CEES Highlights - August 2009

CEES Highlights provides occasional updates on CEES research, project developments, and other related news items. To unsubscribe from this list, or for general inquiries regarding CEES, please send an email to Cactus Woodworth-Lies at cactus@colorado.edu.

CU's Energy Initiative recently awarded Professor Sarah Krakoff and CEES Research Fellow Julie Teel seed funding for a new project, American Indian Tribes, Climate Change, and Energy: Law and Policy Analysis and Solutions. The first phase of this project will focus on the development of culturally appropriate Tribal Energy Action and Climate Change Adaptation Plans in consultation with three American Indian tribes in the Southwest and tribal organizations. Among the goals of the project are to assess the ecological, cultural, and legal impacts of climate change, recommend legal and policy measures to facilitate tribally appropriate adaptation to climate change, and analyze renewable energy and energy efficiency options, barriers, and solutions for the three tribes.

CEES research fellow and attorney Adam Reed was invited to Bucaramanga, Colombia in June to speak at the Foro Tecnico Biocombustibles, hosted by EcoPetrol, the state oil company of Colombia. Adam spoke about the United States Renewable Fuel Standard's new sustainability and lifecycle greenhouse gas reduction requirements, regarding the new rule's potential effects on the Colombian biofuel export market, as well as administrative law and policy issues that have arisen around the rule's mandate that EPA account for indirect land use change emissions in calculating a biofuel feedstock's lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.

This conference will focus on the "other" third of the world—the energy oppressed poor—afflicted by energy access problems. The high energy world relies principally on hitherto abundant sources of fossil fuels for its prosperous lifestyle. By contrast, the low energy world, numbering around two billion people, typically lives on less than a dollar or two a day and primarily rely on biomass-based fire to meet all of their energy needs. The burning of biomass leads to one and half million deaths every year, predominantly of women and children. Moreover, they will be the most severely affected by global warming. This conference is predicated on the applicability of energy justice to these problems. For more information, visit the conference website at www.worldenergyjustice.org.

CEES \| UCB \| Colorado Law

CENTER FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY (CEES) University of Colorado at Boulder CEES Highlights :: AUGUST 2009

	CEES Highlights \| August 2009
web: cees home
email: cees@colorado.edu
phone: +1.303.492.3615	CEES Highlights provides occasional updates on CEES research, project developments, and other related news items. To unsubscribe from this list, or for general inquiries regarding CEES, please send an email to Cactus Woodworth-Lies at cactus@colorado.edu.
fax: +1.303.492.1297
location: wolf law building


	»	CEES and Professor Krakoff receive CU Energy Initiative Seed Grant for American Indian Tribes, Climate Change, and Energy: Law and Policy Analysis and Solutions
		Contact: Prof. Sarah Krakoff, sarah.krakoff@colorado.edu ; Julie Teel, julie.teel@colorado.edu
		CU's Energy Initiative recently awarded Professor Sarah Krakoff and CEES Research Fellow Julie Teel seed funding for a new project, American Indian Tribes, Climate Change, and Energy: Law and Policy Analysis and Solutions. The first phase of this project will focus on the development of culturally appropriate Tribal Energy Action and Climate Change Adaptation Plans in consultation with three American Indian tribes in the Southwest and tribal organizations. Among the goals of the project are to assess the ecological, cultural, and legal impacts of climate change, recommend legal and policy measures to facilitate tribally appropriate adaptation to climate change, and analyze renewable energy and energy efficiency options, barriers, and solutions for the three tribes.

	»	CEES Research Fellow Speaks on Biofuels Law and Policy in Colombia
		Contact: adam.reed@colorado.edu
		CEES research fellow and attorney Adam Reed was invited to Bucaramanga, Colombia in June to speak at the Foro Tecnico Biocombustibles, hosted by EcoPetrol, the state oil company of Colombia. Adam spoke about the United States Renewable Fuel Standard's new sustainability and lifecycle greenhouse gas reduction requirements, regarding the new rule's potential effects on the Colombian biofuel export market, as well as administrative law and policy issues that have arisen around the rule's mandate that EPA account for indirect land use change emissions in calculating a biofuel feedstock's lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.

	»	CEES Senior Fellow Kevin Doran Speaks on Global Climate Policy
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		In February of 2009, CEES Senior Fellow Kevin Doran was a featured speaker at the Western Climate Policy Forum organized by the Climate Registry. Other featured speakers included Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Executive Director Jim Martin. Kevin Doran discussed the role of the U.S. and Colorado in forging a sustainable global solution to global greenhouse gas emissions.

	»	CEES and Professor Boyd Assist Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force with 2009 Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Activities
		Contact: julie.teel@colorado.edu and william.boyd@colorado.edu
		With support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, CEES and Professor Boyd are assisting with an effort by the U.S. states of California, Illinois, and Wisconsin, the Brazilian states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará, and the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Papua to implement historic Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) signed at the 2008 Governors' Climate Change Summit in Los Angeles, which provide a foundation for future cooperation on a number of issues related to climate policy, financing, technology exchange, and research. For 2009 and 2010, the parties agreed to focus on implementing the MOU forest sector provisions, with the overall objective of developing rules to ensure that reduced greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and sequestrations from other forest carbon activities will meet the requirements of emerging greenhouse gas compliance systems in California and the U.S. The first follow-up meeting occurred June 18-19, 2009 in Belém, Brazil and resulted in the creation of three working groups with NGO and other stakeholder participation as well as a draft Joint Action Plan to govern efforts over the 2009-2010 period. The next meeting will coincide with the 2009 Governors' Climate Change Summit in Los Angeles at the end of September and will result in a Protocol Assessment Report, a final Joint Action Plan, and a Progress Report which will be presented at the December 2009 15th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen, Denmark. More information about the GCF is available at: http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/forestry_task_force/index.html.

	»	CEES Receives Grant for Women's Energy Justice Network Activities in India
		Contact: adam.reed@colorado.edu
		The Vienna-based Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) will fund CEES's work to address the lack of access to clean and efficient energy that acts as a poverty trap and public health hazard for billions of people worldwide. The work will include: a collaborative website and database tool for collection and development of best-practices regarding appropriate technology design, construction, and dissemination; a series of research papers regarding technology transfer and carbon financing reforms to facilitate more widespread use of appropriate and sustainable energy technologies (ASETs); and, in collaboration with The Energy Research Institute (TERI) in India, pilot projects in Indian communities and a rural Indian "living community" demonstrating widespread use of ASETs for community economic development.

	»	CEES Senior Fellow Kevin Doran Speaks on Carbon Capture and Sequestration
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		In May of 2009, CEES Senior Fellow Kevin Doran was the invited speaker at an event organized by Camco Global on Carbon Capture and Sequestration in the West. Attendees to the event included regulators from Utah, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

	»	CEES and IBI Presented the First North American Biochar Conference
		Contact: jonah.levine@colorado.edu
		The Center for Energy and Environmental Security (CEES) at the University of Colorado Law School was pleased to present the first North American Biochar Conference. Cosponsored by the International Biochar Initiative (IBI), the conference ran from August 9 to 12, 2009 in Boulder, Colorado, and drew some 320 registered attendees. Biochar is a charcoal-based product produced from biomass that can sequester carbon, enhance soils, and provide useable energy during the production process. CEES and IBI were honored to have U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack as the keynote speaker for this event. The North American Biochar 2009 conference featured daily sessions on the science of biochar and a strong focus on the policy and economic dimensions of biochar.

	»	CEES and the Governor’s Energy Office Launch the Colorado Energy Profile
		Contact: julie.teel@colorado.edu; adam.reed@colorado.edu; jonah.levine@colorado.edu; dorank@colorado.edu
		CEES has completed the Colorado Energy Profile (CEP) (www.energyincolorado.org) with funding support from the Colorado Governor's Energy Office (GEO). CEP is an online tool designed to provide a centralized resource for policymakers and other Coloradans that contains high-quality information about renewable energy and energy efficiency in the state and to provide the informational foundations needed to chart a course that will maximize Colorado's extraordinary potential for renewable energy, advanced energy technologies, and energy efficiency. To that effect, CEES created this on-line tool to house and display energy data as well as federal, state, and local energy laws and policies pertaining to: wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy; energy efficiency and demand side management; and system support (e.g. energy transmission and storage). While CEP's primary focus is renewable energy and energy efficiency, it also provides general data about Colorado's conventional energy resources.

	»	CEES and Senior Fellow Kevin Doran Awarded Major EPA Grant
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		CEES, Camco, and Ruby Canyon Engineering recently won a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to complete an assessment of abandoned coal mines in the Shanxi and Hebei Provinces of China. The two-year project will involve the identification and mapping of these abandoned mines as well as two in-depth case studies that describe the amount of methane and determination of which mines contain usable methane and the best use of this gas. The technical, economic, political, and other barriers facing coal mine methane extraction in Shanxi and Hebei will be also described. Kevin Doran is the Principal Investigator.

	»	CEES Climate Disclosure Report Published in North Carolina Law Journal
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		Following on the heels of the "Reclaiming Transparency" released by CEES in June of 2009 that detailed climate disclosure patterns by the S&P 500 (authored by Senior Fellow Kevin Doran, CEES Senior Policy Analyst Elias Quinn, and Environmental Defense Economist Martha Roberts), a more extensive version of the study was published by the North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation (authored by Kevin Doran and Elias Quinn). The original report was featured in articles by the New York Times, Forbes, Business Week, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as numerous online publications. The scholarly article was released in the Spring 2009 (Number 3, Volume 34) issue of the journal. Copies are available on request.

	»	CEES and Senior Fellow Kevin Doran Awarded Grant to Study Geologic Carbon Sequestration
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		In collaboration with the National Energy Technology Laboratory and the Colorado School of Mines, CEES Senior Fellow Kevin Doran has been awarded a multi-year grant to study regulatory regimes and structures with respect to geologic carbon sequestration, with a particular focus on Colorado saline brine aquifers as potential sites for CO2 storage. Kevin Doran is the Principal Investigator. Matthew Pranter is the co-principal investigator.

	»	Law Review Natural Resources Issue Devoted to Multi-State Transmission Planning
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		In July of 2009, Senior Fellow Kevin Doran was informed by the University of Colorado Law Review that his proposal for a symposium issue on multi-state transmission planning had been approved by the Law Review's board of editors. The Law Review will devote its summer Natural Resources Issue to papers arising out of a conference sponsored by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory and CEES on the topic of multistate decision-making for renewable energy and transmission.

	»	CEES and NREL Co-Sponsor Conference on Multi-State Transmission Planning
		Contact: dorank@colorado.edu
		CEES Senior Fellow Kevin Doran and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory have joined forces to co-sponsor a conference entitled "Multistate Decision Making for Renewable Energy and Transmission: Spotlight on Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming." The conference took place on August 11, 2009. CEES Senior Policy Analyst Elias Quinn was featured as a discussant at the conference.

	»	CEES Fellow to Teach at Iceland School of Renewable Energy
		Contact: adam.reed@colorado.edu
		CEES Research Fellow Adam Reed has been invited to Iceland in September to team-teach a graduate course on energy project evaluation, finance, and market analysis at the School for Renewable Energy Science. Adam will join Dr. Elizabeth Lokey of Camco Global and Dr. Hilmar Hilmarsson of Univ. of Akureyri in covering the economics, finance, and policy issues of deploying renewable energy technologies to the market.

	»	CEES to Present Energy Justice Conference
		Contact: guruswam@colorado.edu
		This conference will focus on the "other" third of the world—the energy oppressed poor—afflicted by energy access problems. The high energy world relies principally on hitherto abundant sources of fossil fuels for its prosperous lifestyle. By contrast, the low energy world, numbering around two billion people, typically lives on less than a dollar or two a day and primarily rely on biomass-based fire to meet all of their energy needs. The burning of biomass leads to one and half million deaths every year, predominantly of women and children. Moreover, they will be the most severely affected by global warming. This conference is predicated on the applicability of energy justice to these problems. For more information, visit the conference website at www.worldenergyjustice.org.