Category Archives: Energy

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced that the first auction of leases of offshore wind areas will be held on July 31.  Even though it now looks as though Cape Wind will eventually get to the finish line, this competitive lease auction, for areas off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, [...]

On May 8, the Boston City Council approved an ordinance requiring building owners to report annual energy and water use.  The final ordinance is slightly different from the one about which we posted in February.  Highlights include the following: Building owners subject to the ordinance will have to report on May 15 of each year: [...]

On Tuesday, MassDEP announced release of its updated Solid Waste Master Plan, subtitled “Pathway to Zero Waste.”  The Plan’s most significant discussion relates to the state of the solid waste market and the Plan’s goal for disposal reduction.  The Plan announces a goal of reducing solid waste disposal by 30% from 2008 to 2020, from [...]

Last Friday, EPA announced release of its draft proposal to revise the effluent guidelines and standards for the steam electric power generating industry, last revised in 1982.  The proposal was in conformance with a litigation settlement with environmental groups, which also calls for a final rule by May 22, 2014. The proposed rule actually sets [...]

The California Air Resources Board just released the results of its second auction of GHG allowances.  While the auction for vintage 2013 allowances was still healthy, with all allowances sold at $13.62/allowance, the future auction, for vintage 2016 allowances, did not fare so well.  Fewer than half the allowances sold, and the clearing price was [...]

Today, Mayor Menino forwarded to the Boston City Council proposed amendments to the City of Boston Code that would require owners of many city buildings to report their energy and water use annually.  That information would then be made available to the public – presumably so that the market can work its magic and informed [...]

ISO New England has just released its Electric Generator Air Emissions Report for 2011.  The bottom line? Total emissions of NOx, SO2, and CO2 have decreased by 12.1%, 29.5%, and 10.2% from 2010 to 2011 Emission rates for NOx, SO2, and CO2 have decreased by 8.7%, 25.8%, and 5.9% over the same time period As [...]

It was a busy week on the climate change front in Boston.  First, RGGI announced a new Model Rule.  Under the new Model Rule, summarized here, the 2014 cap would be reduced by 45%, from 165 million tons to 91 million tons.  Because such a sharp decrease in allowances will be expected to cause an [...]

Yesterday, EPA finalized revisions to the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for stationary reciprocating internal combustion engines, or – one of my new favorite acronyms – RICE.  The biggest dispute over the rule was the extent to which it would allow backup diesel generators to run for demand response purposes. As we had [...]

In an interesting decision issued last Friday, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Beyond Nuclear v. NextEra Energy Seabrook, affirmed the decision by the NRC rejecting a challenge to Seabrook’s relicensing posed by a coalition of environmental groups.  The decision seems clearly correct, but raises an important policy issue that is likely [...]