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Tulane Center for Energy Law
Current Projects
Theory of “Energy Law”
The Tulane Center for Energy Law is participating in international efforts to develop a more fundamental understanding of what constitutes “energy law” entails and what “energy law” as an academic discipline is.
A study published in 2018 aims first to develop a view of what constitutes energy law—and to make this accessible to both law and non-law energy scholars. The second objective is to advance a set of core principles that guide energy law, in essence a treatise for energy law.
Kim Talus and Moritz Wustenberg, International Governance of Energy Security, in The Routledge Handbook of Energy Security, 2nd edition, Roman Sidortsov & Tony Reames eds., forthcoming in 2021.
Raphael J Heffron, Anita Rønne, Joseph P Tomain, Adrian Bradbrook & Kim Talus, A Treatise for Energy Law, 11 Journal of World Energy Law & Business 1 (2018). The study can be downloaded (free) at: https://academic.oup.com/jwelb/article/11/1/34/4792991
Kim Talus & Raphael Heffron, The Evolution of Energy Law and Energy Jurisprudence: Insights for Energy Analysts and Researchers, 19 Energy Research & Social Science 1-10 (2016).
More studies in this important and highly topical area of legal scholarship are expected.
Liquidity of international LNG markets
Led by the emergence of unconventional gas resources and exploding LNG trade, international natural gas markets are experiencing a major transition from the old national or regional pipeline world into an international LNG world. Global trade in LNG is becoming soon more significant than pipeline based natural gas trade. Gas markets are also becoming competitive. The old world of long-term contracts with destination clauses and oil price indexation start to be a phenomenon of the past. Today’s markets are increasingly flexible and short-term. Contractual models and market regulation need to adapt.
The Tulane Center for Energy Law is contributing to the ongoing international efforts to ensure that the international liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets develop towards increasing liquidity. The work of the Center consists of examining contractual provisions that facilitate or hamper this development. Such clauses include duration of the LNG sale and purchase contracts, buyers ability to divert LNG cargoes to alternative destinations, profit-sharing clauses, etc.
Professor Kim Talus participated in an ongoing project initiated by European Commission and Japanese Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry, with a series of workshops intended to foster the development of a global transparent, reliable and liquid LNG market. In the frame of this project, the work of an expert group was supported, resulting in a model diversion clause. Kim Talus drafted the model clause, assisted by the other members of the expert group.
The model diversion clause for LNG sale and purchase agreement is available here.
Kim Talus, 'Price review arbitration in the Asian LNG markets - 'The times they are a-changin'', Journal of World Enerhy Law and Business (2021) 1.
Kim Talus, Scott Looper and Luke Burns, 'Long-term take-or-pay agreements in natural gas: past, present and future' Oil, Gas and Energy Law (OGEL) 3 (2020).
Kim Talus, Joint purchases of US LNG by European consortiums – potential antitrust issues, 9 Journal of World Energy Law & Business 5, 437-45 (2016).
Moritz Wustenberg, Kim Talus & Ron D. Ripple, A False Dichotomy Between LNG and Natural Gas? A Comment on Recent Practises at the World Trade Organisation, Oil, Gas and Energy Law (OGEL) (2018).
Kim Talus, Contribution of law and lawyers to LNG market developments: model diversion clause for LNG sale and purchase contracts, Oil, Gas and Energy Law (OGEL) (2018).
Promotion of renewable energy through market-based support instruments and renewable energy grid integration
Until recently, energy markets alone have not proven to be able to raise the share of renewable energy to the desired level — often set by national or supranational objectives — and therefore different policy tools, such as renewable energy support schemes, have been adopted in order to overcome the present market failure. Studies have focused on the different policies adopted to support the deployment of renewable energy, and in particular analyzing the transition to more market-based subsidy policies along with the maturing renewable energy markets. In addition, the most recent studies focus on renewable energy grid integration and related policy and legislative developments. These include, e.g.,
Juha Koskela, Sirja-Leena Penttinen et al., 'The role of back-up solutions and energy storage for management of a system with a high amount of intermittent renewable power' in P. Aalto (ed.), Electrification: Accelerated Transition to Climate Neutrality (Elsevier 2021, forthcoming)
Sirja-Leena Penttinen, 'Regulatory and policy approaches to promote decarbonisation in the energy sector' in L. Reins and J. M. Verschuuren, Research Handbook on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (Edward Elgar 2021, forthcoming).
Sirja-Leena Penttinen and Leonie Reins, 'Adapting the Current Market Rules to New Market Realities: Renewable energy grid integration in the EU', in T. Oyewunmi et al., Decarbonisation and the Energy Industry: Law, Policy and Regulation in Low-Carbon Energy Markets (Hart Publishing 2020), pp. 263-282.
Sirja-Leena Penttinen, Free Movement and the Energy Sector in the European Union: The Role of the European Court of Justice (Routledge 2020).
Sirja-Leena Penttinen, The gradual hardening of soft law: The renewable energy support schemes and the renewable energy directive under revision, 22(2) Utilities L. Rev. (2018).
Sirja-Leena Penttinen, The First Examples of Designing the National Renewable Energy Support Schemes under the Revised EU State Aid Guidelines, 37(2) European Competition Law Review 77 - 83 (2016).
Sirja-Leena Penttinen, The Next Chapter in the Saga of Renewable Energy Support Schemes: Still 'a Certain Degree of Mystery' after Essent Belgium II, 42(1) European L. Rev. 106-19 (2018). Also published in European Current Law.
Multinational spent nuclear fuel repository
The Tulane Center for Energy Law is also involved in legal and regulatory aspects of the multinational storage of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste. This is a topic of growing interest internationally as the global volume of spent nuclear fuel continues to grow and options for the medium-term storage and long-term disposal of these materials seem at times to be frozen in place. Our first study on the topic is available below; our involvement in international developments in this area continues and more studies are being carried out.
Rebecca Lordan-Perreta, Robert D. Sloan and Robert Rosnerc, 'Decommissioning the U.S. Nuclear Fleet: Financial Assurance, Corporate Structures, and Bankruptcy,' (submitted, forthcoming).
Robert D. Sloan, "Multinational Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Other High-Level Nuclear Waste: A Roadmap for Moving Forward," American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA (2017).
Security and Reliability of Energy Supply in Low-carbon and Transitional Energy Markets
Tulane Center for Energy Law is hosting the project by visiting research fellow Tade Oyewunmi. This project builds on the earlier works of both Oyewunmi and the Center, which considered the role of energy law and regulatory institutions in enhancing the competitiveness of gas supply for energy uses. The project takes a holistic approach to examine the implications of the increasing role of renewable energy and technological solutions developed by industry operators and stakeholders to address the problems of carbon and methane emissions.
Kim Talus and Eric Smith, 'Hydrogen in the United States - Developmental Perspective', Oil, Gas and Energy Law (OGEL), 2 (2021).
Kim Talus, 'Taxonomy Regulation, Principle of Technological Neutrality and Delegated Acts - Does the Draft Screening Regulation Comply with EU Law Requirements?' Oil, Gas and Energy Law (OGEL) (2020).
Tade Oyewunmi, Penelope Crossley, Federik Gilles Sourgens & Kim Talus, Decarbonisation and the Energy Industry: Law, Policy and Regulation in Low-Carbon Energy Markets (Hart Publishing 2020).
Sirja-Leena Penttinen & L. Reins, Adapting the Current Market Rules to New Market Realities: Renewable Energy Grid Integration in the EU, in T. Oyewunmi, P. Crossley, F. Sourgens & K. Talus, Decarbonisation and the Energy Industry: Law, Policy and Regulation in Low-Carbon Energy Markets (Hart Publishing 2020).
Sirja-Leena Penttinen & Leonie Reins, System Boundaries of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings in the European Union - Rethinking the Legal Framework for Active Consumer Participation, 37 Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law (2019).
Tade Oyewunmi, Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence (OGEL) Special Issue on "Energy Law and Regulation in Low-carbon and Transitional Energy Markets" (with Raphael J. Heffron, Penelope Crossley)
An excerpt and editorial are available here
Tade Oyewunmi, Natural gas in Nigeria and Tanzania: Can it turn on lights? Oxford Energy Forum - Electrifying Africa – Issue 115, September 2018, (with Rahmatallah Poudineh)