This paper, which appeared as Chapter 7 in Johnston, Climate Rationality: From Bias to Balance (2021), explains the economic and energy security challenges that arise when large amounts of electric power come from intermittent renewable power sources such as wind and solar. It overviews the structure and regulation of the interstate electricity grid in the U.S. and explains merit order dispatch across alternative power generators. The chapter then turns to explain the challenges to ensuring electric system reliability on a grid with high usage of renewable solar or wind power. It concludes by analyzing the economics of such high renewable usage systems. As shown by experience from California and Germany, the true cost of wind and solar power in such systems includes not only the fixed costs of wind and solar, but a number of other costs. These include the cost of the natural gas – fired power plants that must be maintained as reserve power sources to maintain frequency stability and to provide power when wind and/or solar are unavailable, and the cost of new transmission lines (for wind) and expensive upgrades to transformer stations.
The Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law filed this amicus brief on behalf of San Bernardino...
On Aug. 14, a Montana district court released a groundbreaking decision for climate change activists. In Held v. Montana, the court announced that...
This article discusses the links between climate and debt sustainability by focusing on how climate mitigation and adaptation are paid for, and who...
Environmentalists are frustrated that President Joe Biden agreed to greenlight the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, or MVP, as part of the...
On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court dropped an absolute bombshell with its ruling in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. Early assessments...
The Supreme Court’s new term begins on the first Monday of October. But before delving into the most important environmental case yet to be heard, it...
Environmental justice is rooted in an understanding that people of color and low-income communities are more likely than the population at large to...
Public nuisance has lived many lives. A centuries-old doctrine defined as an unreasonable interference with a right common to the public, it is...
This chapter first explains how the federal Clean Water Act is linked with the implementation of other major environmental laws in the United States...
New legislation on Capitol Hill brings us closer than ever to having comprehensive data privacy protection and a civil right to intimate privacy. The...
Contributions to solving the globe’s environmental crisis are properly expected to come from every country to a greater or lesser degree depending on...
This paper, which appeared as Chapter 7 in Johnston, Climate Rationality: From Bias to Balance (2021), explains the economic and energy security...
This paper, which appeared as Chapter 7 in Johnston, Climate Rationality: From Bias to Balance (2021), explains the economic and energy security...
Roundtable Series for Environmental Law Faculty on the Future of Legal Education
ROUNDTABLE Three Questions Addressed by Authors: