Xcel Ditching Two Coal Plants, Going to Solar

State regulators gave the go-ahead to Xcel Energy’s plans for a green makeover: shutting down two coal-fired power plants in the state and building one of the world’s largest utility-scale solar power plants.

After days of deliberations, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel’s voluntary decision to shutter electricity generating stations in Denver and Grand Junction – making it the first utility in the nation to do so in order to reduce pollution emissions.

The commission also approved the utility’s request for a 200-megawatt solar plant using concentrated solar technology that not only helps generate electricity from the sun, but also allows energy to be stored for later use.

The commission approved, too, Xcel’s request to add 850 megawatts of wind energy to its system.

“That’s great news,” said Harriet Moyer Aptekar, development manager of Ausra, a Silicon Valley company supported by venture firm Kleiner Perkins and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. “We will be very interested when Xcel seeks bids and we’ll be competing for it.”

Read more here.

ABA’s The Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Ecosystems Committee Newsletter

The August 2008 issue of the Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Ecosystems Committee Newsletter is now available.  (Membership may be required.) 

In this issue:

Message from the Chairs
Joe Siegel and William Blackburn…1

Last to the Party: The Hill Takes Up Climate Change Adaptation
Ira Feldman and Sarah Jensen…1

Climate Change and Sustainable Development: The Washington State Example
Ross A. Macfarlane…8

Florida’s Climate Action Plan
Andrea Morrison Uhland and Paula L. Cobb…12

Sea Level Rise Adaptation in North Carolina
Lindsay Wilkes and Tom Cors…16

Ecosystem-Based Management and Traditional Property Rights: Some Legal and Policy Issues for Consideration
Chad J. McGuire…18

What Tomorrow’s Leaders Are Up To Today: A Snapshot of Law Students Driving Climate and Sustainability Solutions
Dan Worth…21

U.N. Climate Chief: ‘Clock ticking’ on Global Warming

Time is running out in the fight against global warming, the UN’s top climate change official warned as a new round of UN talks got underway here Thursday.

“There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“People in a burning house cannot afford to lose time in an argument,” he said, citing an Ashanti proverb.

The Accra gathering must strive to “reach agreement on the rules and tools” that developed countries will use to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he told more than 1600 delegates from 160 nations.

The president of Ghana, John Kufuor, echoed this sense of urgency is opening remarks, noting that his country was already suffering from the consequences of global warming.

Rainfall in Ghana has decreased by 20 percent in three decades, and 1,000 square kilometres (400 square miles) of fertile agricultural land in the upper Volta Delta will be lost to rising sea levels and flooding if temperatures continue to rise at their current pace, he said.

The expert-level meeting, which runs through August 27, is the third UN climate change conference since the world’s nations committed to adopting a binding climate accord no later than December 2009.

Read on here.

Scientist Push For U.S. Investment In Climate Change

NewScientist.com news service

New Scientist staff and Reuters

Eight scientific organisations have urged the next US president to help protect the country from climate change by pushing for increased funding for research and forecasting. The organisations say about $2 trillion of US economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.

“We don’t think we have the right kind of tools to help decision makers plan for the future,” said Jack Fellows, the vice president for corporate affairs of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of 71 universities.

The groups, including the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, urged Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain to support $9 billion in investments between 2010 and 2014 to help protect the country from extreme weather, which would nearly double the current US budget for the area.

The UN’s science panel says extreme weather events could hit more often as temperatures rise due to climate change.

Read on here.

Longleaf CO2 Appeal is Accepted by the Georgia Court of Appeals

On Wednesday, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to review a lower-court ruling that has halted plans for Longleaf coal-fired power plant, the state’s first in more than 20 years.  At issue is whether the state Environmental Protection Division should place legal limits on emissions of carbon dioxide by the planned $2 billion Longleaf Energy Station in rural southwest Georgia.  The plant is a project of Houston-based Dynegy Inc.

The project’s opponents, including an environmental group based at the proposed site of the plant in Early County, say the health impacts of coal-burning technology outweigh the plant’s potential economic benefits.  Appealing from the Administrative Law Judge’s ruling up-holding the permit, environmental groups GreenLaw, Friends of the Chattahoochee, Inc. and Sierra Club sought to overturn the ALJ’s decision.  At the Superior Court level, Fulton County Superior Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore sided with environmental groups opposing the project by ruling in June that the permits are invalid because they don’t regulate CO2, which has been linked to global warming.  You can obtain a copy of Judge Moore’s decision here.

The EPD and Dynegy sought to appeal the decision.  Late last month, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce also submitted a brief supporting the applicants.  See Longleaf Energy Associates v. Friends of the Chattahoochee, No. A08D0472 and Couch v. Friends of the Chattahoochee, No. A08D0473.  Both applicants seek the complete reversal of Judge Moore and argue that Massachusetts v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only held that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could, not does regulate CO2 under the CAA.  The contention is that Judge Moore jumped the gun and should have waited on the EPA to make the decision as to whether and how to regulate CO2.  Longleaf’s Application can be found here, EPD’s Application here, and the Amici Application of the Chamber, here. 

As the appeal has been accepted, the case awaits docketing.  Upon docketing, the appellants will have 20 days to file their briefs, the environmental groups will have 20 days thereafter to respond.  Finally, the appellants will have 20 days to file any reply brief thereafter.  We will post upon docketing.