Renewable Portfolio Standards and the Dormant Commerce Clause: The Case for In-Region Location Requirements

Electricity generation facilities are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Although renewable generation facilities offer a cleaner alternative to traditional, carbon-intensive methods of electricity generation, output from renewable facilities is less reliable and more costly relative to facilities that burn fossil fuels. Therefore, in an unfettered marketplace, investment in renewable energy facilities would be slow if not stagnant. In response to concerns regarding anthropogenic climate change and fuel diversity, an increasing number of state governments have implemented statutory and regulatory regimes to incentivize the construction of renewable generation facilities within state or regional borders. These programs run the risk of violating the dormant Commerce Clause because they provide for differential treatment of electricity based, at least in part, upon the commodity’s geographic origin. This Note argues that state programs that condition benefits upon the in-region location of a renewable generation facility or physical delivery of electricity from a facility in a neighboring region can survive scrutiny under the dormant Commerce Clause

Composite transport wing technology development: Design development tests and advanced structural concepts

Numerous design concepts, materials, and manufacturing methods were investigated for the covers and spars of a transport box wing. Cover panels and spar segments were fabricated and tested to verify the structural integrity of design concepts and fabrication techniques. Compression tests on stiffened panels demonstrated the ability of graphite/epoxy wing upper cover designs to achieve a 35 percent weight savings compared to the aluminum baseline. The impact damage tolerance of the designs and materials used for these panels limits the allowable compression strain and therefore the maximum achievable weight savings. Bending and shear tests on various spar designs verified an average weight savings of 37 percent compared to the aluminum baseline. Impact damage to spar webs did not significantly degrade structural performance. Predictions of spar web shear instability correlated well with measured performance. The structural integrity of spars manufactured by filament winding equalled or exceeded those fabricated by hand lay-up. The information obtained will be applied to the design, fabrication, and test of a full-scale section of a wing box. When completed, the tests on the technology integration box beam will demonstrate the structural integrity of an advanced composite wing design which is 25 percent lighter than the metal baseline

NEPA and the Roan Plateau: Forcing the Bureau of Land Management to Take a Hard Look

In 2007, the Bureau of Land Management adopted a resource management plan that essentially made all public land within the Roan Plateau Planning Area available for leasing to private oil and gas entities. Environmental groups alleged that the BLM, in adopting the plan, failed to satisfy the National Environmental Policy Act’s procedural requirements. In Colorado Environmental Coalition v. Salazar, the district court held that the BLM violated NEPA by failing to adequately consider the plan’s cumulative air quality effects. On remand, the court did not offer the agency any instructions in curing the procedural deficiency. The court’s lack of guidance on remand is consistent with the Tenth Circuit’s refusal to equate NEPA’s procedural requirements with the production of hard data. This Comment argues that the Ninth Circuit’s application of NEPA better promotes the Act’s underlying policies of public awareness and informed decisionmaking without imposing an undue burden on federal agencies

Practical Application of Principle-Agent and Auction Theory: A Contracting Guide

Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra

Practical Application of Principle-Agent and Auction Theory: A Contracting Guide

Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra

Theoretical Considerations for Geosynchronous, Earth-Based Gravity Wave Interferometer

We investigated theoretical considerations in the design of an Earth-based laser interferometer for detecting gravitational waves. Our design envisages a ground-based tracking station in communication with two geosynchronous satellites. We assumed linearized gravitational waves in a Schwarzschild spacetime geometry outside the Earth. Our initial calculations show that such a design is sufficiently sensitive to successfully detect gravitational waves near Earth

A Functional Ecological Comparison of three Sponge Species from the Lower Florida Keys

The shallow, tidal flats off the islands of the lower Florida Keys represent a harsh environment for sessile marine invertebrates. This habitat is home to three taxonomically distinct sponge species that share similar rope morphologies: Cliona varians forma varians, Ircinia variabilis, and Neopetrosia subtriangularis. Despite sharing a habitat, these three species differ in their symbiont regime, with C. varians hosting dinoflagellate photosymbionts, and I. variabilis and N. subtriangularis hosting cyanobacterial photosymbionts. We conducted experiments to measure other ecological differences between these species. The sponges were all assayed for pumping rates using dye-video analysis and tissue samples were taken to compare the composition and functional genes of their microbiomes. The results indicated that N. subtriangularis had a significantly higher pumping rate than the other species. The microbiomes of the species varied, and the microbiome functional gene screening provided evidence that C. varians forma varians hosts nitrogen fixing bacteria, that I. variabilis hosts methane metabolizing bacteria, and that N. subtriangularis hosts nitric oxide reducing bacteria. More work is currently underway to examine the metabolism of these sponges, giving us insight into the unique ecology of this harsh habitat

Ideas of Nietzshe in the works of Sudermann and Hauptmann

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1913. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive