Ending Dirty Energy Policy
Ending Dirty Energy Policy

Author: Joseph P. Tomain

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9781139103145

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Climate change presents the United States, and the world, with regulatory problems of a magnitude, complexity, and scope unseen before. The United States, however, particularly after the mid-term elections of 2010, lacks the political will necessary to aggressively address climate change. Most current books focus on climate change. This book argues that the country will not adequately address climate change until we transform our fossil fuel energy policy. Yet there are signs that the country will support the transformation of our country's century-old energy policy from one that is dependent on fossil fuels to a low-carbon energy portfolio. A transformative energy policy that favors energy efficiency and renewable resources can occur only after we have abandoned the traditional fossil fuel energy policy, have redesigned regulatory systems to open new markets and promoted competition among new energy providers, and have stimulated private-sector commercial and venture capital investment in energy innovations that can be brought to commercial scale and marketability.

Ending Dirty Energy Policy
Ending Dirty Energy Policy

Author: Dean Emeritus and the Wilbert and Helen Ziegler Professor of Law Joseph P Tomain

Publisher:

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 9781139101349

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Argues that the United States will not adequately address climate change until it transforms its fossil fuel energy policy.

Ending Dirty Energy Policy
Ending Dirty Energy Policy

Author: Joseph P. Tomain

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-06-20

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1139499750

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Climate change presents the United States, and the world, with regulatory problems of a magnitude, complexity and scope unseen before. The United States, however, particularly after the mid-term elections of 2010, lacks the political will necessary to aggressively address climate change. Most current books focus on climate change. Ending Dirty Energy Policy argues that the US will not adequately address climate change until it transforms its fossil fuel energy policy. Yet there are signs that the country will support the transformation of its century-old energy policy from one that is dependent on fossil fuels to a low-carbon energy portfolio. A transformative energy policy that favors energy efficiency and renewable resources can occur only after the US has abandoned the traditional fossil fuel energy policy, has redesigned regulatory systems to open new markets and promoted competition among new energy providers, and has stimulated private-sector commercial and venture capital investment in energy innovations that can be brought to commercial scale and marketability.

The Dirty Energy Dilemma
The Dirty Energy Dilemma

Author: Benjamin K. Sovacool

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2008-10-30

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 031335541X

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The American electric utility system is quietly falling apart. Once taken for granted, the industry has become increasingly unstable, fragmented, unreliable, insecure, inefficient, expensive, and harmful to our environment and public health. According to Sovacool, the fix for this ugly array of problems lies not in nuclear power or clean coal, but in renewable energy systems that produce few harmful byproducts, relieve congestion on the transmission grid, require less maintenance, are not subject to price volatility, and enhance the security of the national energy system from natural catastrophe, terrorist attack, and dependence on supply from hostile and unstable regions of the world. Here arises The Dirty Energy Dilemma: If renewable energy systems deliver such impressive benefits, why are they languishing at the margins of the American energy portfolio? And why does the United States lag so far behind Europe, where conversion to renewable energy systems has already taken off in a big way? Corporate media parrot industry PR that renewable technologies just aren't ready for prime time. But Sovacool marshals extensive field research to show that the only barrier blocking the conversion of a significant proportion of the U.S. energy portfolio to renewables is not technological—the technology is there—but institutional. Public utility commissioners, utility managers, system operators, business owners, and ordinary consumers are hobbled by organizational conservatism, technical incompatibility, legal inertia, weak and inconsistent political incentives, ill-founded prejudices, and apathy. The author argues that significant conversion to technologically proven clean energy systems can happen only if we adopt and implement a whole new set of policies that will target and dismantle the insidious social barriers that are presently blocking decisions that would so obviously benefit society.

New Approaches on Energy and the Environment
New Approaches on Energy and the Environment

Author: Richard D. Professor Morgenstern

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1136527958

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Written by economists and policy analysts at Resources for the Future, a Washington, DC, think tank with a tradition for independent, objective research, this collection of twenty-five 'memos to the President' offers constructive policy options for the elected administration on critical challenges related to energy, the environment, and natural resources. Each contributor to New Approaches on Energy and the Environment was asked to address the question: 'Based on your research and knowledge, what policy recommendation would you like to make to the next U.S. president?' Writing in advance of the 2004 election so as to keep their essays free of partisan interpretations, the authors were asked not to confine their suggestions to what the prevailing wisdom says is politically possible. They also took pains to make their ideas accessible to a busy president as well as a wide range of readers interested in a concise and authoritative overview of the nation's energy and environmental policy choices. The results are provocative, sometimes controversial, but highly readable essays on topics including climate change, oil dependency, electricity regulation, brownfields revitalization, forest service administration, air and water quality, and environmental health issues such as food safety and the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. When the President takes office in January, 2005, he will confront competing perspectives about the priorities and approaches that should apply to energy and environmental policy: Americans want cleaner air and water and healthy and attractive surroundings, but they also want inexpensive fuel, comfortable cars and houses, and continued economic growth. New Approaches on Energy and the Environment provides thought-provoking, commonsense contributions to debates about important energy and environmental issues confronting the U.S. today.

Hitting the Wall
Hitting the Wall

Author: Richard Caputo

Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers

Published: 2009-01-08

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1598293354

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Hitting the Wall examines the combination of two intractable energy problems of our age: the peaking of global oil production and the overloading of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Both emerge from the overconsumption of fossil fuels and solving one problem helps solve the other. The misinformation campaign about climate change is discussed as is the role that noncarbon energy solutions can play. There are nine major components in the proposed noncarbon strategy including energy efficiency and renewable energy. Economics and realistic restraints are considered and the total carbon reduction by 2030 is evaluated, and the results show that this strategy will reduce the carbon emission in the United States to be on track to an 80% reduction in 2050. The prospects for “clean” coal and “acceptable” nuclear are considered, and there is some hope that they would be used in an interim role. Although there are significant technical challenges to assembling these new energy systems, the primary difficulty lies in the political arena. A multigenerational strategy is needed to guide our actions over the next century. Garnering long-term multiadministration coherent policies to put the elements of any proposed strategy in place, is a relatively rare occurrence in the United States. More common is the reversal of one policy by the next administration with counterproductive results. A framework for politically stable action is developed using the framework of “energy tribes” where all the disparate voices in the energy debate are included and considered in a “messy process.” This book provides hope that our descendants in the next century will live in a world that would be familiar to us. This can only be achieved if the United States plays an active leadership role in maintaining climatic balance. Table of Contents: Introduction / The End of Cheap Oil / Carbon - Too Much of a Good Thing / Carbonless Energy Options / Conventional Energy / Policy for Whom? / Call to Arms / References

The End of Energy
The End of Energy

Author: Michael J. Graetz

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-03-04

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 0262294745

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Forty years of energy incompetence: villains, failures of leadership, and missed opportunities. Americans take for granted that when we flip a switch the light will go on, when we turn up the thermostat the room will get warm, and when we pull up to the pump gas will be plentiful and relatively cheap. In The End of Energy, Michael Graetz shows us that we have been living an energy delusion for forty years. Until the 1970s, we produced domestically all the oil we needed to run our power plants, heat our homes, and fuel our cars. Since then, we have had to import most of the oil we use, much of it from the Middle East. And we rely on an even dirtier fuel—coal—to produce half of our electricity. Graetz describes more than forty years of energy policy incompetence and argues that we must make better decisions for our energy future. Despite thousands of pages of energy legislation since the 1970s (passed by a Congress that tended to elevate narrow parochial interests over our national goals), Americans have never been asked to pay a price that reflects the real cost of the energy they consume. Until Americans face the facts about price, our energy incompetence will continue—and along with it the unraveling of our environment, security, and independence.

The Clean Energy Transition
The Clean Energy Transition

Author: Daniel J. Fiorino

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2022-09-12

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 1509544887

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Is the goal of a transition to clean energy at all realistic? If so, how could it be accomplished? Climate change poses a formidable challenge for twenty-first-century governments. Unless they can move to a clean energy system built on efficiency, renewables, electrification, and possibly complementary technologies like nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage, it will be all but impossible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. In this book, Daniel Fiorino provides a comprehensive introduction to the politics and policies of a clean energy transition and how it may unfold nationally and globally. Across its nine chapters, he explores the current energy landscape and the different pathways and pitfalls on the road to decarbonization. All scenarios for decarbonizing, he argues, rely on aggressive efficiency, the rapid scale-up of renewables, and the electrification of most of what is left. Yet this transition has to be accelerated and done effectively. There is little time left for second chances if we are to decarbonize later this century. The Clean Energy Transition will be an indispensable resource for students of energy politics, environmental studies, and public policy, as well as anyone interested in the energy issues of the day.

Climate of Contempt
Climate of Contempt

Author: David Spence

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2024-08-06

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0231561555

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Why is the United States struggling to enact policies to reduce carbon emissions? Conventional wisdom holds that the wealthy and powerful are to blame, as the oligarchs and corporations that wield disproportionate sway over politicians prioritize their short-term financial interests over the climate’s long-term health. David B. Spence argues that this top-down narrative misses a more important culprit—with critical consequences for the energy transition. Climate of Contempt offers a voter-centric, bottom-up explanation of national climate and energy politics, one that pinpoints bitter partisanship as the key impediment to transitioning to a net zero carbon future. Members of Congress respond to voters whose animosity toward the opposing party makes compromise politically risky. The most powerful driver of polarization, in turn, is the mixture of ideology and social media that constitutes today’s information environment, which amplifies anger, spreads half truths and falsehoods, and sows division, distorting voters’ understandings of the energy transition and their fellow citizens. Spence explores the effects of polarization, partisanship, and propaganda on energy policy and considers how to build a broader climate coalition. He contends that cooperation on this crucial issue is still possible, but it will require sustained person-to-person engagement across ideological and partisan boundaries to foster a more productive dialogue. Providing a timely and incisive understanding of the politics of the energy transition, Climate of Contempt suggests new paths forward and offers hope for a net-zero future.

Cheap and Clean
Cheap and Clean

Author: Stephen Ansolabehere

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2014-08-22

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0262321076

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How Americans make energy choices, why they think locally (not globally), and how this can shape U.S. energy and climate change policy. How do Americans think about energy? Is the debate over fossil fuels highly partisan and ideological? Does public opinion about fossil fuels and alternative energies divide along the fault between red states and blue states? And how much do concerns about climate change weigh on their opinions? In Cheap and Clean, Stephen Ansolabehere and David Konisky show that Americans are more pragmatic than ideological in their opinions about energy alternatives, more unified than divided about their main concerns, and more local than global in their approach to energy. Drawing on extensive surveys they designed and conducted over the course of a decade (in conjunction with MIT's Energy Initiative), Ansolabehere and Konisky report that beliefs about the costs and environmental harms associated with particular fuels drive public opinions about energy. People approach energy choices as consumers, and what is most important to them is simply that energy be cheap and clean. Most of us want energy at low economic cost and with little social cost (that is, minimal health risk from pollution). The authors also find that although environmental concerns weigh heavily in people's energy preferences, these concerns are local and not global. Worries about global warming are less pressing to most than worries about their own city's smog and toxic waste. With this in mind, Ansolabehere and Konisky argue for policies that target both local pollutants and carbon emissions (the main source of global warming). The local and immediate nature of people's energy concerns can be the starting point for a new approach to energy and climate change policy.