Offshore Wind Updates - Michigan7 2014

OffshoreA2: OSW causes BDOffshore wind increases BDBG 11 Guardian Environmental News (Offshore wind farms are good for wildlife, say researchers_ The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/11/offshore-wind-farms-good-wildlife //Laura TIs the evidence proponents of offshore wind farms have been waiting for: a Dutch study has found that offshore wind turbines have "hardly any negative effects" on wildlife, and may even benefit animals living beneath the waves. The researchers reached their conclusions after studying a wind farm near Windpark Egmond aan Zee, the first large-scale offshore wind farm built off the Dutch North Sea coast. Anti-wind farm campaigners have often argued that wind farms can have a negative impact on bird populations, while some critics have voiced concerns that offshore wind farms could prove disruptive to marine life. However, Professor Han Lindeboom from the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies at Wageningen University and Research centre, said that the new study revealed little evidence of negative effects on local wildlife. "At most, a few bird species will avoid such a wind farm. It turns out that a wind farm also provides a new natural habitat for organisms living on the sea bed such as mussels, anemones and crabs, thereby contributing to increased biodiversity," he said. "For fish and marine mammals, it provides an oasis of calm in a relatively busy coastal area." The research, sponsored by NoordzeeWind, a joint venture of Nuon and Shell Wind Energy, claimed that offshore wind farms actually have a beneficial long-term effect on wildlife. The wind farm functions as a new type of habitat, the report said, detailing how new species are attracted to the turbine foundations and surrounding rocks.

Animals lives off of offshore wind farms key to their survival Warwicker 7/21/14 - Reporter/Researcher BBC Nature at BBC (Michelle, Seals 'feed' at offshore wind farms, study shows) BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28375794 //Laura TSome seals prefer to forage for food at offshore wind farms, a study suggests. Researchers found a proportion of GPS tagged harbour seals repeatedly visited wind turbines in the North Sea. - which may act as artificial reefs - to hunt for prey. "As far as we know this is the first study that's shown marine mammals feeding at wind farms," said research team member Dr Deborah Russell from the University of St Andrews, UK. The team's findings are detailed in a correspondence article published in the journal Current Biology. Dr Russell and colleagues tracked dozens of harbour - or common - seals (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) living around the British and Dutch coasts of the North Sea. They observed 11 harbour seals visiting wind farms - Sheringham Shoal in the UK and Alpha Ventus in Germany. "Out of the individuals that we tagged a proportion of them preferentially went to these [wind farm] structures," Dr Russell told BBC Nature. A number of the mammals moved in a "grid-like" pattern, making straight lines between the turbine bases. Dr Russell explained: "The animal basically travels from wind turbine to wind turbine, almost like he's checking out, 'OK is there any foraging opportunities at this turbine?' And then he stays there for quite a long time, presumably if there are foraging opportunities." Seal grid map at Sheringham Shoal wind farm One harbour seal made a grid-like pattern, suggesting it was foraging at the structures The study also found seals from both species visited man made pipes along the sea floor, which are also thought to act as artificial reefs and foraging sites. The researchers do not know what species of prey the seals are eating at these hunting grounds. But they may be attracted by fish such as cod or whiting which in turn feed on invertebrates living on the reefs. Dr Russell said more research was needed to understand the ecological consequences of seals' behaviour around wind turbines.OSW doesnt harm environment or speciesCopping et al 14 - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Andrea, Environmental Risk Evaluation Systeman Approach to Ranking Risk of Ocean Energy Development on Coastal and Estuarine Environments) Journal of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, 10.1007/s12237-014-9816-3] //Laura TThe US regulatory system and the environmental protections afforded to key species is a genuine hurdle for any project developer in US waters; similar hurdles are unfolding in other nations as well. The regulatory power of the Endangered Species Act no take provision, especially if combined with the Marine Mammal Protection Act or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, ensures that all threatened and endangered turtles, marine mammals, and migratory birds will rank as the greatest risk from a regulatory perspective, regardless of whether they are the most vulnerable biological receptors to each specific stressor. European habitat and species directives will similarly drive the siting and permitting processes for tidal, wave, and offshore wind development.The development of ocean energy has the potential to supply low carbon energy for electricity to the national grids of many nations energy. Human populations tend to live in relative proximity to the coast (NOAA 2013); harvesting energy from the oceans simplifies the transmission of power to coastal areas and provides additional energy security to isolated coastal locations. Responsible deployment of ocean devices requires compliance with all applicable laws and regulations; at the same time, the regulatory burden should not overwhelm the beneficial value of providing reliable renewable energy to meet the needs of the nation. By determining the highest-priority stressors from ocean energy devices that may affect vulnerable receptors in the marine environment, project proponents, regulators, and stakeholders can engage in the most efficient and effective siting and permitting pathways. By increasing the number of deployments in estuarine and coastal waters, the research community will have increased opportunities to gather data and better inform the discussion of potential effects. ERES can assist with setting priorities for siting and permitting of ocean energy projects and provide a structured framework for transitioning to more standard risk assessment and risk management actions. That transition must include developing a template for risk calculation that can be easily incorporated into future ocean energy projects as an informed point of departure for developers and regulators. The risk calculations can also provide early feedback to developers to improve siting, engineering design, and operational methods that minimize damage to the marine environment and inform effective mitigation strategies.

Econ StuffNew offshore wind tech will revitalize the economyMusial and Ram 10 - *Manager Offshore Wind and Ocean Power Systems at National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Test Engineer at KENETECH Windpower, Wind Turbine Test Engineer at Energy Sciences Incorporated (ESI) and **Senior Researcher at Danish Technical University (Walter and Bonnie, Large-Scale Offshore Wind Power in the United States ASSESSMENT OF OPPORTUNITIES AND BARRIERS) NREL. http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/40745.pdf //Laura TOffshore wind projects are analyzed in terms of their initial installed capital cost (ICC) as well as their life-cycle costs, also known as the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). Cost projections of either type for the U.S. market are difficult because of the many regulatory and technical uncertainties and the lack of U.S. market experience. Although the European market is based on a more developed supporting infrastructure and substantially different regulatory, policy, and physical environments, preliminary analyses of that experience provide some potentially useful insight. As in the case of land-based projects, the ICC for offshore wind power has been increasing over time. Costs jumped approximately 55% between 2005 and 2007, leading to an estimated average capital investment of $4,250 per kW for an offshore wind project in 2010. The wind turbine itself contributes 44% of this total. In general, capital costs are expected to increase with distance from land and water depth, and decrease as the size of a project increases, as a result of economies of scale. As the technology matures, prices are expected to decline. The LCOE calculations, or the cost of energy produced over the anticipated 20-year life of a project, are based on a range of factors, many of which are currently unknown and must be projected. In addition to the ICC, these include operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, the cost of financing, amount of energy to be generated, long-term system reliability, and decommissioning costs. Operation and maintenance costs are higher for offshore wind turbines than for land-based turbines, primarily because of access issues. It is simply more difficult to perform work at sea. Although more research is needed to determine the range of these offshore O&M costs, some reports estimate they are two to three times higher than on land and can reach 20% to 30% of the LCOE. The LCOE for offshore wind is heavily influenced by the relatively high ICC and the cost of financing. A significant part of the financing cost is based on the perception of financial risk and project uncertainties. These risk perceptions could potentially be lowered through research on virtually all of the factors that make up the LCOE for offshore wind, but the larger impacts will come from confidence built on deployment experience. Under reasonable economic assumptions, offshore wind can be expected to penetrate the U.S. market on a large scale without introducing substantial new technologysuch as large-scale grid storage or smart grid load management. Although these analyses are still preliminary, NRELs Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model (formerly called the Wind Deployment System [WinDS] model) shows offshore wind penetration of between 54 GW and 89 GW by 2030 when economic scenarios favoring offshore wind are applied. These cases used combinations of cost reductions (resulting from technology improvements and experience), rising natural gas prices (3% annually), heavy constraints on conventional power and new transmission development in congested coastal regions, and national incentive policies. Furthermore, analyses indicate that if wind energy is to supply 20% of the nations electricity by 2030, offshore wind will be an essential component.Offshore Wind creates jobs and economic investment Clogston 13 PhD Political Science @ John Hopkins and IDEC Consultant (Frankie, Analysis of the Offshore Wind Energy Industry) International Economic Development Council. http://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/IEDC_Offshore_Wind.pdf //Laura TThere is evidence that offshore wind energy will create new jobs and economic investment. Offshore wind generates more jobs per megawatt than onshore wind and other fossil fuels due to the labor associated with manufacturing, operating, and servicing the wind farms. As the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) states, the offshore wind industry has an additional employment effect due to the higher cost of installing, operating, and maintaining offshore wind turbines than land-based ones.1 It is also likely that offshore wind job creation will come at a time and to those places where it is particularly needed. As the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) indicates, many of the jobs for the new offshore industry will potentially be located in economically depressed ports and shipyards. These locations will serve as fabrication and staging areas for manufacture, installation, and maintenance of offshore wind turbines.2 These areas can particularly stand to gain jobs in a new offshore wind industry, since they have experienced a double blow from the downturn in manufacturing and the recent recession.Offshore wind creates millions of jobs and billions of dollars in profitClogston 13 PhD Political Science @ John Hopkins and IDEC Consultant (Frankie, Analysis of the Offshore Wind Energy Industry) International Economic Development Council. http://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/IEDC_Offshore_Wind.pdf //Laura TThe U.S. Department of Energy estimates that in addition to the 43,000 permanent O&M jobs, the target 54 GW of offshore wind production would require more than 1.1 million job-years to manufacture and install the turbines.24 Reaching the target is also expected to generate an estimated $200 billion in new economic activity.25 This calculation is based on a factor of more than 20 jobs for each MW of new offshore wind, as extrapolated from a EWEA 2009 report.26 However, it should be noted that EWEA has revised its projection for MW, total jobs and jobs per MW by 2030 in its more recent 2011 publication, which could affect U.S. estimates updated in the future. Some individual projects in the U.S. have conducted studies providing job projections. Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) is undertaking the development of a 5,000 MW wind farm in the waters north of Cleveland, Ohio. The stakeholders believe it could be a strong generator of jobs, partially due to the existing port infrastructure and supply chain capacities from the areas onshore wind industry. By the time the wind farm is online, they project that 8,000 jobs will have been created. In Maine, the Deepwater Offshore Wind Plan is projected to generate 7,000 to 15,000 jobs.Obama working to implement offshore windClogston 13 PhD Political Science @ John Hopkins and IDEC Consultant (Frankie, Analysis of the Offshore Wind Energy Industry) International Economic Development Council. http://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/IEDC_Offshore_Wind.pdf //Laura TDespite a lack of offshore wind power currently online, the federal government has an ambitious goal. Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Energy set a 20% Wind Energy by 2030 goal in July 2008.31 President Obama has reiterated this goal.32 The Department of Energys 20% Wind Energy by 2030 report provided a scenario under which the U.S. would generate 20% of its electricity from wind with offshore wind contributing 54 GW (54,000 MW).33 In order to meet this goal for offshore wind, the Department of Energy has detailed an OSWInD strategy for offshore wind. The strategy calls for an interim deployment of 10GW of capacity by 2020 at a cost of energy of $0.10/kWh en route to meeting the total production goal of 54GW by 2030 at a cost of $0.07kWh. 34 Offshore wind farms could provide a significant energy source to meet the energy demands of population centers up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected electricity consumption to grow at a rate of 1.1%.35 Most domestic energy consumption occurs in the 26 states that have high coastal winds, including the dense region of the Northeast.Offshore Wind is key to shipbuilding and the economy Clogston 13 PhD Political Science @ John Hopkins and IDEC Consultant (Frankie, Analysis of the Offshore Wind Energy Industry) International Economic Development Council. http://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/IEDC_Offshore_Wind.pdf //Laura TThere is also potential in the shipbuilding industry for the manufacturing of specialized offshore wind vessels. There are several factors precipitating demand for domestic production of these ships. Currently, there are virtually no such ships in the U.S., since the offshore wind industry is not yet on-line, and the supply servicing offshore wind farms in Europe and Asia is being utilized at full capacity. Additionally, it would be very expensive to charter a boat from Europe to service U.S. installations. Finally, based on the interpretation of the Jones Act, which has been in existence since 1920, foreign vessels may not be allowed to service wind farms in U.S. waters. With offshore wind vessels costing an estimated $260 million and taking about two years to build, manufacturing of these ships could be a boon to the U.S. shipbuilding industry and result in the retention or creation of a significant number of jobs.57, 58 However, the industry will need incentives and financing mechanisms that help developers mitigate the risk associated with such a large investment. The Jones Act restricts the transportation of merchandise between points in the U.S. to U.S. built-vessels. These ships must fly the flag of the U.S. and be owned and crewed by U.S. citizens. If indeed the Jones Act is judged to apply to the huge seagoing vessels needed to erect and maintain offshore wind turbines, then there are a few important implications. In the short term, there would be a shortage/absence of specialized vessels to service offshore wind farms in the U.S. The best candidates would be ships used to service the oil and gas industries that are located in the Gulf of Mexico. In the longer term, this could be a boon for the U.S. ship building industry. The European experience indicates that specialized wind system installation vessels, rather than adapted oil and gas vessels, are required for cost-effective, high volume installation. Such vessels are major undertakings, as they must support 100 to 200 ton towers and cranes, are estimated to cost $150 million to $250 million per ship, and take about two years to construct. Another possibility is that foreign companies already building these shipsincluding South Koreas Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries, Polands Crist Shipyard, and Germanys Sietas shipyardset up a domestic shipbuilding capacity in the U.S. so that their ships could comply with the Jones Act. Precedents are still being established. It is possible that further legal interpretation could allow foreign ships. In May 2010, regulators indicated that a stationary foreign vessel could be used in U.S. waters to install a meteorological tower, which would be necessary for offshore wind farms. But for reasons including the Jones Act, as well as the high cost of leasing foreign ships and the lack of availability, the U.S. ship-building industry could stand to benefit.

A2: Onshore Sufficient Offshore Wind specifically key onshore doesnt generate enough electricity Clogston 13 PhD Political Science @ John Hopkins and IDEC Consultant (Frankie, Analysis of the Offshore Wind Energy Industry) International Economic Development Council. http://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/IEDC_Offshore_Wind.pdf //Laura TThe good news is that there is significant energy-generating potential from offshore wind in the United States due to the length of the U.S. coastline and the quality of the wind resource. In general, offshore winds blow more strongly and uniformly than onshore winds. U.S. offshore winds are projected to produce a total energy generation of up to 30 percent more than U.S. onshore winds. 48, 49 The total gross wind resource from U.S. offshore wind energy is projected at more than 4,000 MW or roughly four times the current generating capacity carried on the U.S. electric grid. These estimates place the U.S. reserve behind Asia and Europe in capacity. However, research indicates that if the U.S. unlocks capacity through reforms in the permitting process and improvements in vessel, transmission, and port infrastructure, then capacity could double to 6,180 MW.50Hurricans Case ExtensionsOffshore wind turbines reduce hurricane speeds and protect social communities Messmore 2/26/14 Communications Specialist at University of Delaware (Teresa, Taming Hurricanes) University of Delaware. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2014/feb/hurricanes-wind-turbines-022614.html //Laura T Wind turbines placed in the ocean to generate electricity may have another major benefit: weakening hurricanes before the storms make landfall. New research by the University of Delaware and Stanford University shows that an army of offshore wind turbines could reduce hurricanes wind speeds, wave heights and flood-causing storm surge. The findings, published online this week in Nature Climate Change, demonstrate for the first time that wind turbines can buffer damage to coastal cities during hurricanes. The little turbines can fight back the beast, said study co-author Cristina Archer, associate professor in the University of Delawares College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. Archer and Stanfords Mark Jacobson previously calculated the global potential for wind power, taking into account that as turbines are generating electricity, they are also siphoning off some energy from the atmosphere. They found that there is more than enough wind to support worldwide energy demands with a negligible effect on the overall climate. In the new study, the researchers took a closer look at how the turbines wind extraction might affect hurricanes. Unlike normal weather patterns that make up global climate over the long term, hurricanes are unusual, isolated events that behave very differently. Thus, the authors hypothesized that a hurricane might be more affected by wind turbines than are normal winds. Hurricanes are a different animal, Archer said. Using their sophisticated climate-weather model, the researchers simulated hurricanes Katrina, Isaac and Sandy to examine what would happen if large wind farms, with tens of thousands of turbines, had been in the storms paths. They found that, as the hurricane approached, the wind farm would remove energy from the storms edge and slow down the fast-moving winds. The lower wind speeds at the hurricanes perimeter would gradually trickle inwards toward the eye of the storm. There is a feedback into the hurricane that is really fascinating to examine, said Archer, an expert in both meteorology and engineering. The highest reductions in wind speed were by up to 87 miles per hour (mph) for Hurricane Sandy and 92 mph for Hurricane Katrina. According to the computer model, the reduced winds would in turn lower the height of ocean waves, reducing the winds that push water toward the coast as storm surge. The wind farm decreased storm surge a key cause of hurricane flooding by up to 34 percent for Hurricane Sandy and 79 percent for Hurricane Katrina. While the wind farms would not completely dissipate a hurricane, the milder winds would also prevent the turbines from being damaged. Turbines are designed to keep spinning up to a certain wind speed, above which the blades lock and feather into a protective position. The study showed that wind farms would slow wind speeds so that they would not reach that threshold. The study suggests that offshore wind farms would serve two important purposes: prevent significant damage to cities during hurricanes and produce clean energy year-round in normal conditions as well as hurricane-like conditions. This makes offshore wind farms an alterative protective measure to seawalls, which only serve one purpose and do not generate energy. Jacobson and study co-author Willett Kempton, professor in UDs College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, weighed the costs and benefits of offshore wind farms as storm protection. The net cost of offshore wind farms was found to be less than the net cost of generating electricity with fossil fuels. The calculations take into account savings from avoiding costs related to health issues, climate change and hurricane damage, and assume a mature offshore wind industry. In initial costs, it would be less expensive to build seawalls, but those would not reduce wind damage, would not produce electricity and would not avoid those other costs thus the net cost of offshore wind would be less. The study used very large wind farms, with tens of thousands of turbines, much larger than commercial wind farms today. However, sensitivity tests suggested benefits even for smaller numbers of turbines. This is a paradigm shift, Kempton said. We always think about hurricanes and wind turbines as incompatible. But we find that in large arrays, wind turbines have some ability to protect both themselves and coastal communities, from the strongest winds. This is a totally different way to think about the interaction of the atmosphere and wind turbines, Archer said. We could actually take advantage of these interactions to protect coastal communities. The paper, titled Taming Hurricanes with Arrays of Offshore Wind Turbines, appears online on Feb. 26 in Nature Climate Change and will be published in print in March.Turbines reduce destruction from hurricanes more offshore wind keyCarey 2/26/14 Science Writer for Stanford News (Bjorn, Offshore wind farms could tame hurricanes before they reach land, Stanford-led study says) Standford News. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/hurricane-winds-turbine-022614.html //Laura TFor the past 24 years, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, has been developing a complex computer model to study air pollution, energy, weather and climate. A recent application of the model has been to simulate the development of hurricanes. Another has been to determine how much energy wind turbines can extract from global wind currents. In light of these recent model studies and in the aftermath of hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, he said, it was natural to wonder: What would happen if a hurricane encountered a large array of offshore wind turbines? Would the energy extraction due to the storm spinning the turbines' blades slow the winds and diminish the hurricane, or would the hurricane destroy the turbines? So he went about developing the model further and simulating what might happen if a hurricane encountered an enormous wind farm stretching many miles offshore and along the coast. Amazingly, he found that the wind turbines could disrupt a hurricane enough to reduce peak wind speeds by up to 92 mph and decrease storm surge by up to 79 percent. The study, conducted by Jacobson, and Cristina Archer and Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware, was published online in Nature Climate Change. The researchers simulated three hurricanes: Sandy and Isaac, which struck New York and New Orleans, respectively, in 2012; and Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. "We found that when wind turbines are present, they slow down the outer rotation winds of a hurricane," Jacobson said. "This feeds back to decrease wave height, which reduces movement of air toward the center of the hurricane, increasing the central pressure, which in turn slows the winds of the entire hurricane and dissipates it faster." In the case of Katrina, Jacobson's model revealed that an array of 78,000 wind turbines off the coast of New Orleans would have significantly weakened the hurricane well before it made landfall. In the computer model, by the time Hurricane Katrina reached land, its simulated wind speeds had decreased by 36-44 meters per second (between 80 and 98 mph) and the storm surge had decreased by up to 79 percent. For Hurricane Sandy, the model projected a wind speed reduction by 35-39 meters per second (between 78 and 87 mph) and as much as 34 percent decrease in storm surge. Jacobson acknowledges that, in the United States, there has been political resistance to installing a few hundred offshore wind turbines, let alone tens of thousands. But he thinks there are two financial incentives that could motivate such a change. One is the reduction of hurricane damage cost. Damage from severe hurricanes, caused by high winds and storm surge-related flooding, can run into the billions of dollars. Hurricane Sandy, for instance, caused roughly $82 billion in damage across three states. Second, Jacobson said, the wind turbines would pay for themselves in the long term by generating normal electricity while at the same time reducing air pollution and global warming, and providing energy stability. "The turbines will also reduce damage if a hurricane comes through," Jacobson said. "These factors, each on their own, reduce the cost to society of offshore turbines and should be sufficient to motivate their development." An alternative plan for protecting coastal cities involves building massive seawalls. Jacobson said that while these might stop a storm surge, they wouldn't impact wind speed substantially. The cost for these, too, is significant, with estimates running between $10 billion and $40 billion per installation. Current turbines can withstand wind speeds of up to 112 mph, which is in the range of a category 2 to 3 hurricane, Jacobson said. His study suggests that the presence of massive turbine arrays will likely prevent hurricane winds from reaching those speeds.Hurricanes inevitable control key to prevent escalationComfort 06 - Prof @ University of Pittsburgh (Louise, Cities at Risk: Hurricane Katrina and the Drowning of New Orleans) Urban Affairs Review March 2006 vol. 41 no. 4 501-516 //Laura TSilent Threats and Long-Term Policy PlanningThe impact of Hurricane Katrina on the City of New Orleans exemplifies a further problem in the process of sustainable disaster risk reduction. Although the deteriorating condition of the levees was well known, and computer models had shown that they would fail under the stress of a Category 3 hurricane, the levees posed a silent threat to the city. The levee system was taken for granted; no specific group of business people, residents, or policy analysts focused attention on the serious consequences for the city if the levees failed. The cost of rebuilding was high; there was no hurricane on the immediate horizon; other issues demanded urgent attention and promised quicker returns. Given the range of problems that the City of New Orleans was facing in the period from 2001 to late August 2005, the repair of the levee system fell in the too hard pile of problems, with little thought given to the actual cost to the city, region, and nation if it failed. This inability to recognize the increasing danger from aging infrastructure to U.S. cities represents a major threat to urban regions across the nation.Maintenance of engineered infrastructure for metropolitan regions is a long-term policy problem (Lempert, Popper, and Bankes 2003), one that does not fit the annual budget cycles that drive most urban agendas. It is also a complex policy problem, as major engineering projects were often financed with federal funding, but once built, states and cities were expected to maintain them. In uneven economic cycles and as the industrial base for the City of New Orleans and state of Louisiana declined in recent decades, infrastructuremaintenance was delayed repeatedly. Presumably delayed as a budget balancing measure, infrastructure maintenance needs to be redefined as a long-term policy problem. The extraordinary costs incurred from the failure of the levee system following Hurricane Katrina discredit any form of justification for delaying maintenance for budgetary reasons.New methods of computational simulation offer a promising alternative for calculating potential risks, their costs and consequences, and exploring policy options (Comfort, Ko, and Zagorecki 2004; Zagorecki, Ko, and Comfort 2005). Although these methods have long been used by engineers, extending their application to guide decision making in actual policy problems represents a method of assessing the complexity of urban environments and developing strategies for long-term policy planning.Cities as Investments for the NationUnderlying this inquiry into the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans is the recognition that cities play an indispensable role in the economy and society of the nation. Cities represent a major investment of not just local funds, but also substantial investments by the region, state, and nation. The contribution of the City of New Orleans in terms of the national transportation of goods from this port city as well as its distinctive culture and history is incalculable. Clearly, the startling costs and consequences of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on this vulnerable city require a different conception of the city in relation to the region and the nation. The hurricanes will return; the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain are continuing constraints; the wetlands in the region could become buffers to damaging storms and erosion, as they once were. But the vision of the city must change, if it is to become a sustainable, resilient community (Comfort 2005).

Hurricane damage large & growingDavlasheridze 12 - PhD Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education, Penn State (Meri, The Effects of Adaptation Measures on Hurricane Induced Property Losses) http://aese.psu.edu/directory/mzd169/job-market-paper //Laura THurricanes represent one of the costliest natural catastrophes in the United States. At the beginning of the 20th century, decadal total number of hurricane fatalities was 8,734 with the corresponding damage cost of $1.45 billion (in year 2000 dollars) (Sheets and Williams, 2001). The last decade figures show that deaths have decreased by a factor of 35 whereas costs have risen by a factor of 39 (Figures 1 and 2). Over time, hurricane fatalities have become less of a concern, partially attributed to improved warning and weather forecasting systems in coastal counties (Sadowski and Sutter, 2005). This declining trend in loss of human life, however, has not been accompanied by a decrease in property damage. Increased intensity and frequency of Atlantic basin hurricanes is considered to be partially responsible for direct as well as indirect economic losses. Much property loss has also been inflicted because of increased population, rising standards of living and the consequent accumulation of wealth in these coastal areas (Pielke, et al., 2008). If recent socio-economic developments persist (rising coastal population and increase in wealth level) coupled with geophysical trends of hurricane intensities, damage figures will likely grow astronomically. Pielke et al. (2008) find that the normalized damages of hurricanes provides an important warning message for policy makers: Potential damage from storms is growing at a rate that may place severe burdens on society. Avoiding huge losses will require either a change in the rate of population growth in coastal areas, major improvements in construction standards, or other mitigation actions. Unless such action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and properties in coastal areas where hurricanes strike, damage will increase, and by a great deal, as more and wealthier people increasingly inhibit these coastal locations. An obvious agenda for researchers and policy makers involves decisions on loss mitigation strategies and plans to lessen these economic impacts. The domain of potential public and private coping and adaptation options is large. It goes beyond measures designed to mandate and enforce stringent regulatory policies such as building codes, hazard planning, land zoning and development regulation. Often, these measures are immensely costly and involve providing public protection via implementing and investing in major retrofitting and/or structural projects such as dams, levees, acquisition of private property, etc. In addition to these proactive measures, devastating natural disasters elicit post-disaster recovery and assistance programs primarily aimed to provide immediate relief to impacted communities. Federal government spends millions of dollars annually to help communities recover from severe disasters. Since 1989 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has spent more than 13 billion dollars to help communities implement long term hazard mitigation projects. Approximately 76% of total mitigation grant funding have been allocated for hurricane, storm and flood related disasters. Even more was spent for public assistance projects. Around 45 billion dollars (in 2005$) was given to impacted communities, since 1999, in the form of immediate assistance to help with disaster recovery.1 Approximately eighty percent of these funds were given in response to hurricane, flood or severe storm related events (Figures 3 and 4). Furthermore, these figures are higher when accounting for non-disaster governmental transfers, which are likely to increase substantially after major disasters (Deryugina, 2011).2 These numbers are striking and certainly raise public concern especially as the frequency and severity of hurricanes are projected to increase in the future.

OSW is cost effective helps prevent hurricane accidents Jacobson et al 14 - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering @ Stanford University (Mark, Taming hurricanes with arrays of offshore wind turbines) Nature Climate Change 4, 195200 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2120 //Laura TThe estimated direct cost of offshore wind energy for a large future build such as that proposed here would not be the 19 kWh1 historical average cost of offshore wind. A better estimate is the best recent project cost for better managed projects with winds such as those off New York, but in a still-immature industry of ~9.4 kWh1 (ref. 11). Costs of integrating wind onto the grid are minimized when wind and solar, which are complementary in production times, are combined on the grid, and stored energy in the form of hydroelectricity and hydrogen and vehicle-stored electricity are used to fill in gaps in supply. In addition, using demandresponse management; forecasting wind and solar resources; and using excess wind for district heat or hydrogen production rather than for curtailing, facilitates matching demand with supply12, 13, 14.Including hurricane damage avoidance, reduced pollution, health, and climate costs, but not including tax credits or subsidies, gives the net cost of offshore wind as ~48.5 kWh1, which compares with ~10 kWh1 for new fossil fuel generation. The health and climate benefits significantly reduce winds net cost, and hurricane protection adds a smaller benefit (~10% for New Orleans), but at no additional cost. In sum, large arrays of offshore wind turbines seem to diminish hurricane risk cost-effectively while reducing air pollution and global warming and providing energy supply at a lower net cost than conventional fuels.Finally, what are the costs of sea walls versus offshore wind turbine arrays? Turbines pay for themselves from the sale of electricity they produce and other non-market benefits (Table 2), but sea walls have no other function than to reduce storm surge (they do not even reduce damaging hurricane wind speeds), so society bears their full cost. Conversely, if wind turbines are used only for hurricane damage avoidance, an array covering 32 km of linear coastline in front of New York City would cost ~$210 billion with no payback (Supplementary Information), higher than the cost of proposed sea walls, $1029 billion7. Thus, turbines cost much less than sea walls to protect a city, as turbines also generate electricity year-round, but if turbines were used only for hurricane protection, sea walls would be less expensive.PTX LinkOffshore wind creates jobs and is popular with the public New Jersey ProvesBates and Firestone 4/14 *Finance Analyst at New York State Senate and **PhD Public Policy Analysis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director, Center for Carbon-free Power Integration (Alison and Jeremy, Local Community Acceptance of an in-View Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project) Public Opinion of Fishermens Energy. University of Delaware //Laura TWe asked respondents what the believed the effect of offshore wind power would be on items such as price, tourism, marine wildlife, recreational fishing, and job creation. Respondents were then asked to self-report the top three issues you consider to be the most important, regardless of whether mentioned above, ranked in order of importance #1, #2, and #3 in their decision to support or oppose the Fishermens Energy project. The written answers were coded into categories, by grouping like items together. We did not know whether the item listed was considered to be a positive or negative issue given the wording of the question, so we separate the top reasons listed by supporters (factors leading towards support) and the top three reasons listed by opponents (factors leading to opposition). We list top choice percentages by support and opposition (ordered by percentage listing a factor as the top reason for support) and the weighted top 3 choice percentages (where each of the top 3 choices is weighted by 1/3 so that the percentages add up to 100%). For example, if 6% listed user conflicts as their top reason for opposition and another 58.86% and 0.25% respectively listed it as their second and third reason for opposition, we multiplied each by 1/3, and then summed to 21.8%, and then rounded to 22% (Table 2). When looking at the top three factors, opponents appear to congregate around a few key issues, where supporters have a wide variety of reasons for supporting the project. The factor with the widest resonance for both supporters and opponents is the samewildlife and the environment. Supporters may view big-picture benefits resulting from reduced emissions and associated environmental harms from traditional energy generation, whereas opponents may be concerned about the acute effects on local wildlife. Interestingly, cost of electricity is an important issue, but only for supporters. Because offshore wind is not inexpensive, particularly at the scale of the Fishermens Energy project, it is possible that respondents believe that the project will lead to large-scale implementation in the future which will ultimately lead to lower electricity rates. Alternatively, they may simply be mistaken about the cost of offshore wind (see further discussion at end based on additional statistical analyses) or they may correctly recognize that the costs of a small project like Fishermens Energy when spread over all New Jersey households is likely to be quite meager.1 General costs rank as another important issue for supporters and opponents. The general costs category includes responses including: cost, project costs, maintenance and maintenance costs, costs to taxpayers, cost effectiveness, government subsidies, and efficiency. Finally, jobs ranks highly for supporters. Since this project is relatively small, project supporters may see the project of a harbinger of New Jerseys plans for large-scale commercial offshore wind projects and for the construction and supply chain jobs such large-scale development is likely to engender. For opponents, location/siting concerns resonate, with aesthetics being a highly ranked category as is user conflicts (fishing, boating) and tourism.

Certainty ArgsUncertainty from the private sector kills chance of renewables transition - fed key Mormann 12 Faculty fellow at Stanford's Steyer Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance and PhD in Law @ UM (Felix, "Enhancing the Investor Appeal of Renewable Energy.") Environmental Law42. Lexis. //Laura TThe good news is that a timely transition to a low-carbon, renewables based electricity sector appears within technological reach. In 2008, former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore announced his plan to Re-power America 20 with 100% clean electricity from renewables within a decade. Since then, over half a dozen independent studies have confirmed the technological feasibility of meeting the entire electricity demand of a given country, 21 region, 22 or even the world, 23 with renewable sources of energy. In their timeframes for the shift to renewables, the feasibility studies range from 2050 24 as mandated by the two-degree scenario, to 2030, 25 to an extremely ambitious Gore-esque transition as early as 2020. 26 The bad news is that we remain far from harnessing the full technological potential of power generation from renewable sources of energy. Current projections forecast that renewables will account for only 15% of American electricity generation by 2035. 27 Compared to a renewables share of 10% in 2010, 28 the projected growth over the next quarter of a century is relatively modest. Our business-as-usual trajectory, therefore, is too slow to reap the trifecta of environmental, economic, and energy security rewards that await the winner of the Race to Renewables. One U.S. commentator has already warned that, without a strong commitment to renewables, we may look toward a future of imported clean technology as a substitute for imported dirty fuels. 29 A whole plethora of obstacles presently stand in the way of a timely scale-up of renewable energy technologies. Economists have long warned of environmental externalities and other market failures and imperfections in the electricity sector that hinder renewables in their competition with fossil fuel incumbents. 30 Recent legal scholarship has investigated regulatory and other non-economic barriers to the large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies, offering policy recommendations to cut through the red tape. 31 Even if these barriers are removed, scaling-up renewable energy technologies will still require an enormous infusion of capital. At a macroeconomic level, the overall cost of transitioning to an electricity sector based on renewables has been estimated at around $100 trillion globally not including the necessary investments in transmission infrastructure. 32 Notwithstanding recent growth in venture capital and other clean-tech investment, the transition to a low-carbon, renewables-based electricity sector will require a massive influx of trillions of dollars in additional capital. 33 An investment of such magnitude, however, exceeds the financial means of even the wealthiest nationsincluding the United States, burdened with a national debt exceeding $15 trillion. 34 Budget austerity measures make it unlikely that military spending can provide renewable energy technologies with the type of capital injection that has helped other emerging technologies, such as the Internet or GPS, reach the stage of commercial application. 35 The private sector, therefore, is called upon to provide the capital necessary for the large-scale deployment of renewables. From the private sectors microeconomic perspective, investment in renewable energy technologies is wrought with risks and uncertainties about, for example, technology innovation, fuel price development, emission regulation and pricing, and the fiercely debated comparative advantage between centralized utility-scale generation and distributed generation. 36 The high-stakes, high-risk nature of energy investment is exacerbated by the notoriously long valley of death between the proof of concept and commercial deployment of power generation technologies. 37 In the information technology industry, a simple mouse click may be all it takes to bring a new website or smartphone application online for its large-scale commercial deployment. In contrast, electricity generation technology often requires up-front investment of hundreds of millions of dollars to prove its suitability for large-scale commercialization. It is in these early stages of commercial deployment, however, that banks and financial markets are the most reluctant to provide the direly needed capital, much less at low cost. This Article starts with the presumption that public policy should serve as a catalyst to leverage the necessary private sector investment to deploy renewable energy technologies at scale. Government Certainty keyTaylor 10 New York Times Writer and Editor (Phil, Interior to Speed New Offshore Wind Leasing in Mid-Atlantic) http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/23/23greenwire-interior-to-speed-new-offshore-wind-leasing-in-49108.html //Laura TThe American Wind Energy Association applauded Interior's move and said streamlined permitting would be essential for developers to tap vast renewable potential in federal waters. "Efforts to rationalize the multi-step permitting process for offshore wind projects are essential for Eastern states to be able to take advantage of this excellent resource," AWEA CEO Denise Bode said. "As the pipeline of projects begins to move forward more rapidly, the environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind, including manufacturing facilities and associated jobs, can be realized." Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), said the Interior plan would create much needed investment certainty for offshore wind developers, but that lawmakers must also extend production tax credits set to expire in 2012. "A major role of government is to provide a nurturing environment for job creation," he said, cautioning that offshore projects are not set to begin construction until 2014. "We need predictability and we need certainty," Carper said. "A wind production credit that ends in 2012 does us very little good." Interior's leasing announcement is welcome progress as the nation continues to cope with environmental accidents such as the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a major coal ash spill in Tennessee in 2008, said Bruce Nilles, deputy conservation director for the Sierra Club. "It's encouraging to see the Interior Department taking serious steps to further accelerate the rapid development of America's abundant clean energy resources," Nilles said. "The Atlantic Coast holds tremendous potential for the kind of large-scale clean energy projects that will create jobs, breathe new life into our economy and help make us a leader in the global clean energy marketplace."

Businesses avoid offshore wind investment uncertain outcomesHartland 03 (Nathanael, THE WIND AND THE WAVES: REGULATORY UNCERTAINTY AND OFFSHORE WIND POWER IN THE UNITED STATES AND UNITED KINGDOM) University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law. Lexius. //Laura TIt has been said that "the power to regulate can constitute the power to destroy."n196 But the experience of the offshore wind [*727] power industry in the United States and United Kingdom suggests that under-regulation and resultant regulatory uncertainty can prove every bit as devastating as over-regulation.n197 Regulatory uncertainty caused by under-regulation is one of the major economic costs of offshore wind power in the United States. As Warren G. Lavey has observed in the context of the telecommunications industry, regulatory uncertainty is a significant expense for many companies: Both regulated and unregulated businesses face uncertainties about factors such as market demand, technology changes, supply costs, and competitors' strategies. For businesses in regulated industries, uncertainty about future regulations can add to difficulties of companies in attracting capital and making investments in infrastructure, products, and services. Business plans are developed with long-term assumptions about a wide range of factors, some of which are heavily influenced by regulators. While regulators require or induce carriers to spend billions of dollars annually on networks and offerings, regulators also often preserve the flexibility of present and future commissioners to shape future regulations, which will determine in substantial part the carriers' returns on these investments. The business uncertainty for carriers resulting from such regulatory flexibility can impose costs on carriers in terms of less productive use of resources and lost opportunities.n198 Faced with uncertainty about future regulatory environments, companies often avoid risky, but potentially profitable and/or environmentally beneficial, investments.n199 [*728] Regulatory uncertainty is particularly problematic in the offshore wind energy industry because turbine design is site-specific. Turbines generally cannot be profitable without rotor and generator designs that are directed precisely at a specific environment.n200 Foundation designs are also site-sensitive. n201 Since developers of site-specific technology cannot be certain as to the location of their future offshore wind farms, they must investigate the characteristics of multiple sites while at the same time creating multiple turbine optimization plans. n202 Perhaps for this reason, the CLF has suggested that the absence of an administrative framework governing resources on the OCS "may create a disincentive to developing innovative renewable energy projects." n203Too much uncertainty for offshore wind investment Wasserman 13 - Judicial Law Clerk at Colorado Supreme Court (Emily, ILL HUFF AND ILL PUFF AND ILL BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN: THE ARGUMENT FOR THE ABILITY TO PURCHASE YOUR NEIGHBORS WIND) http://lawreview.colorado.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13.-Wasserman_For-Printer_s.pdf //Laura TState legislatures skhould create a right to wind that entitles the owner of a surface estate to a severable interest in the air that blows across the property. Under the common law, the owner of a fee simple estate has rights to the surface and the space above and below the surface.157 However, in most states, the extent of the right holders entitlement to use or obstruct the wind is uncertain.158 To eliminate this uncertainty, legislatures should grant the surface owner the right to whatever wind blows across the owners land as part of a fee simple estate. The owner of the fee simple estate could, therefore, choose to build structures that obstruct the flow of air (e.g., a turbine or large house) or, alternatively, could choose to sell the right to obstruct (or influence) the wind flow to another. When sold, the right to wind would operate as a negative easement, limiting the surface estate owners rights to use or obstruct the free flow of air across the land. For example, the owner of a fee simple estate could convey an interest in the wind to a downwind neighbor, reserving for himself the right to build a structure up to thirty feet high. Notably, this formulation of a wind right does not rely on either prior appropriation159 or the rule of capture.160 Rather, it relies on the market because it requires developers to buy upwind wind rights in order to protect their access to the unobstructed flow of wind.161 A state legislature considering establishing a property right in wind would not have to enact this legislation without any guidance. To date, eight states have passed laws that recognize a landowners real property interests in wind.162 In each of these states, the legislature recognized that a property owner may grant an easement to provide undisturbed access to the wind.163 Although the scope of the wind right granted in each of these states varies,164 all of the laws define the wind right as an interest in real property and specify that the purpose of the right is to allow a party to secure unobstructed access to the wind.165 None of the laws suggest establishing a prior appropriation or rule of capture framework for determining how much wind one is granted under the right. Thus, each rule implicitly sets up a regime where the wind right holder is only entitled to the wind that blows across the land and has no right to stop a neighbor from interfering with the flow of wind. In other words, unless a downwind party buys the wind rights from an upwind estate owner, the downwind wind rights holder has no right to the continued undisturbed flow of wind. The upwind wind rights holder may build structures that disrupt the flow of wind as long as the structures comply with local zoning laws. There are two important implications of defining the right to the wind flowing across ones land as a real property interest. First, the right validates the common law presumption that an owner possesses the rights from the heavens to the center of the earth.166 Thus, under this scheme, unless the owner conveys the right to another, the owner may obstruct or change the natural flow of the wind across the land by building structures such as buildings or turbines. Defining the right in this way preserves the status quo but provides the surface owner the opportunity to alter the status quo by severing the wind right from the surface estate. Second, recognizing wind rights establishes a system whereby the right to wind can be thought of as one of the sticks in the bundle of sticks that make up a property right.167 This is important because under traditional notions of property law, an owner has the ability to convey the various sticks separately.168 As was mentioned above, although the states that have created a property right to wind have all enacted similar definitions for what constitutes a wind right or wind easement, the scope of the right that a land owner can convey varies by state.169 Minnesota allows the owner of a fee to convey the wind right separate from the estate.170 Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota each forbid the grantee from severing the wind rights from the land and thus only allow granting an easement.171 South Dakota further limits a grantee by mandating that the easement automatically expires fifty years from the date of the grant.172 Because these laws are all relatively new, it is unclear what the effects of these various limits will be; however, intuitively, it seems that the more restrictions that the state places on the wind right, the less incentive there is for investment. The argument in favor of limiting the wind right to an easement rather than a severable estate is that granting a developer a wind estate could place too much of a burden on the surface estate owner.173 The proponents of this view argue that developing wind power has a significantly larger surface impact than developing oil and gas.174 As such, they contend that there is likely to be too much conflict between the owner of a severed wind estate and the owner of the surface estate (and potentially the owner of the mineral estate) regarding how much impact the wind estate is allowed to have on the surface when constructing and operating the turbines.175 This criticism of severability lacks merit. At the outset, the argument does not apply in a situation when a developer buys an upwind wind estate simply to protect the efficiency of the existing turbines. In this scenario, there is unlikely to be any significant conflict between the wind estate holder and the surface or mineral estate holder because the purpose of the purchase is to prevent development, not to build on the land. However, even if the wind estate is purchased in order to construct turbines on the underlying land, it still does not follow that severability would place an undue burden on the underlying surface and mineral estates. First, given that the easement is set up to accomplish essentially the same result as a fee transfer and there does not appear to be any legislation limiting the scope of the easement, it is unclear why these issues would only exist when the estate is severed and not when a developer only obtains an easement. Second, there does not appear to be any reason why this conflict cannot be resolved through contracting and the payment of consideration. For example, the wind estate could be sold as a servient estate to the mineral estate. This means that the mineral estate holder would be able to stop development of the wind estate that is incompatible with development of the mineral estate. Alternatively, if a wind developer does not want to purchase a servient estate, the developer should be able to pay more in order to obtain a right with fewer limitations regarding the developments surface impacts. Another potential argument against severability is that allowing parties to contract for wind rights could be unfair if a wind developer is more sophisticated than the land owner. For example, wind developers could act as wind squatters and buy wind rights without any specific intent to act on those rights. However, this argument lacks force. First, a similar argument could be made in the oil and gas context, and yet, severance of the mineral estate has been allowed for decades. Second, it is a basic principle of contract law that parties may contract freely and the court will not evaluate the merits of the deal as long as the contract is not unconscionable and the contracting process was fair.176 Third, the risk could be minimized through legislation that clearly defines how and to what extent wind rights can be transferred. For example, the law could require the contract to include certain limitations, such as a requirement that development of a wind turbine occur within five years. A law could also attempt to prevent future conflict by requiring that any contract that conveys wind rights address certain areas of potential conflict between the wind estate holder and the surface or mineral estate holders. Put differently, the law could require that each contract address what the wind estate holders rights are vis--vis the extent of surface use and relative to the surface and mineral estates. This tactic is already being used in South Dakota, where the law mandates that parties include certain terms in the contract.177 Similarly, Nebraska law requires that the agreement clarify the scope of the responsibilities and liabilities of each party.178 While there are many benefits to defining wind rights through legislation, even with clear laws, there will still be uncertainty and litigation over wind rights. Legislation recognizing a mineral estate owners right to oil and gas is nothing new; yet, the debate about the rights of the mineral estate owner vis--vis the surface estate owner or other mineral estate owners still exists. However, even though a legislative property right does not guarantee complete certainty about the security of developers investments, it provides more security than the current law (or lack thereof), which relies on post hoc judicial review to resolve disputes. Perhaps an early indicator of the benefit of this additional security is the fact that of the six states with the highest proportion of energy generated by wind, four have recognized property rights in wind.179

A2: Lopez CP

Strong federalism nowIstrate 12 - Senior research associate @ the Brookings Institute (Emilia) http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2012/09/06-economy-competitiveness-istrate) //Laura TFor the United States, the story from last year repeats itself. The United States lost another two spots in the competitiveness ranking, switching places with the Netherlands. There is a clear downward trend going on; the United States has been on the decline since the index was first released in 2005. As I explained in a previous piece, one of the main U.S. competitiveness problems is government effectiveness. In addition, the report explains that trust in politicians is not strong (54th), perhaps not surprising in light of recent political disputes that threaten to push the country back into recession through automatic spending cuts. The lack of macroeconomic stability does not help either. United States ranks among the worse in the world on this aspect 111thwithin the 144 countries studied.Hopefully, President Obama's speech tonight will deal with these issues. In the meantime, states and metro areas across the United States are not waiting on Washington, D.C. to improve their competitiveness. States and metropolitan areas are taking the lead in restructuring their economies, by bridging party lines and bringing companies and government together. As my colleague, Bruce Katz said, The genius of American federalism is that it diffuses power among different layers of government and across disparate sectors of society.[..] When the federal government becomes polarized and fails to act on critical issues of national importance, states and metros can step in to take on larger roles.Courts link to politicsMirengoff 10 - Attorney in Washington, D.C. A.B., Dartmouth College J.D., Stanford Law School, June 23 The Federalist Society Online Debate Series, http://www.fed-soc.org/debates/dbtid.41/default.asp //Laura TThe other thing I found interesting was the degree to which Democrats used the hearings to attack the "Roberts Court." I don't recall either party going this much on the offensive in this respect during the last three sets of hearings. What explains this development? My view is that liberal Democratic politicians (and members of their base) think they lost the argument during the last three confirmation battles. John Roberts and Samuel Alito "played" well, and Sonia Sotomayor sounded like a conservative. The resulting frustration probably induced the Democrats to be more aggressive in general and, in particular, to try to discredit Roberts and Alito by claiming they are not the jurists they appeared to be when they made such a good impression on the public. I'm pretty sure the strategy didn't work. First, as I said, these hearings seem not to have attracted much attention. Second, Senate Democrats are unpopular right now, so their attacks on members of a more popular institution are not likely to resonate. Third, those who watched until the bitter end saw Ed Whelan, Robert Alt and others persuasively counter the alleged examples of "judicial activism" by the Roberts Court relied upon by the Democrats -- e.g., the Ledbetter case, which the Democrats continue grossly to mischaracterize. There's a chance that the Democrats' latest partisan innovation will come back to haunt them. Justice Sotomayor and soon-to-be Justice Kagan are on record having articulated a traditional, fairly minimalist view of the role of judges. If a liberal majority were to emerge -- or even if the liberals prevail in a few high profile cases -- the charge of "deceptive testimony" could be turned against them. And if Barack Obama is still president at that time, he likely will receive some of the blame.Counterplan creates perception of uncertainty and inconsistencyFeere 9 (Jon; Legal Policy Analyst Center for Immigration Studies, Plenary Power: Should Judges Control U.S. Immigration Policy? http://cis.org/plenarypower, February) //Laura TAbout two months before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Supreme Court took a more active role in immigration regulation than it ever had before in Zadvydas v. INS, a case that some argue also signals the abandonment of the plenary power.72 To be sure, the Courts dissection of specific immigration statutes in this case as well as the dissection of the executive branchs enforcement of those statutes was an assault on the plenary power doctrine. But the holding was limited in scope and legislation that came about in the following months as a result of the 9/11 attacks assures a partial reinvigoration of the plenary power doctrine. Nevertheless, Zadvydas remains a vivid example of how invasive a court not recognizing the plenary power can be in the realm of immigration regulation. The case is also noteworthy for the fact that its encouragement of judicial intervention created confusion and conflicting rulings in the lower courts, the result of which is a seemingly inconsistent U.S. immigration policy.

A2: States CPState action cant solve warmingGlicksman and Levy 08 - Professors of Law at the University of Kansas (Robert and Richard, A COLLECTIVE ACTION PERSPECTIVE ON CEILING PREEMPTION BY FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION: THE CASE OF GLOBALCLIMATE CHANGE.) Northwestern University Law Review. Vol 102 No. 2. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/v102/n2/579/LR102n2Glicksman&Levy.pdf //Laura TWe also doubt that unilateral state regulation would so undermine the international bargaining position of the United States as to warrant a congressional decision to adopt express ceiling preemption. The United States is responsible for an estimated twenty to twenty-five percent of the worlds GHG emissions.204 An effective global solution to the climate change problem therefore depends on U.S. participation. As long as the United States refuses to unilaterally reduce its GHG emissions, the federal government can hold out U.S. participation in an international climate change regime as the carrot to induce other nations to make concessions. Theoretically, the decision by a state or group of states to require reductions before the EPA does so weakens the impact of the Presidents threat of continued noncooperation. But the defection of a state (even a large one such as Califor nia)205 or group of states from the united, antiregulatory front presented by the federal government is unlikely to put a significant dent in the clout that federal negotiators have in dealing with the environmental policymakers of foreign nations. Many other factors are likely to have a far more substantial impact on negotiations.206

A2: China CPChinas OFW is underdeveloped - failsMing 13 PhD of Economics and Management @ North China Electric Power University (Zeng, Overall review of China's wind power industry: Status quo, existing problems and perspective for future development) Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Science Direct. //Laura TThis study gives an overall review of China's wind power development in recent years. It can be found that China's wind power, on the one hand, has enjoyed a fast-developing period encouraged by government. On the other hands, a lot of problems have also arisen such as low grid access, operation problems, economic loss of power enterprises, etc. The underlying causes of these problems are analyzed in this paper. Furthermore, three typical regions in which those problems were well reflected are chosen to give a microscopic description of China's wind power development. There is no doubt that China's government need to adjust wind power development method. Given the over capacity of wind power in three-N region and the lagging development of interregional transmission lines, the future development method for wind power in China should be shifted from concentrated construction (at least slow the pace of wind farm investment in three-N region) to distributed development. Also transmission capacity need to be enhanced to relieve the pressure of over capacity regions.China cant solve grid codes, forecasting and storage, and grid coordination failLewis 12 PhD of Science Technology and International Affairs @ Georgetown University (Joanna, Chinas wind power industry: Policy support, technological achievements and emerging challenges) Science Direct. //Laura T Grid codes can cover the technical aspects of connections to and the operation and use of the transmission and distribution system. The grid companies in China should assess international grid codes and consider strengthening Chinas grid codes as needed. For example, ramp rate limits could be imposed, or the provision of frequency services required. In addition, the grid company could mandate that users provide data for use in wind forecasting. Technical standards should ensure that wind power integration is considered in the context of the expansion of the entire power system and not in isolation. Short-term forecasting tools can be better utilized in China in order to predict the output of wind power plants. The grid companies in China should work with the wind industry to obtain metrological and wind production data in order to improve the accuracy of wind forecasting in China. Such forecasting would allow for nearer-term scheduling and committing of units to reflect changes in forecasted wind production. Storage technologies can provide one means of balancing the fluctuation of wind power to maintain grid stability. In addition to more traditional storage technologies such as pumped storage and compressed air storage, research efforts could be intensified in advanced storage and battery technologies. Chinas regional power grids are not well interconnected and cannot currently support the large-scale transmission of wind power across long distances. In order to better make use of the excellent wind resources located in the remote northern and western regions in China that are far from demand centers, stronger interconnections should be developed to allow for the balancing of large amounts of wind power over a larger grid area. In addition, power operations between provinces could be consolidates to allow for better interprovincial planning in grid operations. Diversifying the location and types of renewable energy generation has been shows to reduce overall integration costs (Cochran et al., 2012), but this requires the ability to incorporate such diversity within a balancing area, which in the case of China would require stronger inter-regional interconnections.

SolvencyFederal tax credit key to successful offshore wind currently not sufficient Sims 13 Director of Strategy and Finance, Center for Market Innovation at Natural Resources Defense Council, Studied at Harvard (Douglass, Fulfilling the Promise of U.S. Offshore Wind: Targeted State Investment Policies to Put an Abundant Renewable Resource within Reach) Center for Market Innovation. NRDC. http://www.nrdc.org/business/files/offshore-wind-investment.pdf //Laura TFederal incentives in the form of tax credits and accelerated depreciation are a vital part of creating these conditions, and the recent extension of these benefits by Congress is welcome news.7 But federal support, while necessary, has so far not been sufficient. For investment to flow to the offshore wind sector, states also must implement policies that ensure that projects have: (1) certainty that they will receive sufficient revenues for the energy, capacity, and other attributes they generate, and (2) sufficient access to affordable debt capital at a time when the capacity of private sector banks to fund large projects is limited. Case ExtensionsOSW solves the economy and warmingMusial and Ram 10 - *Manager Offshore Wind and Ocean Power Systems at National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Test Engineer at KENETECH Windpower, Wind Turbine Test Engineer at Energy Sciences Incorporated (ESI) and **Senior Researcher at Danish Technical University (Walter and Bonnie, Large-Scale Offshore Wind Power in the United States ASSESSMENT OF OPPORTUNITIES AND BARRIERS) NREL. http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/40745.pdf //Laura TIn common with other clean, renewable, domestic sources of energy, offshore wind power can help to build a diversified and geographically distributed U.S. energy mix, offering security against many energy supply emergencieswhether natural or man-made. Wind power also emits no carbon dioxide (CO2) or other harmful emissions that contribute to climate change, ground-level pollution, or public health issues. The United States offshore wind energy resources can significantly increase the wind industrys contribution to the nations clean energy portfolio. The United States is fortunate to possess a large and accessible offshore wind energy resource. Wind speeds tend to increase significantly with distance from land, so offshore wind resources can generate more electricity than wind resources at adjacent land-based sites. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that U.S. offshore winds have a gross potential generating capacity four times greater than the nations present electric capacity. While this estimate does not consider siting constraints and stakeholder inputs, it clearly indicates that the U.S. offshore wind capacity is not limited by the magnitude of the resource. Achieve 20% of its electricity from wind by 2030. In assessing the potential for supplying 20% of U.S. electricity from wind energy by 2030, NRELs least-cost optimization model found that 54 gigawatts (GW)1 Achieving 20% wind would provide significant benefits to the nation, such as increased energy security, reduced air and water pollution, and the stimulation of the domestic economy. Revitalize its manufacturing sector. Building 54 GW of offshore wind energy facilities would generate an estimated $200 billion in new economic activity and create more than 43,000 permanent, well-paid technical jobs in manufacturing, construction, engineering, operations and maintenance. Extrapolating from European studies, NREL estimates that offshore wind will create more than 20 direct jobs for every megawatt produced in the United States. Provide clean power to its coastal demand centers. High winds abound just off the coasts of 26 states. More specifically, suitable wind resources exist near large urban areas where power demand is steadily growing, electric rates are high, and space for new, land-based generation and transmission facilities is severely limited. These characteristics provide favorable market opportunities for offshore wind to compete effectively in coastal regions