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Boulder researcher gets legal fees after dustup about 100% renewables

A Colorado energy researcher stands to get $75,000 after a legal dustup about how rapidly the United States can achieve a 100% renewable energy grid.

Boulder-based Christopher Clack, founder of Vibrant Clean Energy, will recover his legal costs and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, or PNAS, is to get $535,000 as per a court order from a District of Columbia Superior Court judge, according to Retraction Watch.

The decision was rendered in April.

Mark Jacobson, the Stanford researcher who had originally filed litigation, asked for $10 million in damages from Clack and PNAS as well as an apology, appealed the decision, but the judge reaffirmed her decision in late June.

What was it all about?

In 2017, the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney explained that the dispute “turns on Jacobson’s idea, itself published in the PNAS and other journals, that it is feasible to construct a grid for the entire country that would be powered entirely by wind, solar and water energy (hydropower), with additional help from forms of energy storage. ‘No natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed,’ Jacobson and his colleagues wrote in 2015.”

In 2017, Clack argued in the same publication, PNAS, that Jacobson’s idea was not only infeasible but also that his work used “invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions.” He and his co-authors said the transition toward cleaner energy will require “a broad portfolio of energy options,” which presumably includes nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, and more.

Claims of errors in modeling was at the heart of the disagreement. That, in turn, revolved a dispute over how much U.S. electricity could be provided by hydropower and how much the current system of dams can be altered to increase their electricity-generating capacity.

Jacobson sued, but the next year dropped the lawsuit. However, he did not drop his argument, as GreenTechMedia reported at the time.

This is from the July 23, 2020, issue of Big Pivots. Subscribe for free the e-magazine by going to Big Pivots.

 

Allen Best
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