If you are involved in Management or Customer Service and are responsible for communicating the value of smart meters to your utility customers, you don’t want to miss this online discussion - Communicating Smart Meter Value. more...
Join social media mavens Matthew Burks and Amanda Shewmake as they provide an insider's perspective on how HR, communications and marketing professionals in energy companies can harness the power of social media to be more effective and productive. more...
The convergence of power and information technologies in the smart grid has created opportunities for finer grained and broader controls of energy flows. These opportunities can improve electric service in multiple dimensions: lower cost, greater reliability, greater customer satisfaction, and more...
Significant cost over runs. Changing business requirements. A well thought out plan is essential. Attend this free webcast discussion to hear inside hear three experts in utility operations discuss what utilities need to evaluate when they are considering upgrading or more...
The smart grid is shifting the playing field for utilities. And when the game changes, it pays to be prepared. A nimble solutions partner can help you design the solutions that keep operations on track, even as new challenges come more...
Deliver a profitable, productive and commercially successful large scale CSP business in India. Building on the success of past events in USA, Europe & MENA, CSP Today brings to New Delhi the most relevant international experience for the concentrated solar more...
Two day conference that tackles the most important challenges. A blend of European knowledge from the companies who have been installing offshore wind turbines for the last decade alongside local state governing bodies and leading project developers. Permitting, securing long more...
Autovation 2010 is a not-to-miss educational forum that will attract utility executives from around the world looking for new ways to optimize their operations through automation technologies. more...
The North American convention provides a remarkable opportunity to play a part in guiding renewable energy policy for the 21st century. Attendees will create a resolution that, along with similar resolutions already drafted on four other continents, will help set more...
Hosted by the GridWise(R) Alliance and the U.S. Department of Energy, the GridWise Global Forum will convene thought leaders from the highest levels of government, business, NGOS, and academia from around the world to discuss the ultimate enabling potential of more...
Introduction to Natural Gas Trading & Hedging - This program provides a comprehensive understanding of the structures that underlie Natural Gas trading. Beyond Essentials: Option Applications in Energy - This course provides a solid practical and conceptual (non-quantitative) understanding of more...
Electric Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the electric industry. Position yourself for career advancement by gaining a solid understanding of how the electric business works including key physical, market, and regulatory aspects and how market participants navigate this more...
Electric Market Dynamics offers participants an in-depth understanding of North American electric markets and how they function. Enhance your career by furthering your knowledge of market structures, pricing mechanisms, services offered in markets, and how various participants use the markets more...
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Member Since: 06/14/03 Author Rating: Gold
Article Count: 33
Background
ROGER FELDMAN heads the Clean and Renewables Energy Group of the international law firm of Andrews Kurth LLP. He combines 35 years of active energy project and corporate finance legal practice with current leadership industry positions as a Director of the American Council on Renewable Energy (and Co-Chair of its Climate Change Markets Group) and Chair of the American Bar Association's Energy and Carbon Trading and Finance Committee. He can be reached at: rogerfeldman@andrewskurth.com or (202) 662-3022.
Articles
1.26.10
A Premise for the Pendulum
Topic: Policy, Regulatory & Legal Article Viewed 2271 Times;
3 comments The end of one year and beginning of another makes one think of the various theories of history. "History" is the human effort to anthromorphize time so as to hold the fear of uncertainty at bay and make interpretable sense out of messy reality. For some historians, the past has moved in cycles.
12.2.09
From Shovel Ready Projects to Sustainable Partnerships
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 2995 Times;
4 comments The most important of all the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the "Stimulus Act" or "ARRA") initiatives could be the reformulation of the DoE Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Program. This could be true not because of what facilities actually commence construction before the September 30, 2011, cut off established by ARRA, but because it could be the precursor of several new forms of public-private partnerships ("P3") for alternative/renewable energy and for cleantech.
11.13.09
The Greenstuff File
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 5095 Times;
96 comments As Snow White grew older, she had more difficulty using all those new fangled labor saving and communications devices around the cottage. She began to give her seven renewable energy dwarfs helpful little hints and gifts so they could grow up and help her with them. Some like Windy and Shiny responded very well. However, one in particular, "Greenstuff," went around shaking its head saying, "I'd like to help you, Snow White but I don't know where to start." Snow White asked Dopey, who was usually very smart, what was going on.
10.5.09
A Post Woodstock Perspective on Cap and Trade
Topic: Carbon Markets Article Viewed 3787 Times;
1 comments It is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, the Moon Mission, the Miracle Mets, and the Joe Namath Jets. Everything was possible in 1969. It was the year before the business cycle bubble burst for a decade, and energy prices became a national rather than a consumer issue, as a result of the first oil embargo. NEPA and the environmental movement were emerging green glimmers.
8.28.09
Offsetting the Invisible Hand
Topic: Carbon Markets Article Viewed 4119 Times;
7 comments The proposed creation and treatment of GHG Offsets represents a microcosm of some of the more problematic issues presented by the overall cap and trade program envisioned by Waxman-Markey. Given the likelihood that these provisions will at least receive some modification in any legislation that is enacted, it is useful to consider these issues generically.
7.29.09
Stovepiped
Topic: Risk & Operations Article Viewed 4506 Times;
Comment on this article This is the moment when the public sector proponents of renewable clean energy must prove their mettle. The organizations, both in and out of government, that have been set up to promote market-based action support for cleaner technologies now have access to American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("ARRA") funds.
7.6.09
Cooperative Federalism
Topic: Policy, Regulatory & Legal Article Viewed 4268 Times;
10 comments In the absence of "Cooperative Federalism" the development of so-called "Green Infrastructure," as contemplated both by the Stimulus Package and by the forthcoming initiatives from the President and Congress in the areas of energy, security, and climate change regulation, will be thwarted.
3.27.09
Convergence
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 4182 Times;
2 comments The challenge to successful implementation of the diverse provisions -- related to renewable and clean energy applications -- of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("Stimulus Package"), is to create one or more new types of "pubic-private partnerships" which may well differ from the traditional "P3" arrangements presently in place.
2.6.09
RPS: Certainty Now
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 4448 Times;
2 comments Renewables have been positioned in such a prominent place in the new Administration's broadly outlined national recovery and transformation plan that, unwittingly, they may be setting themselves up to provide disappointments to their friends, and to become flashpoints of resistance for their non-friends.
12.24.08
Delivering the Green
Topic: Risk & Operations Article Viewed 6121 Times;
5 comments This holiday season, as we all get lumps of coal in our financial stockings, there is more interest than ever in finding out what might be under the Energy/Carbon Christmas Tree.
11.14.08
Forestalling the Green Chill
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 4868 Times;
5 comments Public-private partnerships are a key to preventing a chill from settling over the green ambitions of the newly capital-strapped state and municipal public sectors. The past decade has seen an increasing number of "green" program announcements from cities like Chicago and New York, and states like Virginia and Florida, laying out plans for carbon footprint reduction, which include energy efficient buildings and services, increased use of clean and renewable energy sources, application of electricity demand response, and other efficiency measures, and even carbon cap and trade programs in states like California (which in turn will require cities to develop responsive initiatives).
10.7.08
Even More Than Paris
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4335 Times;
32 comments With the Olympics over and the World Series just out of sight, it seems that the only circus for the American people to focus on--to keep their minds off the price of bread and oil--is the Presidential Campaign.
Regulation in a Time of Looming Darkness
Topic: Policy, Regulatory & Legal Article Viewed 4222 Times;
23 comments Where are the regulators? While the American economy reels, its linkage to developments in the regulation of electricity is simply not a matter for public notice. Yes, oil is up and the dollar is down, but the lights still go on. Maybe an electric infrastructure is not geared for the necessary responses to the need for electric vehicles and the ongoing digital revolution demand for more and higher-powered data centers.
3.31.08
Lilliput Now
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4219 Times;
14 comments Gulliver got tied down because he was out of scale with the circumstances of Lilliput. More and more frequently we see headlines like "Thrust of Power Shortages Generating New Urgency" in several regions of the nation.
3.19.08
Saving Private Renewables
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4487 Times;
1 comments Private renewables have entered the same economic war zone as all other investments. They may be receiving superficial exaltation - the equivalent of green ribbon bow decals affixed to the windshields of hybrid cars, but the new American casbah of clean is rapidly turning into an orange zone of lurking uncertainty.
3.3.08
Casablanca
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4461 Times;
7 comments Casablanca is really the ultimate movie about energy. Rick plays "As Time Goes By"; the markets, for good or ill, lurch along. So, too, do climate change regulation proposals. It is easy to believe, especially at this time of year when energy legislation shimmers like the Northern Lights, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
2.12.08
Of Turnips and Tulips and Carbon
Topic: Carbon Markets Article Viewed 4645 Times;
1 comments Everyone has heard of tulip-mania, when flower price speculation ran rampant -- until the financial bubble burst: an historic dot.com experience that, of course, we are immune to. . . The unspoken fear today (sometimes dismissed as carping criticism) is that our scientifically plotted market-based approach to reduction of greenhouse gases could fall prey to this too-human tendency to push markets toward pure speculation.
12.18.07
Big Green/Big Blue/Big U
Topic: Nuclear Article Viewed 4903 Times;
10 comments Big Green has been filling its scrapbook with reports of global conferences, movie star catharses as to global warming's meaning, and clean tech investment reports shooting the moon. So, like every righteous movement before it in history, Big Green -- frustrated by lack of progress -- has turned to governmental power to overcome its adversaries.
11.14.07
Carbon Hazing Alert
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 5141 Times;
6 comments Historians will look back at early 21st Century America as a time when three very different skills reached great heights, converged, and produces unintended as well as positive consequences. One was the ability to mobilize multiple communications media to instantly bring issues and propositions to the forefront of people's minds.
9.18.07
Snow White vs. Green Goddess
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 4983 Times;
5 comments Energy mirror on the wall, who's the greenest of them all? For years it seemed to be natural gas: no SOX, no NOX, no waste disposal problem. Amidst the hoopla of the titanic conflict between oil and renewable tax incentives (and incidentally Federal RPS in the recent Senate Bill), the potential impact on natural gas of clean/renewable energy legislative developments has received less attention.
When Barbie Met RECs
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 5016 Times;
3 comments Barbie has gone virtual -- from vinyl idol to computer-based avatar for on-line purchase by her worshipers of a whole new world of goods. Now you can go on line and shop for what Barbie likes to wear -- shop with virtual dollars that you bought with real ones. So, too, can green energy buyers.
5.2.07
Kermitology
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 5463 Times;
2 comments That the tipping point in national belief in global warming's existence has occurred is not news. What it means for different facets of the energy business -- notably renewable energy -- is actually more problematic than it may seem.
4.11.07
Tip-in Point
Topic: Energy Efficiency Article Viewed 5045 Times;
2 comments In our electronic trendy society, supposed "tipping points" where there are said to be basic societal changes, come and go too quickly for good public policy as well as for entrepreneurial innovators, capital investors and companies -- both utility and industrial -- all trying to adapt their strategies to the political winds.
3.8.07
Push Me - Pull You Policy Power Pet
Topic: Policy, Regulatory & Legal Article Viewed 5117 Times;
7 comments Energy/environment policy often looks like a "Push Me Pull You" Dr. Seuss-type fictional pooch. These days it appears that energy policy is the tail on the dog of global warming environmental policy. The paradoxical result may be that in the power generation sector it will be "business as usual," as the electric industry prepares to meet an urgent demand for supply increases in several disparate regions of the country.
2.12.07
Surge Control
Topic: Grid Operations Article Viewed 4934 Times;
1 comments Suddenly it's 1970. There's a war going on that is increasingly unpopular. Nuclear power is coming back. Air pollution (in the guise of global warming) is on the tips of everyone's tongues. The price of oil is skittering around without real connection to underlying fundamental cause of daily events. We're even talking about "energy independence" again.
12.5.06
RECs' Scriveners
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4571 Times;
1 comments Inspired by the multiple authorship of the King James Bible and just recently published hand-calligraphed and illuminated, but computer line measured copy of same, a committee was convened by (but not exclusively comprised of representatives of) the Emissions Marketing Association, the American Bar Association Renewable Energy Resources Committee, and the American Council on Renewable Energy.
12.13.05
WWDD - 2006 Preamble
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 5255 Times;
Comment on this article 2005 was the year when intelligent design (ne creationism) clashed with natural selection (ne Darwinism). It was also the year of EPACT: yet another effort by man to emulate nature by promulgating laws to govern the adaptation to change of its institutions.
1.19.04
Zodiac
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4884 Times;
Comment on this article The value of a year end is that it provides an arbitrary line to pause and gain perspective on what has passed, before plunging into the current of the future. In the Chinese Zodiac, each sign is, of course, a beast. What beast was it this year? What next year?
8.12.03
FERC’s Maginot Line
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4735 Times;
2 comments Having beat a strategic retreat from its Standard Market Design forward position on uniform national market operations criteria, FERC now has fallen back to the Market-Based Rates Regulation (“MBR”) line, defending the partially-built citadel of deregulated power competition on its own turf.
6.16.03
SMD Lite Is Not Enough
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 4957 Times;
3 comments The reality of today’s power market is not pretty. Policymakers seek models that will be self-executing; businessmen seek to protect their capital structure, salvage excessive investment, or find undervalued situations whose value can be leveraged.
