February 20
@
12:00 PM
–
1:30 PM
Thursday, February 20 | 12:00pm
Engineering Hall 1610
Speaker: Tara Righetti, University of Wyoming
Title: Climate, Clean Energy, and the Social Contract
Abstract: Advanced Nuclear and CCUS feature prominently in the U.S. plans for net-zero energy and industry and will become increasingly important with expanding energy demand. Despite their potential contributions to commercial scale decarbonization, however, they are each subject to extensive and time consuming federal regulatory programs which advocates of these technologies argue pose a major barrier to deployment. The rigor of these programs reflects the sentiment that the magnitude of potential societal and environmental harms–however however small the probability–outweigh the need for expediency in climate action. At the same time, the Trump Administration has called for emergency permitting authority for energy projects. With dueling calls for greater efficiency in permitting and communities fervently opposing strong-handed approaches to infrastructure development, clean-industry technologies are at a crossroads. Moving forward requires consideration about how we evaluate and allocate risk — questions that are central to the social contract between the people and places that produce energy and those that consume it. This talk contemplates these factors in light of the shifting energy policy priorities of the new administration.
Bio: Tara Righetti is the Occidental Chair of Energy and Environmental Policies at the University of Wyoming, the co-director of the Nuclear Energy Research Center, and the director of the Jurisprudence of Underground Law and Energy (JOULE) research group. Her research focuses on property and administrative law issues associated with decarbonization and development of the energy and industrial sectors.
This seminar is presented by the Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics Department and the University of Wisconsin Law School, in collaboration with the Clean Energy Community Initiative and the Grainger Institute for Engineering
Remote Participation is available through Zoom: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/99289578680?pwd=bfjncw7j7oDINCZgUcuFbpo5IL4t2E.1