Why energy law

The human body is like a machine, and the fuel it requires is food. Food gives a person energy to move, breathe, and think. However, the human body isn't very efficient at converting food into useful work. The rest of the energy is converted to heat, which may or may not be useful, depending on how cool or warm a person wants to be. What is energy? Laws of energy. Units and calculators.

Use of energy. Energy and the environment. Also in What is energy? Forms of energy Sources of energy Laws of energy. Also in Units and calculators explained Units and calculators Energy conversion calculators British thermal units Btu Degree days.

Also in U. Also in Use of energy explained Use of energy Energy use in industry Energy use for transportation Energy use in homes Energy use in commercial buildings Energy efficiency and conservation.

Also in Energy and the environment explained Energy and the environment Greenhouse gases Greenhouse gases and the climate Where greenhouse gases come from Outlook for future emissions Recycling and energy.

Nonrenewable sources. Oil and petroleum products. Diesel fuel. Elements used in grading: class participation, in-class group presentations, and a one-day, take-home, open-book final exam. This class section has been cancelled! Energy Law : Modern energy systems aim to deliver a supply of reliable, low-cost, and clean energy; in turn, they require major capital investments in infrastructure projects, some of which have the features of a natural monopoly and therefore require ongoing economic regulation.

The U. We will examine the historical role of state-level electric utility regulation, tracing its evolution into the various forms of regulated and deregulated energy markets now in use in the U. Contemporary energy law increasingly involves a delicate federalist balance where state and federal regulators share overlapping authority in contested policy areas that are subject to major technological and economic change.

Finally, we will interrogate the contested ideals of regulation and competition, which private, non-profit, and governmental stakeholders deploy in legal and political fora to advance private gain and public goods. Students who complete the class will gain a historical understanding of how economic regulation of the energy sector has evolved since the early 20th century, a durable conceptual framework for understanding modern energy law and policy debates, and a practical understanding of energy law designed for future practitioners.

Non-law students interested in energy issues are highly encouraged to take this course, as energy law literacy is essential to careers in the sector. It is only recently, however, that academics are moving to analyse this in more detail again and advance energy law as an academic field. In contrast, energy law has suffered from attempts at splintering it further with some scholars suggesting separate legal areas for oil and gas lex petrolia , and for mining lex mineralia ; however, recently Daintith has critiqued extensively the aim of scholars to state there should be such a energy law area as lex petrolea 6 and the same can be said for lex mineralia.

In essence, we advocate for a paradigm shift in our current thinking of energy law; to some degree it should be stated it is not a paradigm shift due to there being no core set of principles of energy law. We argue that in our advancing of guiding principles we set out a new path for the study and practice of energy law and thus we aim to shift what constitutes energy law and assist in challenging and developing current assumptions of existing researchers.

This is of vital importance as globally countries are transitioning to low-carbon economies. Further, energy law also has to reach out beyond just the energy law community and appeal to more practitioners, and interdisciplinary energy researchers as well as the public. In this context energy law has been less successful than environmental law where its principles stated in Table 1 8 have been far more effective and have found their way into legislation at local, national and international levels.

Table 1. Principles of environmental law. The principle that environmental damage should, as a matter of priority, be remedied at source. In addition, in considering the energy transition, energy law has to some degree been a forgotten discipline.

Laws implemented and enforced are another. One illustration is the Deepwater Horizon incident in the USA in , where the legal solution came from tort law rather than any principles or theories of energy law itself. The courts have been slow and reluctant to develop new principles and the legislatures have failed to take appropriate action to support the energy transition. In advancing the principles of energy law, the question arises of what energy law is.

There is a rather limited academic literature, which discusses this but more recently several key leading texts from and have raised this issue. These latter texts and the key literature are discussed in the proceeding paragraphs. Many of the key texts literature in this area since the Bradbrook article 20 years ago ask the question—what is energy law—in some way, but all fall short of advancing a more complete definition, or suggesting a theoretical framework or advancing guiding principles.

As the following discussion below highlights, scholars 14 have been demonstrating thinking in this direction, but as of yet they have not made the final step towards advancing what constitutes energy law on a more holistic basis.

Indeed, the same can be said for practitioners, who have perhaps had more success in contributing to the development of energy law, with contributions ranging from model-contracts 15 to practitioner texts, case law developments and legal issues from day-to-day practice. However, as of yet, energy law has not benefited from a set of principles like environmental or climate change law, which have through these principles engaged more effectively with non-law scholars and practitioners, and also the judiciary and policymakers.

There is a core set of leading texts on energy law. Many of these debates in Chapter 1 of the book what is energy law. However, few debate this in depth but there are several in need of highlighting. In considering one of the leading texts in this area , EU Energy Law 17 Roggenkamp and others , it is evident this is the case.

It is important in this context to refer to the engagement of other legal scholars with energy law, something that does not take place to the degree energy lawyers could hope for.

However, the book fails to have any chapter on energy, and consequently fails to account for one division of the Commission—they overlook 1 out of the 12 EU Commissions. There are other texts that review to a limited extent what energy law is. It needs also to focus on energy efficiency, demand side management, and the sustainable use of energy. However, they fail in part to consider the full energy life cycle and, therefore, their approach remains a limited view of energy law.

In contrast, Bradbrook and Wahnschaft 21 propose guidelines on sustainable energy production and consumption. This includes a focus on efficiency in supply and consumption; energy pricing; mitigation of environmental impacts; consumer information and environmental education; policies and strategies for implementation and international cooperation — Makuch and Pereira produce a different edited collection on Environmental and energy law.

This article aims to build on the previous literature and the directions many scholars pointed towards in advancing a set of principles for energy law. In the next section these principles are advanced and then in the following section stated in more depth. Energy justice has its own conceptual basis, which is recognized in several early and now more influential articles.

Energy justice as a concept and its principles have an interdisciplinary focus. The prompt to determine guiding principles of a discipline are many. For energy law and climate change scholars the need for guiding principles is clear. It will assist in the understanding of the design and development of a legal field that has been shaped in a piecemeal fashion in response to different geopolitical circumstances and increasing environmental and costs awareness impacting the whole global society.

Its related subject, environmental law, has a clear core and guiding principles as stated earlier in Table 1. Climate change law, a related sub-discipline where energy contributes the majority share of greenhouse gas emissions and CO 2 emissions , also has its own core set of principles which are stated above in Table 2. Table 2. Principles of climate change law.

Principle of developed states to take the lead and protecting the most vulnerable. As may be understood several of the climate change principles coincide with the listed principles under environmental law and indeed also principles relating to human rights. Despite the longer existence of energy law, it lacks such principles. To redress this omission, we propose that there are seven guiding principles that have developed in practice and legislation which are stated below in Table 3 and then explained in more detail in the following text of this section.

Table 3. The seven principles of energy law. The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is closely connected with energy resources. The discussion over sovereignty over natural resources, petroleum in particular, emerged after the end of the colonial period.

This placed severe constraints of national sovereignty and the wealth these energy resources could mean for a country. In the post-World War II era, which was marked by rising nationalism in the post-colonial world, many of the ex-colonial countries started to demand a change.

Similarly, governmental interference with energy activities through regulation started to grow. In order to safeguard these resources, each State is entitled to exercise effective control over them and their exploitation with means suitable to its own situation, including the right to nationalization or transfer of ownership to its nationals, this right being an expression of the full permanent sovereignty of the State.

No State may be subjected to economic, political or any other type of coercion to prevent the free and full exercise of this inalienable right. The close connection between sovereignty and energy is not only significant for energy- or hydrocarbon-producing states.

Energy supply is also considered a sovereign issue in many of the energy importing and consuming states. The organization and division of competences within the European Union EU energy law and policy area is an example of this. The rationale of this provision is that Member States have decided that these issues are and should remain within the scope of national sovereignty. It has been belatedly recognized in recent decades that in order for sustainable development to occur in developing nations it is essential that modern energy services are available to the general community.

The importance of this issue was first recognized in in the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development the Brundtland Report. The report called for world action to provide access to energy services for all, and emphasized the strong nexus between energy and poverty. Energy services result from the combined operation of primary energy sources, energy-related technologies, labour, materials and infrastructure.

Modern energy services, in contrast, provide for lighting, cooling, refrigeration, clean cooking and transport. Target 7. The magnitude of the issue is apparent from the fact that according to the most recent international report on the issue, the report on the realization of the SDGs, there are still 40 per cent of people living in developing countries still relying on polluting and unhealthy fuels for cooking or gas supplies.

The majority of these people live in Africa and south Asia. At present over 65 per cent of the population of sub-saharan Africa is without electricity. There is currently active legal debate on four related issues: Does a right of access to energy services exist in human rights law? If not, what other international law strategies exist to provide for universal access to energy services?

Is there a role for the judiciary to play in this context? Energy justice is a growing moral, philosophical and ethical movement that developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

It has been defined as: [Achieving] a global energy system that fairly disseminates both the benefits and costs of energy services, and one that contributes to more representative and impartial energy decision-making. The energy justice movement emerged out of and has the same philosophical background as the more general issues of environmental justice and atmospheric and climate justice. The existing literature divides energy justice into three core themes: distributional justice, procedural justice and recognition justice.

Distributional justice seeks to ensure that it is not always the disadvantaged and poor people who suffer most from the siting of energy projects and those objections to new energy projects are examined thoroughly by governments and judicial planning bodies without undue pressure from developers.

The denial of distributional justice has tended to occur in the past in relation to governmental decision concerning, for example, the siting of wind generators, coal plant projects and nuclear power plants. It is argued that all segments of society should benefit and suffer equally from such decision-making. Procedural justice involves the equal ability of all social groups to be able to participate in decision-making processes in proposed energy developments.