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Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

Persistent link for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/11299/144114

The Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology is a cutting-edge multidisciplinary journal focusing on law, health, the sciences, and bioethics. The journal is edited by faculty and students with a Faculty Editorial Advisory Board drawn from across the University of Minnesota. MJLST tackles issues in intellectual property, technology policy and innovation, bioethics, and law and science, while maintaining a rigorous grounding in law, values, and policy. Formerly the Minnesota Intellectual Property Review, the journal is overseen and managed by the University's Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences.

Journal Home:http://mjlst.umn.edu/

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Browsing Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology by Subject "alternative energy"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    The Australian Carbon Pricing Mechanism: Promise and Pitfalls on the Pathway to a Clean Energy Future
    (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-02-20) Peel, Jacqueline
    A major issue facing efforts to transition from high carbon to low carbon (“clean energy”) sources in the United States is the lack of well-developed legal and policy “infrastructure” to facilitate this transition. This Article considers the lessons for developing such infrastructure from Australia’s recent experience in introducing and implementing a national carbon pricing mechanism. This mechanism was intended to be the keystone of broader national policy arrangements to secure a “clean energy future” for the nation. Although there are significant differences between the legal arrangements governing energy generation and distribution in the United States and Australia (for example, the latter has a national electricity market supported by cooperative federal-state laws), there are yet many similarities between the two countries that enhance the potential for cross-jurisdictional learning. In particular, both countries are leading per capita emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), with significant emissions sourced from their respective energy sectors, which remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum) for energy supply. In addition, both countries have legal systems based upon common law foundations, embedded within a federal matrix of national and state laws relevant to issues of energy production, environmental protection, and climate change.
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    Mitigating the Impacts of the Renewable Energy Gold Rush
    (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-02-20) Morris, Amy Wilson; Owley, Jessica
    This Article questions where the push for utility-scale solar energy development in the California desert leaves endangered species preservation. We begin in Part I by providing some general context for the boom in renewable energy projects and outlining the main mechanisms for expediting endangered species permitting. Part II details offsite mitigation requirements for recently approved projects. Finally, in Part III, we draw some conclusions about the challenges posed by the current strategies for balancing renewable energy development and endangered species protection, and we make recommendations for strengthening mitigation outcomes. Our research highlights general concerns with perpetual off-site mitigation and the lack of oversight and information about mitigation projects. Through examining the development of two specific solar power facilities in the California desert (Ivanpah and Genesis), we demonstrate the mitigation choices, the time lag between project approval and developed mitigation plans, and the roles scientific uncertainty plays in making project decisions. Overall, the picture we paint is a disturbing one where decisions regarding desert development are made without full consideration or understanding of the mitigation measures. The urge to approve projects and get them operational quickly increases this problem. In such an uncertain realm, infusing concepts of reevaluation and adaptive management can provide routes to incorporate new information and alter mitigation or development plans as necessary. Current efforts at consolidated landscape-level planning may help ameliorate some of these concerns, but a better solution may be to slow down the pace of project approval to enable better understanding of the desert ecosystem and full evaluation of mitigation prior to plant construction.
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    Solar Skyspace B
    (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-02-20) DuVivier, K.K.
    The cleanest source of electricity is that generated from photovoltaic solar panels (PV). Unlike fossil fuels, PV does not require extraction and does not burn, so it emits no carbon. Unlike hydropower, it does not require the damming of natural rivers and the destruction of upstream areas through flooding. Unlike industrial-scale concentrating solar thermo-electric power, it does not consume water to generate electricity. Finally, when placed on existing rooftops in developed areas, distributed solar PV does not require long-term dedication of public lands to an industrial use, does not disrupt native habitat (a potential problem with all of other energy generation resources), and provides power right where it is needed without requiring the construction of new transmission lines. Because of PV’s advantages, one might think that state legislators or courts would give fledgling solar PV some of the many property law benefits that older energy sources have enjoyed. In fact, the current legal system does just the opposite—creating hurdles to the deployment of solar PV by placing all burdens on the solar-energy host side of the scale. This Article will first explain the technological need for solar access. Next it will review the rise and fall of U.S. laws addressing the problem from the late 1970s until today. Finally, it will examine property law regimes that could strengthen protections for this valuable right. While the common law could provide some remedies, the most efficient remedies appear to be through legislative action—either through federal or state statutes, or local government regulations or ordinances. Because grid-connected solar provides broad social benefits beyond those just to the property upon which solar collectors are installed, throughout this Article, I will use the neutral terminology of “Solar Host” for the property on which a grid-connected solar PV array is directly sited and “Southern Property” for a neighboring property to the south of the Solar Host which is within the solar skyspace of an array.