Environmental Law

In The News (October 14)

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

• All 10 states in the East Coast and mid-Atlantic carbon market are expected to offer allowances for emissions from power plants in the next auction scheduled for December, with the bidding process now open, according to a statement from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
• California's largest ethanol plant has begun operations; the Pacific Ethanol facility in Port Stockton is projected to produce 60 million gallons a year, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
• Britain needs to remove obstacles to placing offshore wind farms closer to land, in order to save costs, urges a new report from the country's government-funded Carbon Trust, reports Reuters.
• Near the Spanish coast, Iberdrola Renovables has commissioned the first buoy of its pilot wave power plant at Cantabria, according to a New Energy Finance report appearing on Clean Edge News. 
• Visitors to South Carolina's coastline within a few years may see -- faintly -- the 210-foot high wind turbines of a new offshore generating facility, says this article from the Hilton Head newspaper, the Island Packet. 
• The legal tussle between Nevada and the federal government over the planned nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain continues with a new lawsuit filed by the state challenging radiation limits that were recently established, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
• Scientists equipped with new technology have embarked on the first “saturation” mission to study the effect of ocean acidification -- a process associated with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- on coral reef ecosystems, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• There's been a proliferation of exchange-traded funds focusing on alternative energy, and many have been mirroring the swings in the oil markets, reports The New York Times.
• Add to the litany of potential ill effects of climate change -- a dismal list that includes West Nile virus, smog, contaminated water, higher food prices, invasive species, toxic algae and declines of Great Lakes levels -- Ohio could lose its namesake buckeye nut to Michigan, reports the Toledo Blade. 
• A vegetable oil-powered two-foot-tall green and yellow roadster won the Escape from Berkeley race to Las Vegas, with its owners picking up a $5,000 prize, according to this item from The New York Times.

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).