Stories for Novem ber
Students Gain Experience with Energy Challenges in Emerging Markets through Competition
A dozen student teams came to Duke University on November 5 for the finals of the Energy in Emerging Markets Case Competition to pitch solutions to one of the biggest energy challenges faced in Nigeria—poor reliability in urban areas.

Now in its seventh year, the competition is sponsored by the Duke Energy Access Project and marks one of the highlights of Energy Week at Duke. A team from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley took the $10,000 top prize, making Berkeley the first repeat winner in the competition’s history. In another first, a Duke team landed on the winners podium, finishing second overall.
Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum Report Explores Policy Innovations to Ensure Water Quality for the 21st Century
The Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program in partnership with the Nicholas Institute announced the release of the summary report from the 2019 Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum: Ensuring Water Quality: Innovating on the Clean Water & Safe Drinking Water Acts for the 21st Century.

This year's forum, held in May, explored the concept of innovating the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts for the 21st century and the ideas that undergird these two acts, their successes, shortcomings, and unintended consequences. The central question was: How can innovation and regulation at local, state, and federal levels address chronic and emerging water quality challenges across the U.S.?
Simulation Gives Students First Experience with Carbon Market
On a September evening at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, 50 students got their first exposure to a carbon market.

Josh Margolis, managing director of environmental markets at the Environmental Defense Fund, led teams of two or three students through an interactive simulation of a carbon market—or emissions trading system—using EDF’s CarbonSim tool. The event was cosponsored by the Duke University Energy Initiative, the Nicholas Institute, and Fuqua's Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment.
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Electric vehicles (EVs) represent a new source of electricity demand and their market share is expanding at a fast pace. Over the next several decades, these vehicles may well become a driving force in the economy with the potential to significantly increase total electricity requirements in the United States—at a time when more traditional sources of demand in aggregate are expected to grow less than one percent a year. How electricity is generated for these vehicles will, to a large degree, determine their net emissions benefits and their value in meeting any long-term climate and environmental goals.

These vehicles are entering the marketplace at a time when the electricity industry is already transforming rapidly because of changes in fuel prices, environmental regulations, and declines in the costs of renewables. The last decade has seen substantial coal-plant retirements, nuclear plants on the edge of profitability, cheap natural gas from shale fields, and the construction of many new gas combined-cycle (NGCC) and wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) plants. In this shifting environment, focusing on today’s generation mix is not particularly useful when estimating the emissions benefits of electric vehicles.


In late 1999, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directed all public utilities owning transmission to consider joining or creating a Regional Transmission Organization, to facilitate planning and use over a larger geographic footprint. This was part of a larger effort by FERC to open up transmission lines to use by third parties and enable more competition in electricity supply. This case study lays out the four Southern proposals submitted to FERC and chronicles how this directive played out in the South. In a sidebar, the case study also describes the retail competition vision being explored in North Carolina during the same time period. While the Southern Grids did not launch, the GridSouth (in the Carolinas) and the GridFlorida proposals reflect a concerted effort by the participating utilities to explore market creation, as well sustained engagement and some support by regulators and stakeholders. There may be lessons to learn from this process, in today’s debates over regional competition.
 
The Southern Grids is one case study in a series that the Nicholas Institute is publishing as part of the Institute’s analysis of competitive options for the Southeastern electric power sector. The case studies, and other analysis, is intended to inform ongoing discussions in multiple Southern states about the future of the electricity sector.


This policy brief looks at the likely electricity demand from projections of personal electric vehicle uptake in the United States, and then suggests power sector policies to ensure reductions in air pollution from this sector even while demand increases from transportation.

Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions & Aspen Institute

The 2019  Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum  explored the concept of innovating the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts for the 21st Century and the ideas that undergird these two acts, their successes, shortcomings, and unintended consequences. The central question was how can innovation and regulation at local, state, and federal levels address chronic and emerging water quality challenges across the U.S.?
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