Repurposed Energy

“Climate-induced wildfires, weather extremes, droughts, and floods add urgency to the project of accelerating the clean energy transition from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy infrastructure. Yet the hurdles to accomplishing such a massive industrial-scale transition are daunting. Indeed, large renewable energy generation projects regularly face denials or project-killing delays across the United States. Klass’ talk will be based on her article that proposes a national policy of “repurposed energy” to channel the bulk of new clean energy projects to abandoned coal mines, retired coal plants, closed landfills, and other underutilized or abandoned urban and rural contaminated properties known as “brownfields,” as well as marginal farmland.
Repurposed energy addresses two core problems in the communities slated to host new clean energy generation projects like wind farms and solar plants. Developers predominantly pursue clean energy projects in rural and post-industrial communities, where available land is more plentiful but climate change denial and opposition to clean energy projects are often strongest. Yet many of these communities also have flagging economies, underutilized infrastructure, and abandoned lands previously used for energy resource extraction or industrial activities. Prioritizing such lands for clean energy projects addresses the dual problems of clean energy opposition and economic decline, and it comes at a perfect moment. The massive infusion of federal money from the recent federal infrastructure and climate bills can make repurposed energy a reality.”
Alexandra Klass is the James G. Degnan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She teaches and writes primarily in the areas of energy law, environmental law, and natural resources law. In 2022 and 2023, she served in the Biden-Harris administration as Deputy General Counsel for Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Demonstrations at the U.S. Department of Energy. Klass’s recent scholarly work, published in many of the nation’s leading law journals, addresses regulatory and permitting challenges to integrating more renewable energy into the nation’s electric transmission grid, siting and eminent domain issues surrounding interstate electric transmission lines and oil and gas pipelines, and applications of the public trust doctrine to modern environmental law challenges. She is a co-author of Energy Law: Concepts and Insights Series (Foundation Press, 2d ed. 2020), Energy Law and Policy (West Academic Publishing, 3d ed. 2022), and Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases (Wolters Kluwer, 5th ed. 2022). Before joining the Michigan Law faculty in 2022, Professor Klass was a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she was a member of the faculty from 2006 to 2022. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Uppsala University (Sweden), and the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law. Prior to her academic career, Professor Klass was a partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis, where she specialized in environmental law and land use litigation.