Environmental Law

In The News (October 21)

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

• 'Tis the season for politics and here's another take on the similarities and differences between Barack Obama and John McCain on energy policy, from a report that says the two candidates share similar goals -- but different approaches, as analyzed by McClatchy Newspapers.
• Europe's climate change plan faces real difficulties, it seems, with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warning that his efforts to block the blueprint are backed by 10 other nations, according to Reuters. But the news service also reports that Britain's prime minister says his country's plans to cut carbon emissions won't be altered by the global economic downturn.
• Here's another take on the controversy over the European plan, suggesting the continent's leadership role on the climate issue "risks becoming the next victim of the global financial crisis," as reported by The New York Times. 
• Meanwhile, some economists think the world's current economic situation presents an opportunity to put a price tag on what have been traditionally viewed as Nature's "free" services, as noted by Reuters environmental blog.
• For a not-so-rosy look at what the world's credit crisis and the recent drop in oil prices might mean for the renewable energy industry, read this analysis from The New York Times.
• And for another view of the current problems facing the renewable energy industry -- including the thoughts of an executive with a company that's put some big money into renewables who cites the current credit crunch as a major difficulty -- here's this posting from the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital. 
• Then there's this view about the relationship between oil prices and alternative energy, from a writer who argues that it would be "a tragedy if falling prices were to extinguish" those other sources, such as natural gas, and who proposes the dreaded "t" word (for tax) as a solution, from The New York Times magazine.
• While all that's being debated, an Italian company is betting on the U.S. as a place to manufacture wind turbine parts, from a report by Clean Edge News. 
• A combination of new technologies, government incentives and the fact that the cost of petroleum is "all over the map," the use of biogas -- a combination of methane and carbon dioxide produced by the decay of organic materials -- is becoming a more viable as an energy source, reports Canada's Globe and Mail.
• Ocean acidification -- a potentially devastating result of carbon emissions -- will be the subject of the first comprehensive national study to look at how fisheries, marine mammals, coral reefs and other natural resources are being affected, from a statement issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.
• Pennsylvania's Gov. Edward G. Rendell has announced the investment of nearly $12 million in alternative clean energy projects that the Democrat says will create at least 1,200 full- and part-time jobs and attract nearly $118 million in private investment, from a press release issued by the governor's office.
• Federal regulators have approved rate incentives for a major transmission project in the West that will deliver up to 3,000 megawatts of capacity from renewable resources to distant load centers, and gave the green light to a $1.4 billion transmission project in Maine, according to a statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
• A draft "programmatic" environmental impact statement associated with the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and looking the potential consequences of alternatives to the current U.S. nuclear fuel cycle is now available, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Energy efficiency in data centers, with information gathered from a workshop on the topic over the summer, is the subject of a new report that is now available from the government, says this item from the U.S. Department of Energy's EERE News.

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on October 21, 2008 (boomark / email).