conventional hydropower accounted for 7.91%. However, non-hydro renewables have been growing rapidly and for the last quarter of 2011, they accounted for 5.5% of net U.S. electrical generation. Among the non-hydro renewables contributing to net electrical generation in 2011, wind accounted for 61.4%, followed by biomass (29.1%), geothermal (8.6%), and solar (0.9%).

“The numbers speak for themselves – notwithstanding politically-inspired criticism, the pro-renewable energy policies pioneered by the Obama Administration have generated dramatic growth rates during the past three years, vastly outpacing those of all other energy sources,” said Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “The investments in sustainable energy made by the federal government as well as state and private funders have paid off handsomely underscoring the short-sightedness of emerging proposals to slash or discontinue such support.”

# # # # # # # #

The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its most recent “Monthly Energy Review” on March 28, 2012. It can be found at: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/index.cfm. The relevant charts from which the data above are extrapolated are Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 10.1. EIA released its “Electric Power Monthly” with data for 2011 on February 29, 2012; see: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly. The relevant charts are Tables 1.1, 1.1.A, ES1.A, and ES1.B.

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The SUN DAY Campaign is a non-profit research and educational organization founded in 1993 to promote sustainable energy technologies as cost-effective alternatives to nuclear power and fossil fuels.