Energy Law in a Nutshell
Author:
Tomain, Joseph P.
Edition:
3rd
Copyright Date:
2017
18 chapters
have results for oil and gas
Chapter 6 Natural Gas 134 results (showing 5 best matches)
- About this time, large oil and natural gas fields were discovered in the southwestern United States. At first, producers ignored the energy potential of natural gas and flared the gas in the fields or permitted it to escape into the atmosphere. These wasteful practices were eventually eliminated as a market for natural gas developed over time. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was more natural gas (and oil) being produced than the market could absorb because new oil and gas fields were discovered and exploited, and because the Great Depression drove down prices. As the price of natural gas (and oil) fell precipitously, natural gas producing states passed gas (and oil) conservation legislation to support these industries.
- The natural gas fuel cycle is similar to that of oil. In the late 19th century and for most of the 20th century, oil and natural gas were found together and such gas is called “associated gas.” Today it is more frequently the case that gas is non-associated or not found with oil. By way of example, most shale gas is being extracted from eastern states such as Pennsylvania and new domestic oil discoveries are found in North Dakota. Natural gas, like oil and coal, is a fossil fuel which means that it is comprised of the remains of plants, animals, and microorganisms living millions of years ago. Natural gases can be made up of currently living plants and waste, but most of our natural gas is of the fossil fuel variety and is found trapped in geological formations under the ground.
- In the early part of the 20th century, oil was the more important natural resource and natural gas was seen to be a nuisance by-product of oil exploration and production. It was considered so much of a nuisance that it was burned off or flared at the wellhead rather than extracted and stored. Even today, natural gas that is produced as a byproduct of oil exploration in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota is often flared rather than stored because of a lack of storage facilities and pipelines transport gas for interstate distribution.
- Historically, both Canada and Mexico have large supplies of natural gas. The largest exporter of gas to the United States is Canada which provides about 98% of all gas imported by the United States. Algeria, Mexico, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates also export modest amounts of gas to the U.S. and total imports account for about 16% of U.S. gas supply. As with oil imports, reliance on international sources of natural gas involves concerns about national security and international politics.
- Domestic natural gas production has been on the rise because of the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, which are used in approximately two-thirds of the natural gas wells in the US and up to 95% of all oil and gas wells currently being drilled.
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Chapter 2 Energy Policy 141 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Expand domestic oil and gas resources safely by ensuring responsible offshore exploration and development, reviewing the status of unused oil and gas leases on public lands and, adopting oil and gas production incentives;
- Not surprisingly, federal oil and natural gas policies followed a pattern similar to coal regulation, also garnering federal favor. During World War I, several restrictions on oil and natural gas were implemented, including fuel-switching, licensing, price and production controls, and rationing. However, these controls were not integrated into an overall energy policy and they ended with the Armistice.
- The natural gas industry was less concentrated during these early years because natural gas was seen as a nuisance by-product of oil exploration and was burned off through flaring and was thus wasted rather than used. Before the turn of the century, small, local natural gas companies were the rule. Municipal manufactured gas companies controlled local gas primarily for street lights. By the end of the first third of the century, however, natural gas was seen as a valuable commodity and the gas transportation network became dominated by a few interstate pipeline companies. This development, paralleling the market power of the oil companies, ultimately led to the passage of the Natural Gas Act in 1938, and the federal regulation of the natural gas industry.
- The Reagan deregulation program did not spring from whole cloth. Natural gas deregulation, like oil deregulation, was scheduled to occur consistent with a phased deregulation contained in President Carter’s Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978. Similarly, although President Reagan campaigned to dismantle the United States Synthetic Fuels Corporation, the synfuels program failed because the market was unable to support it. Synfuels producers were not able to process coal into natural gas or extract oil from tar sands or oil shale at costs competitive with traditionally extracted oil and natural gas.
- In Chapter 1, we noted that in order to encourage the development of oil, the common law developed the rule of capture: oil belongs to the person who captures it. The rule of capture promotes production, but it also results in waste, as producers will capture as much as they can before their neighbors do. In order to reduce such waste, the states enacted gas and oil conservation statutes to restrict the amount of oil or gas taken out of the ground.
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Introduction 17 results (showing 5 best matches)
- There have been two notable effects of increased production on the oil and natural gas industries. In 2016, oil markets experienced a production glut and prices have fallen. In response to falling oil prices, there is a downturn in exploration. Natural gas markets are also subject to low prices, which it turns out to be bad news for the coal industry. Natural gas, precisely because of its lower cost, is now replacing coal as a fuel to generate electricity. In short, the oil and natural gas industries are also experiencing changes that were unanticipated a few short years ago.
- . First, the book serves as a primer for the fundamental legal rules and institutions in the field of energy law. We will familiarize you with the principal cases and statutes as well as with the important federal agencies that affect the regulation of energy produced from various natural resources. Energy law became a term of art in the late 1970s with the passage of President Carter’s National Energy Act. Nevertheless, energy law has its predecessors most notably public utility law and oil and gas law. Public utility law, with no less of a contributing scholar than Felix Frankfurter, addressed the public regulation of the natural gas and electric industries together with water industry regulation (and later telecommunications and many aspects of transportation). Until the 1930s, as we will develop in more detail, public utility regulation was a matter of state law. During the New Deal, federal utility regulation of natural gas and electric utilities gained in importance and...
- On the fossil fuel side, over the last decade, the United States has seen a dramatic increase in domestic oil and gas production with a consequent decrease in reliance on imported oil. Also, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) must now cope with a world in which their power over oil markets has been lessened.
- noted that our energy future has been challenged by natural disasters and by increasingly sharp politics. At the time, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the vulnerability of oil and natural gas supplies due to weather disruption in the Gulf of Mexico. Then the Gulf was severely threatened in April 2010 by BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers and raised environmental concerns about offshore oil and gas exploration and production. Two weeks earlier, the coal mining industry suffered its worst disaster in 40 years when Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine exploded killing 29 workers and sending it CEO to jail. In March 2011 an earthquake and following tsunami brought devastation to coastal Japan and permanently disabled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant thus raising questions about the future of nuclear power in that country and elsewhere. Since those events, we can add Superstorm Sandy that devastated the eastern seaboard of the United States with...
- The second part of the book introduces you to lawyering skills by examining individual energy resources such as oil or coal; describing the relevant industry; and providing a regulatory overview of that particular resource. In this way, we hope to familiarize you with the interaction of law, markets, and regulation. As a quintessential regulatory course, exposes you to the virtues and weaknesses of the market system. The US economic system is committed to developing competitive markets. However, when those markets fail or develop imperfections, then government intervention may be appropriate. This book offers multiple examples of government’s regulatory responses to those weaknesses by explaining the regulatory tools available to correct or improve markets. We also discuss the success or failure of those tools and how they can be reformed or replaced.
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Chapter 5 Oil 119 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The fuel cycles for oil and natural gas are structurally similar because oil and natural gas are often found together. Although the science of oil geology is technically sophisticated, the only way to find oil is through drilling wells. Not surprisingly, more “dry holes” are found than productive wells and the process can be time-consuming, expensive, and highly risky. It has been estimated that only about 3% of exploratory wells become commercially successful. Once oil is located, it can be brought to the surface either through natural or mechanical pressure. Wells have a natural pressure that moves oil through permeable rock to the well bore. After the natural pressure dissipates, however, mechanical energy, through the introduction of water, gas, or captured carbon dioxide, creates pressure to bring oil to the surface. After the primary pressures have been exhausted, additional measures must be applied.
- The BOEM is responsible for developing a five-year plan for oil and gas exploration and production; oil and gas leases; offshore renewable energy; and environmental compliance.
- In the first third of the 20th century, this wasteful situation was addressed through state oil and gas conservation laws.
- Such a claim would be relatively non-controversial but for two major consequences. First, our ability to maintain a steady supply of oil is a matter of national security and global politics. Second, oil is a fossil fuel and exploration for it and recovery of it involve several environmental problems. The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 had slowed offshore oil and gas exploration. And, partisan politics regularly fights over opening public lands, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to oil and gas interests.
- In the early 1930s, several rich oil fields were discovered in East Texas and Oklahoma and, as noted, existing state conservation laws were unsuccessful in stemming production. Oil prices plummeted and the federal government sought to supplement state regulation by restricting the amounts of oil placed in interstate commerce. In 1935, the Interstate Compact to Conserve Oil and Gas Act was enacted, 49 Stat. 939, and it has been renewed regularly. The compact was drafted by a committee representing governors of seven principal oil-producing states and sets non-enforceable, voluntary oil production quotas and encourages cooperative efforts to conserve oil and gas. Initially, six states executed the compact and today some 29 oil producing states participate and operate under the Interstate Oil Compact Commission. Despite such voluntary arrangements by oil producing states to
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Chapter 11 Clean Power 140 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Coal can also be converted to oil through a process of liquefaction. Liquefaction was used extensively by Germany during World War II. Millions of barrels of oil a year were produced directly from coal in Germany during the war years by using inexpensive, disposable catalysts. Other liquefaction methods first convert coal to gas and then convert the gas to oil. The DOE has experimented with several coal-to-oil technologies.
- The Energy Security Act of 1980 established the United States Synfuels Corporation to stimulate the commercialization of synthetic oil and gas. According to the Act, a “synthetic fuel” is defined as “any solid, liquid, or gas which can be used as a substitute for petroleum or natural gas and which is produced by chemical or physical transformation of domestic sources of coal, shale, tar sands, and water.” . Synthetic fuels development was to be accomplished through federal subsidy of private efforts to extract liquids and gas from coal, oil shale, and tar sands. Federal subsidies took the form of loans, loan guarantees, price guarantees, purchase agreements, joint ventures, and, as a last resort, direct ownership by the federal government.
- Basically, synfuels are oil replacements which result from processing oil shale and tar sands into liquid, and from the gasification of coal. Because of the great abundance of oil shale, tar sands, and coal, and because technologies exist for their transformation, synfuels are scientifically and technologically promising energy sources. Tar sands projects in Alberta, Canada, for example, a commercially viable. However, synfuels are only commercially feasible when the world price of oil reaches, and is sustained, at a certain level because they are more expensive than conventional fuels. Environmental problems also surround synfuels processes, not the least of which is high emission of greenhouse gases as a result of burning of carbon-based fuels.
- We can identify two alternatives to traditional energy production. One is an alternative to large-scale power production and the other is fossil fuel alternatives to coal, oil, and natural gas.
- Key research and development initiatives of the Office of the Biomass Program include thermochemical conversion and bioconversion. Thermochemical conversion creates synthetic gas for heat, power, and other purposes. Bioconversion transforms biomass into useful fuels and chemicals. In addition, the Program looks at refineries and the development of bio-based products such as engine oils and solvents, plastics and enzymes. Research is also being conducted to develop small electric generators from the 1 kilowatt to the 5 megawatt range.
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Chapter 3 The Administration of Energy Law 106 results (showing 5 best matches)
- FERC staff, which consists of specialists in various aspects of energy development, is organized into a number of offices, including an Office of Energy Projects, which has oversight over hydroelectric facilities and natural gas pipelines and energy projects that are in the public interest. The Office of Markets, Tariffs and Rates deals with matters involving markets, tariffs and rates relating to electric, natural gas and oil pipeline facilities and services. The emphasis on the word “markets” suggests the importance of deregulation. Traditionally, of course, rates for natural gas, wholesale electric power and oil pipelines were set in adversary proceedings with cross-examination before an ALJ. FERC has historically been engaged in exercising powers under the Federal Water Power Act, the Federal Power Act, the Natural Gas Act, the Natural Gas Policy Act and other energy-related statutes.
- The DOI has seen considerable upheaval as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, which persisted for eighty-seven days in 2010. The Department’s Minerals Management Service, long accused of being “captured” by the oil and gas companies to whom it issued offshore oil production leases, came under intense scrutiny in connection with the disaster. The office was reorganized and renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The change in name was accompanied by replacements of the sub-agency’s leaders including the director.
- Another large agency with major energy responsibilities is the Department of the Interior (DOI), which was created by Congress in 1849. One of its missions, among many others, is to provide wise stewardship of energy and mineral resources. The DOI manages 507 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States. Energy projects on federally-managed lands and offshore areas supply about 28% of the nation’s energy production. This includes: 34.5% of natural gas, 32% of oil, 35% of coal, 17% of hydro power and 48% of geothermal resources. The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), which is an agency of the DOI, operates 58 hydroelectric power plants. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), another DOI agency, administers on-shore minerals underlying federal lands, a total of about 700,000,000 subsurface acres of minerals. Production from on-shore federal lands accounts for 33% of national coal production, 11% of natural gas production and 5% of domestic oil production....
- Similarly, the rates of regulated natural gas companies are subject to regulation by FERC under Sections 4 and 5 of the Natural Gas Act. The notice requirement (thirty days in the case of gas) and the five-month suspension period are similar to the requirements for electric utilities and, like the electric requirements, after the suspension period, rates may be collected under bond subject to refund. The just and reasonable standard and the prohibition of undue preferences and unreasonable differences—similar to the provisions governing electric utilities—are in force for natural gas companies.
- Through the notice and comment process, many facets of the problems to be addressed are uncovered and developed, as well as the perspectives from which various players viewed the problems. With this information in mind, the agency can formulate rules that serve its policy goals while giving due consideration to the rights and interests of the diverse entities involved. In the energy area, ratemaking in the natural gas industry has proceeded by rulemaking rather than by individual hearings since the mid-1970s.
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Chapter 7 Coal 104 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Given coal’s abundance, and the realization that coal use can reduce dependence on foreign oil, conversion from oil and natural gas to coal once struck the federal government as a good idea. That
- Coal is a fossil fuel and comes in the form of sedimentary, carboniferous rock. Like oil and gas, it was formed from layers of vegetation under pressure for millions of years. While different coals have different chemical compositions, all coal contains some form of carbon which, when burned, can damage the atmospheric ozone layer and can contribute to global warming.
- The coal industry is large, varied, and complex. The coal fuel cycle is similar to that of oil and gas in that it encompasses mining, transportation, refining, and then combustion.
- When the United States was more dependent on foreign oil than it is today, coal was a relatively attractive alternative. However, domestic oil and gas production has been increasing and, therefore, imports have been declining. Simultaneously, natural gas, a relatively cleaner burning fuel than coal, is priced below coal and, therefore, is attractive to electric utilities. The coal industry, then, is caught between government regulation and energy markets. Both of those forces add costs to doing business and, faced with the prospect of high cost clean coal technologies, the coal industry is not likely to experience market expansion in the near future.
- Coal is our nation’s most abundant source of energy. Ninety percent of the coal consumed in the United States is used as fuel for plants generating electricity. The remainder is used as primary fuel in particular industries such as steel production and glass manufacturing. Because coal is a useful substitute for other fuels such as oil, nuclear power, and natural gas, in the past, there was a movement toward having energy users convert from other resources to coal. In the case of oil, coal conversion was intended to reduce dependence on foreign oil. In the case of nuclear power, conversion of coal was intended to reduce the risk of nuclear accidents. Nevertheless, the relative abundance of this energy fuel is significantly offset by its health, environmental, and economic problems.
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Chapter 1 Energy Economics 90 results (showing 5 best matches)
- These simple, perhaps obvious, laws of supply and demand are significant for natural resources economics. As the price of a barrel of oil rises on the global oil market, there will be an increase in oil drilling in order to profit from the more lucrative market. Likewise, when the price of natural gas drops below the price of coal, then electricity producers will purchase more natural gas rather than coal to generate electricity.
- Often the line between positive and normative economics is blurred; however, we want you to be sensitive to the distinction. By way of example, the statement that “people will consume less gas when a gallon of gasoline at the pump costs $4.00 than they would when it costs $2.00,” is a statement of positive economics. The statement that “high-priced gasoline is good for the economy” is a normative statement. The statement that “high-price gas is economically valuable because it can help reduce our dependence on imported oil,” mixes positive and normative dimensions of economics. Positively, high-priced gas will reduce consumption and, therefore, will reduce the need for imported oil. Whether reduced dependence on foreign oil is good for the economy, however, is a normative statement; it is a political one. Similarly, questions about whether or not to drill for offshore oil or to develop solar technology have both positive and normative dimensions. It is a positive matter to say how...
- The laws of supply and demand determine which goods are produced and, in turn, which resources are used in production. When the price of oil is higher than the price of natural gas, then producers, following the supply curve, are encouraged to produce oil, just as consumers, following the demand curve, are encouraged to purchase natural gas. It would seem, then, that producers’ desire for higher prices and consumers’ desire for lower prices produce an unresolvable conflict. Not so. Rather, the give and take between producers and consumers push the market toward equilibrium as consumers’ demand has an upward effect on prices and as producers’ supply has a downward effect to the point of equilibrium.
- Air, sunlight, and wind cannot be owned in the same ways that a ton of coal, an acre of timber, or even migratory oil or natural gas, can be owned. Because ownership, a person’s legal rights and duties relative to a particular good, cannot be completely defined, such goods have different economic consequences.
- Common goods refer to a separate category of resources that are frequently migratory. Natural resources such as oil, natural gas, and water do not stay in one place; rather, they migrate in light of geophysical constraints. Common goods, again natural gas is a good example, must be captured before an owner can exercise dominion or control over it. The problem is that surface owners are uncertain about the placement, even about the existence, of natural gas under the surface. Consequently, common, migrating goods require a different set of property rules in order to define, transfer, or exclude others from their use. Common law rules work less well for common goods.
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Index 203 results (showing 5 best matches)
Chapter 8 Electricity 146 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Electricity is not a natural resource; it is the product of electric generators. Energy resources such as oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, hydropower, and alternative and renewable resources, are used to create steam which turns a turbine shaft, which rotates coils of wire within stationary magnets, which then generate electricity. The electricity fuel cycle, then, consists of a natural resource being converted into electricity; the electricity is then transmitted from the source of production directly to end users or to local public utilities for retail distribution.
- blamed the same energy companies as well as California politicians willing to bail out the California power retailers, such as SoCal Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG & E), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG & E). The out-of-state owners of energy production, Dynegy, Duke Energy, and Enron criticized the California politicians and bureaucrats that crafted a system that allowed the generators to capitalize on the circumstances that led to the problems in California. And, state regulators blamed FERC for its failure to act expeditiously.
- From 1922 to 1927, over 1600 privately-owned electric systems were eliminated as the industry concentrated. To facilitate that concentration, entrepreneurs like Samuel Insull and Henry Villard created holding companies so that by the mid-1920s, 16 holding companies controlled 85 percent of the nation’s electric industry. These holding companies helped advance the capture of scale economies but at a real cost to consumers. The power trusts, like the oil trusts before them, were susceptible to stock manipulation and shareholder abuses. And, as with the oil industry, the public reacted sharply to the power trusts as the electricity industry came under scrutiny by state and federal politicians and ...At the state level, regulators engaged in setting retail rates and controlling a utility’s profits. State regulation can be interpreted either as consumer protection from monopoly rates or as utility protection from competition. At the federal level, government regulators set wholesale...
- , empowered the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses, which are a major byproduct of electric generation. The future of the electric industry is heavily affected by the threat of climate change induced by greenhouse gasses. For instance, if the EPA regulates greenhouse gasses under its existing Clean Air Act authority, the agency will have to dictate what type of technology electric plants use to control their emissions. Alternatively, Congress may supplant the Clean Air Act with a new and different regulatory scheme to address climate change.
- (December 2001). The crisis resulted in prices beyond any previously recognized level and in a bankruptcy filing by Pacific Gas & Electric, one of California’s Big Three utilities. These market disruptions were created by poor predictions about demand, a hot summer, a dry Northwest, high natural gas prices, miscalculations about supply, air quality requirements in the Los Angeles basin, no new generation, a poor regulatory design, and, perhaps most significantly, market manipulation.
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Chapter 4 Energy Decisionmaking 109 results (showing 5 best matches)
- CBA can be applied to several energy projects. The CBA literature regarding air pollution, for example, is vast and has particular application to coal-fired electricity generating units. In this case, the CBA issue involves the costs and benefits of energy versus the environment. Note the difficulty in posing the proper question. Is the proper question: Do the benefits of electricity production outweigh the costs to clean the air? Or should the question be: Do the benefits of clean air outweigh the benefits of additional electricity production? In other words, framing the CBA issue is an important step in the process. Similar questions can, and must, be asked about deepwater oil and gas exploration and drilling, leasing of public lands for solar and wind development, and any number of traditional and non-traditional energy projects.
- For the last few decades, traditional cost-of-service ratemaking has been subject to close scrutiny because of rising prices. If an industry, such as the electric industry, has sufficient capacity, should the ratemaking formula continue to encourage capital expansion particularly from traditional utilities? Also, today, energy policy presents such challenges as an increase in non-utility power producers, new domestic natural gas discoveries, independence from Middle East oil, climate change, and calls for a clean energy economy. Regulators are now called upon to review the traditional regulatory compact and the ratemaking formula that implements it and to consider alternative ratemaking methods.
- As noted in Chapter Two, one element of the nation’s general energy policy is low-cost energy. High utility rates are inconsistent with a policy favoring low-cost or reasonably priced energy. Therefore, as prices rise, utility commissions take a much harder look at the requests by utilities for rate increases. Consumer pressure to reduce rates and the reluctance on the part of regulators to raise rates, have resulted in an era of greater competition in the electricity and natural gas industries. In the electricity industry, greater competition comes in the form of new producers. In the natural gas industry, greater competition was spawned by an increased supply of natural gas. Deregulation further complicates pricing because under microeconomic theory competition should put downward pressure on prices. Deregulation, as we shall see in later chapters, has not been smooth and is continuing in fits and starts. In other words, the electric and natural gas industries are in competitive...
- If electricity produced from coal rather than from oil, natural gas, or nuclear power is thought to be a valuable commodity, then industry research money and time will be spent looking for cleaner ways to generate electricity from coal. How is the money that is used in anti-pollution research and development in the industry to be carried in the cost-benefit equation? Is it really a cost because otherwise the money would not have been spent for such research? Or, is it truly a benefit because a new industry of clean coal research and development is created? If that research ultimately is successful, then there will be cleaner air and more coal burning plants, which will be more competitive as industry concentration is lessened. Thus, the price of the product will decline and consumers will be satisfied. Likewise, alternative assumptions can be made. The coal pollution control technology industry may fail; clean burning coal plants may not be feasible; industry ...will be created, and...
- wholesale sales of interstate electricity or natural gas, then FERC has regulatory authority that it can exercise. If Congress desires to address a new area, such as cap-and-trade, then legislation is proposed and an agency will be directed to execute that legislation. Historically, legislation, such as the Natural Gas Act or the Federal Power Act Part II, was drafted in general language and FERC, like most agencies, an executive branch agency, was directed to fill in details and implement the goals and objectives of the legislation. In the last few decades, though, energy legislation, like many other complex and controversial areas such as health care or financial reform, is the result of extraordinary lobbying which, in turn, generates bills that are hundreds of pages long.
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Chapter 9 Nuclear Power 107 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The Horinko Group, Nuclear Power and the Clean Energy Future
- The MIT study states that nuclear power can make an important contribution to meeting the world’s energy needs but non-proliferation, safety, economic, and waste issues must be addressed. One advantage that nuclear power has is the environment. According to the study, over the next fifty years, unless patterns change dramatically, energy production and use will continue to contribute to global warming through large-scale greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power can contribute to reducing greenhouse gases as well as meeting needs for a growing electricity supply. The study finds the following:
- The various steps in the fuel cycle raise safety and environmental issues, which are addressed through regulation. The first step in the fuel cycle involves locating and mining uranium ore. Once the ore has been mined, it is milled into uranium oxide, a substance which is commonly referred to as “yellow cake.” The “yellow cake” is then converted into gaseous uranium hexaflouride. This gas is then subjected to an enrichment process which raises the concentration of uranium from U , a uranium enriched isotope which is capable of causing a chain reaction. After enrichment, the enriched gas is returned to a solid state and is fashioned into pellets about the size of pencil erasers which are then fashioned into the fuel rods used in reactors to create nuclear fission. These steps constitute the front end of the fuel cycle.
- Prior to TMI, the popular conception of a nuclear catastrophe was a core meltdown. A meltdown, colloquially referred to as the China Syndrome, is a nightmarish phenomenon in which the molten reactor core melts through thousands of tons of concrete and steel encasing the fuel rods and burns its way into the ground, emitting massive amounts of radioactive gas on its way to contaminating underground water tables. The radioactivity released into the atmosphere and the water system is predicted to cause thousands of immediate fatalities, and billions of dollars of economic losses.
- Nuclear power is not cost competitive with coal and natural gas.
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Table of Cases 43 results (showing 5 best matches)
- United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Memphis Light, Gas and Water Div., 293
- United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Mobile Gas Service Corp., 146, 293, 391, 439
- Pacific Gas and Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm., 160, 460
- Shell Oil Co. v. Nelson Oil Co., Inc., 252
- Kansas Gas and Electric Company v. State Corporation Commission, 485
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Chapter 10 Hydropower 65 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The 1970s were a volatile time for energy markets as prices rose, supplies contracted, and the commercial nuclear power industry collapsed. These energy disruptions of the 1970s motivated the United States to reduce dependence on foreign oil. In the electricity market, alternative sources of electricity promised to reduce electricity prices by increasing supplies, primarily from renewable sources, and stimulating competition.
- recent years, its share of the total energy used by consumers in this country has declined. In the 1940s and 1950s, hydropower provided 40% of the nation’s electric energy. By the 1990s, that amount has dropped to 6% of the country’s electricity and approximately 4% of all energy. Hydroelectricity accounts for over 90% of renewable energy in the United States and hydropower generates 310 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, which are the equivalent of over 500 million barrels of oil per year. Today the expansion of hydroelectric facilities is limited by the small number of sites on which new dams may be located, and by the limits that streams and rivers themselves impose on facility size and output.
- The earlier acts did not have the effect of promoting any hydroelectricity projects, even though private power interests were interested in pursuing hydroelectricity. To that end, with Congressional support, the Omnibus Water Power Bill of 1912 was introduced in Congress. The bill would have authorized 17 private power projects. While that bill was being considered, President Taft vetoed a special act providing for a private power project and this veto indicated his unwillingness to sign the Omnibus Bill. Thereafter, several other bills to allow private power projects were introduced in Congress and all were defeated on the issue of whether or not the federal government had the right to impose a charge for developing such projects. Finally, hydropower development was stimulated during World War I as the country experienced shortages of coal and oil.
- because of the low cost of hydroelectricity relative to electricity generated from coal-fired, oil-fueled, or nuclear powered plants. The municipal preference was eliminated in the Electric Consumer Protection Act of 1986, . Often, there is a public interest in granting licenses to public applicants. Under the act, for example, if a private developer’s application is more comprehensive than that of a public entity, FERC must allow time for the public developer to revise the application to equal that of the private applicant. Finally, FERC may deny an application by nonfederal developers if the Commission decides that, for the benefit of the public, the facility should be constructed and maintained by the United States itself.
- The first hydroelectric facility was built on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1882. Most of the hydropower development in the United States began in the early part of the 20th century with the installations of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and large power plants on the Tennessee and Columbia Rivers. There are over 2,300 licensed hydroelectric facilities in the United States. Forty-four percent are federally owned; thirty-five percent are privately owned and the remaining facilities are owned by non-federal public entities such as municipalities, and irrigation and water districts.
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Outline 27 results (showing 5 best matches)
Copyright Page 3 results
- and the Nutshell Logo are trademarks registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
- The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.
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- Publication Date: November 23rd, 2016
- ISBN: 9781634607117
- Subject: Energy Law
- Series: Nutshells
- Type: Overviews
- Description: This title addresses the component parts of the energy fuel cycle, as well as the market and government policies that oversee it. This Nutshell describes in detail the country’s traditional energy policy and also discusses the current challenges that confront it. Chapters cover the individual natural resources used to produce energy and the book concludes with the development of a clean energy policy for the future.
