Spring 2007 RFF Council Meeting
Resources for the Future Spring RFF Council Meeting
May 16, 2007
On may 16th, 2007, RFF Council Members, expert speakers, and invited guests gathered for the day-long RFF Spring 2007 Council Meeting entitled, "Renewable Energy and Electricity: Which Way is the Wind Blowing?" The meeting hit on the major issues related to renewable energy: the current outlook, the motivating factors, the policy drivers, financing, and barriers and tradeoffs. Several experts joined us to give their views on these issues, beginning with Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator of the EIA, discussing current renewable energy projections. We also heard from leaders in the private sector, the advocacy community, and RFF scholars.
For more information about this meeting, please contact Virginia Kromm, corporate relations manager, at [email protected].
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| Setting the Stage | ||
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Shalini Vajjhala Shalini Vajjhala, an RFF fellow, studies the social impacts of large-scale physical and economic phenomena. |
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| Her work focuses on development and environmental projects with a public participation component, such as how siting major facilities, like electric power lines, affects and is influenced by local communities. Her interests are interdisciplinary and policy focused and lie at the interface between large-scale technical projects and grassroots decisionmaking and communication. As a result, her research brings together the fields of development planning, risk communication, spatial analysis, natural resource management, and judgment and decisionmaking. Vajjhala holds a Ph.D. in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining RFF, she also worked as an architect and community organizer in Pittsburgh. | ||
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| Where Are Renewables Headed? Renewable Energy Projections | ||
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Howard Gruenspecht Howard Gruenspecht is deputy administrator of the Energy Information Administration (EIA). |
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| Over the past 25 years, he has worked extensively on electricity policy issues, including restructuring and reliability, regulations affecting motor fuels and vehicles, energy-related environmental issues, and economywide energy modeling. Before joining EIA, he was an RFF resident scholar. From 1993 to 2000, he served as director of economic, electricity and natural gas analysis in the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Policy, having originally come to the agency in 1991 as deputy assistant secretary for economic and environmental policy. His accomplishments as a career senior executive at DOE have been recognized with two Presidential Rank Awards. Prior to his service at DOE, Gruenspecht was senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers (1989–1991), with primary responsibilities in the areas of environment, energy, regulation, and international trade. | ||
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| What's Motivating Renewable Energy Development | ||
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David Hawkins David Hawkins joined NRDC as an attorney in 1971 and worked on air pollution issues until 1977. |
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| In 1977 he was appointed assistant administrator for air, noise and radiation at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Carter administration. He returned to NRDC in 1981 and worked throughout the next decade primarily on reauthorizing the Clean Air Act. He was the director of NRDC's air and energy program from 1990 to 2001, until he became director of the newly created climate center. Hawkins is a recognized expert on advanced coal technologies and carbon capture and storage, and is working with Congress to design a legislative mechanism to reduce global warming emissions. He has an English degree from Yale College and a law degree from Columbia University. | ||
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Paul Clanon Paul Clanon was appointed executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission on May 1, 2007, following eight years as director of the Commission's Energy Division and two years as deputy executive director. |
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| He came to the Commission in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in economics from University of California, Berkeley, and has participated actively in the regulation and deregulation of the natural gas and electricity industries ever since. Clanon grew up in the Sacramento Valley and lives and works in San Francisco. | ||
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| What Are the Drivers Moving Forward? | ||
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Peter Zaborowsky Peter Zaborowsky is a managing director of Evolution Markets. A pioneer of emissions markets with experience as both a trader and a broker, he has grown Evolution Markets’ Environmental Markets group into the world’s largest emissions brokerage firm. |
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| The team has brokered more than $6.5 billion worth of emissions transactions and has been named the top renewable credit (REC), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) brokerage for the last five years. Zaborowsky focuses on structuring REC and emissions reduction credit transactions for all pollutants, as well as assisting clients in structuring large transactions in the SO2 market and the NOx State Implementation Plan Call program. Prior to joining Evolution Markets in October 2000, he spent 15 years in the energy industry holding a variety of financial and engineering positions. | ||
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Revis James Revis James is director of the Electric Power Research Institute's (EPRI) Energy Technology Assessment Center, focusing on identifying strategic research and development priorities for the electric power industry. |
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| His current research activities include analysis of the potential for CO2 emissions reductions from the U.S. electricity sector and assessment of the sensitivity of levelized costs of electricity to potential CO2 emissions costs. He received B.S. degrees in nuclear engineering and electrical engineering & computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.S. degree in nuclear engineering, also from the University of California, Berkeley. | ||
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Carolyn Fischer Carolyn Fischer joined RFF as a fellow in 1997, after receiving her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. |
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| Her research focuses on policy mechanisms and modeling tools that cut across environmental issues, including environmental policy design and technological change, international trade and environmental policies, and resource economics. In the areas of climate change and energy policy, she has investigated the implications of different designs for emissions trading programs, particularly with respect to allocation schemes, and has also conducted research on CAFE standards, renewable portfolio standards, and energy efficiency programs. In areas of natural resource management, her research addresses issues of wildlife conservation, invasive species, and biotechnology, with particular emphasis on the opportunities and challenges posed by international trade. Fischer has previously taught at Johns Hopkins University, served as a staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, and more recently has been an adviser to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy in Canada. | ||
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| Can We Get There from Here, and What Are the Trade-offs? | ||
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Karen Palmer Karen Palmer is the Darius Gaskins Senior Fellow at RFF and director of the RFF Electricity and Environment Program. |
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| She specializes in the economics of environmental and public utility regulation. Specific research interests include electricity restructuring, environmental regulation of the electricity sector, and the cost-effectiveness of energy-efficiency programs. She is a co-author of the book Alternating Currents: Electricity Markets and Public Policy, published by RFF Press in 2002. In 1996–1997, she spent six months as a visiting economist in FERC’s Office of Economic Policy. Her most recent work has focused on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and controls of multi-pollutants and carbon emissions from electrical generating plants. She has done extensive work analyzing different aspects of policy design for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Palmer received her Ph.D. in economics from Boston College. | ||
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