Fall 2024 EarthTalks Series: Legal Elements of the Energy Transition
Abstract:
Carbon sequestration will require massive amounts of subsurface property. Sequestration operators must acquire the rights to conduct geophysical characterization activities, inject and store CO2, construct facilities, monitor plumes, conduct corrective action on existing wellbores, and, eventually, abandon the CO2 in place. The acquisition of these rights adds cost and complexity to carbon removal, notwithstanding state laws which have endeavored to address information and coordination challenges that increase transaction costs and impede private contracting. In this presentation, Tara Righetti shares the results of an empirical study of pore space acquisition agreements nationwide, including contract structure and valuation approaches. She further illustrates how the approach to land acquisition for carbon removal projects contrasts with that established for other large, public good infrastructure projects.
Bio:
Tara Righetti is the occidental chair of Energy and Environmental Policies and co-director of the Nuclear Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming. She is tenured, full professor in the faculties of the College of Law, the School of Energy Resources, and the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. Righetti’s research focuses on property, administrative law, and justice issues associated with energy development and decarbonization. She currently serves as the chair of the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration (CCUS) Permitting Task Force for Federal Lands and Outer Continental Shelf and as a member of the United States’ Technical Advisory Group to ISO TC 265. In 2021-2022 she served as a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Université de Lille, in Lille. She is licensed to practice law in Texas and California and is a certified professional landman.
About the Series:
The transition to a low-carbon or even net zero carbon energy system will require innovations in both technology and policy that can facilitate system change. Both technology and policy innovation, however, can either be encouraged or thwarted by legal decisions that are made at multiple scales, from local to national. The Federal Power Act, for example, establishes jurisdiction over power plants and transmission lines that has made it possible for individual states to adopt aggressive decarbonization policies but has also made it difficult for the federal government to take equally strong action. The legal system has also been used as a battleground to try to force climate action through the courts. This fall, EarthTalks will explore legal elements of decarbonizing our energy system. It will feature a series of Penn State and national experts who will discuss the legal environment for specific low-carbon technologies, and ways in which the legal system itself could or should be used to encourage a transition to cleaner energy technologies.