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By Fiona Harvey

Greg Barker, the conservative energy and climate minister, has championed the idea that more of our energy should be decentralized and low-carbon.

With “sufficient financial rigour, affordable expansion [of local energy schemes] is achievable," he says. “We can build the Big Sixty Thousand.”

The prize, he believes, will be “growth, jobs, economic resilience, unprecedented consumer choice and a cleaner, safer environment–and energy security.” But signs of the ‘Big Sixty Thousand’ taking over the energy reins are still hard to find. Communities represent “a largely untapped source of renewable energy investment," says James Beard of the Renewable Energy Association. Could greater awareness of the benefits tip the scales?

This is the aim of the Community Energy Coalition, a group of 30-plus influential and trusted civic society organizations with a shared vision of community energy at scale in the U.K., by 2020. In 2013, the coalition–whose members include The Co-operative, the National Trust and the Church of England, convened by Forum for the Future–ran the first Community Energy Fortnight to encourage groups to set up their own projects. Giles Bristow, director of programs at Forum for the Future, says, “The value of visible support for community energy from known and trusted organizations can’t be underestimated. With a collective reach of over 16 million members, the coalition’s ability to raise awareness of the potential is vast.”

One of the most active regions in the U.K., with excellent solar resources as well as wind, hydroelectricity and the potential for marine energy, is the southwest. There, the sustainable energy center Regen SW supports 179 community projects, including the Bath and West Community Energy group, which has raised more than $3.3 million (£2 million) in share offers and installed a range of solar products. Chief Executive Merlin Hyman reports “a huge amount of interest in community energy, and some excellent initiatives." But, he warns, people must be prepared for hard slog: “Most communities find it takes a great deal of time and effort.”

One hurdle is funding. A useful source is the government’s $25 million (£15 million) Rural Community Energy Fund. This works in two stages, making available up to $33,000 for an initial investigation into feasibility, after which qualifying projects can receive up to $217,000 to support planning applications and develop a robust business case to attract private sector investment.

Private funding is also available, from mission-led organisations such as Good Energy and Triodos Bank, and increasingly from social impact investment funds, which aim to create returns for communities beyond the balance sheet. For instance, Resonance manages a community share underwriting fund which provides match-funding for projects of up to $1.6 million (£1 million). In November 2013, it supported the launch of Leicestershire, England’s first community energy share offer, which will enable John Cleveland College to install a renewable woodfuel heating system. This will significantly reduce energy costs for the college, support the market for local wood fuel and give students first-hand experience of low-carbon technologies.

Daniel Brewer, founding director of Resonance, says:

“There is significant opportunity to generate meaningful amounts of energy at a community level: more than individual households could achieve, and yet not enough for major energy companies to afford to spend time on. Underwriting community shares can turn a bunch of volunteers into a viable business, allowing people to invest directly in their own communities, and bypassing the need to get caught up in the opaque mainstream financial system. It’s a catalyst for giving power and autonomy to communities, whatever they want to do–whether that’s more woodfuel heating, or insulating the homes of older people.”

Another interesting new development is the advent of crowdfunding, whereby thousands of people contribute a small amount–from a few tens or hundreds of pounds to a few thousand each–to get projects off the ground, and then share in the revenues when they arrive. Julia Groves, managing director of Trillion Fund, and chair of the UK Crowdfunding Association, says:

“Crowdfunding is expanding the community of investors from neighborhoods to nationwide. Whereas, to date, local community projects have tended to raise less than £1 million, crowdfunding has the potential to fund larger scale renewable sources of energy to rival generation from traditional coal- and gas-fired power plants.”

Money isn’t the only measures of success. For Peter Spark, an energy entrepreneur, there are advantages well beyond the commercial: “Community energy brings people from all walks of life together, working towards a common goal that makes a real difference to their local area.”

Image credit: Adrian Arbib

Fiona Harvey is the environment correspondent for The Guardian.

More information: ukcec.org

Barely three years ago, the Obama administration launched the SunShot Initiative, an ambitious effort to transform solar power from an exotic, expensive form of energy into a mainstream fuel that can compete on price with petroleum, coal, and natural gas. In the latest development for low-cost solar power, last week Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced that the program is already 60 percent of the way toward its goal of bringing the average price for a utility-scale solar power plant down to the target price of six cents per kilowatt-hour.

In raw numbers, that's a steep slide from an average of 21 cents in 2010 to only 11 cents by the end of 2013. That's now less than the average price of electricity in the U.S., which is about 12 cents per kWh, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The trend toward low-cost solar power is nowhere near at an end. The new announcement came with word of yet another SunShot initiative that will help bring the cost of solar power down even more in the coming years: A $25 million funding package for innovative technologies that focuses on manufacturing costs.

$25 million for solar power innovation

The SunShot initiative attacks the cost of solar power from all angles. One focus is on high-tech R&D that aims to make photovoltaic cells and other forms of solar energy harvesting more efficient. Another addresses the "soft costs" involved in installing solar equipment, including permits, administrative costs and labor.

A third area, which the new $25 million funding package is focused on, aims at bringing down the cost of manufacturing solar equipment, in addition to reducing the time and expense involved in installing that equipment.

That will mean, for example, the development of new modular systems that can be manufactured, shipped and set up with minimum expense, which translates into increased automation at both the production and installation ends.

The focus on manufacturing for low-cost solar power dovetails with several other Obama administration initiatives related to clean energy and energy efficiency, including a $7 million round of funding that will help lower the cost of LED lighting and a rather intriguing mashup between the Defense Department and the maker movement's TechShop.

Low-cost solar power up, fossil fuels on the way out

The Moniz announcement coincided with the official dedication of the massive new Ivanpah concentrating solar power plant in California. Another new utility-scale solar project, Crescent Dunes in Nevada, was recently completed and passed a major milestone last week on its pathway to full commissioning.

The two projects are significant not only because of their size, but also because they represent another critical area of competition for the U.S. energy sector, and that is the ability to compete in global markets. Both of the projects represent next-generation solar technologies.

Ivanpah is the largest solar power plant of its kind in the world. It consists of three units, each of which concentrates solar energy from a field of specialized mirrors called heliostats onto a central tower, where it heats a solution of molten salt. The heated molten salt provides thermal energy to produce steam for running a generator, employing an advanced process that uses 95 percent less water than similar solar power plants.

Crescent Dunes also runs its generators on heated molten salt, with solar energy concentrated by heliostats. In this project, the molten salt also serves double duty as a "salt battery," storing thermal energy for about six hours. That means the plant can continue to generate electricity long after the sun goes down.

Together, these two plants will provide enough electricity for thousands of homes, without ever needing to dig raw feedstock out of the ground.

As with any large piece of infrastructure, solar plants (and wind farms, for that matter) are not impact-free, but once they are in the ground they are free of impacts related to fuel harvesting and, for that matter, transportation. They are also free of impacts from byproduct disposal, such as coal ash and petcoke.

Contrast that with the steady stream of disasters related to the fossil fuel lifecycle just within the last few weeks, including the coal-washing chemical spill and the coal slurry spill in West Virginia, the North Carolina coal ash spill (which appears to involve a second pipe now), and the Kentucky gas pipeline explosion, and you've got a picture of a fossil fuel infrastructure bent to the breaking point.

Image: Crescent Dunes concentrating solar power plant courtesy of SolarReserve

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Lockheed Martin has hooked up with Australia’s Victorian Wave Partners LLC to begin the development of what’s billed as the world’s largest wave energy project.

The 62.5-megawatt peak power wave energy generation project will be built off the coast of Victoria, Australia, using the PowerBuoy wave energy converter technology of Ocean Power Technologies (OPT).

Project construction will occur in three stages, with the first stage producing approximately 2.5-megawatt peak power. Once completed, the project is expected to produce enough electricity to power 10,000 homes. Because it also contributes to Australia’s goal of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, the project is getting “significant grant support” from ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency).

Wave power devices extract energy from the surface motion of ocean waves. Unlike wind and solar sources, energy from ocean waves is highly predictable, plus it can generate electricity for more hours in the year than wind and solar. Wave power devices are typically quieter and much less visually obtrusive than wind turbines, which typically run more than 130 feet in height. The PowerBuoy system is 30 feet in height above the waterline and actually is barely visible because it typically is located three miles offshore.

“We are applying our design and system integration expertise to commercialize promising, emerging alternative energy technologies, including ocean power,” said Tim Fuhr, director of ocean energy for Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems and Training business. “This project extends our established relationship with OPT and Australian industry and enables us to demonstrate a clean, efficient energy source for Australia and the world.”

In this project, Lockheed Martin will provide overall project management, assist with the design for manufacturing of the PowerBuoy technology, lead the production of selected PowerBuoy components and perform system integration of the wave energy converters. Financial details of Lockheed’s investment in the project were not disclosed.

Victorian Wave Partners is an Australian special purpose company owned by OPT, a leader in wave energy technology development. The company’s PowerBuoy wave generation technology uses a "smart," ocean-going buoy to convert wave energy into low-cost, clean electricity. The buoy moves up and down with the rising and falling of waves. According to OPT, this mechanical energy drives an electrical generator, which transmits power to shore via an underwater cable. The system is electrically tuned on a wave-by-wave basis to maximize the amount of electricity produced.

If successful, the project will be a significant step forward in making ocean energy commercially feasible and available on a utility-level scale, or another way of saying that surf is really up.

Image: OPT PowerBuoy from Lockheed website

While the eyes of most of the world are on the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, some places are actually more focused on their own local events.

Take for example Tallinn, Estonia, where “February and spring is the perfect time for outdoor activities…and for attending musical events and festivals all the month long at the local concert halls and venues,” as the Tallinn.ee reports.

Now, it’s true that the Olympic Games might be a little more interesting than Tallinn’s upcoming BMX contest (Feb. 22-23), but the residents of Tallinn can be proud of having at least one thing the residents of Sochi don’t have: free public transit.

On Jan. 1, 2013, Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, became the first European capital to extend free public transport to all of its 430,000 residents. One of the main drivers was mobility for all, explained Allan Alaküla, head of the Tallinn EU Office. While pensioners and youths already benefited from free public transport in Tallinn, the city wanted to make it easier for people to travel in search of work, and for low-paid workers, who might choose not to take a job that they have to travel to if the cost of transport means it is financially not worthwhile.

So, does it really work? Is making public transportation free actually increasing mobility (i.e. getting people to use it more)? While it might take some time to evaluate the economic impact of this change, a new study of three researchers from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology provides an initial outlook into the changes in ridership following the introduction of free-fare public transport.

The researchers, Oded Cats, Triin Reimal and Yusak Susilo, compared data from fall 2011 through spring 2012 (the “before period”) and January through April 2013 (the “after period”). What they found was a 3 percent increase in the total number of boarding passengers and a 2.5 percent increase in total miles per passenger.

Yet, even this modest increase can’t be fully attributed to reducing the prices to zero. The researchers calculated that making the fares free is responsible for about 42 percent of the total impact, while the rest of the increase is attributed to other factors, such as new priority lanes for buses and service improvements. In other words, overall, the introduction of free public transit in Tallinn has resulted in a 1.2 percent increase in passenger demand.

The analysis looked not only at the generation effect (i.e. trips now carried out by public transport that otherwise would not occur), but also at the substitution effect (i.e. trips made previously by some other mode of transportation are now made using public transport). The desired effect is that public transport will be substituting car trips, but in the case of Tallinn the researchers suggest that if any modal shift is happening, it is that people are walking less and riding transit more.

One positive finding was an increased access to the city from the northeastern district of Lasnamäe, the most populous and dense district in the city, which is characterized by higher unemployment rates--transit ridership increased there by 10 percent.

Still, in total, the increase in ridership in Tallinn is very modest according to the study, which brings up the question: Why is it that the residents of Tallinn don’t take more advantage of the option to take free rides in their local buses, trams and trolley buses? The researchers believe this is due to the following factors: Public transport fare was relatively low to start with (about $2.20 for a single ticket) and many user groups already didn’t pay the full price, public transport share was relatively high (40 percent) to start with, and the introduction of the new scheme had to overcome a two-decades-long negative trend in the share of public transport.

You might wonder what the importance of this scheme is and why we should care if it succeeds or not--after all, this is not the first city experimenting with making its public transit free. First, as Sulev Vedler writes at The Atlantic Cites, what sets Tallinn’s experiment apart is its size and status as a European capital. “As the birthplace of Skype and online voting, Tallinn also has a reputation for innovation, Vedler writes. "So there's a feeling, at least among advocates of the idea, that if free transit can work here, maybe it can work in other large cities.”

Second, the importance of the results in Tallinn also stems from the fact that no comprehensive analysis was made to truly evaluate the impact of the experiments made so far in providing free transit (mostly in small cities in Europe), which left us mainly with anecdotal evidence. So basically this is the first time where we can truly evaluate the value of this policy tool.

Last but not least, this study adds to the body of research analyzing how sensitive people are to various price changes when it comes to changing their mode of transport. It actually provides a similar conclusion to what many studies reached in the past, which is that reducing public transit fares is a second-best pricing scheme. In other words, more people would shift from car to public transport if the price of the former is increased (congestion charge, higher tolls, etc.) rather than if the latter is reduced to the same extent.

Still, a word of caution--we need to remember that this study is based on only four months of data so we should wait for further analysis based on a larger dataset to get a better understanding on the effectiveness of such a scheme in a setting of a large city. Until then, the jury is still out there, probably taking a free ride on the bus.

Image credit: my Life, the Universe and Everything, Flickr Creative Commons

Raz Godelnik is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons The New School of Design. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

Soccer rules--with the possible exception of one enclave in North America known as the United States. As Erik Distler writes in a June 2012 TriplePundit article, soccer (“football”) goes far beyond just sport and athletics. It is a unifying force that drives community and social change, two essential ingredients for sustainable development.

The stardom and celebrity of sport--of a Pelé or Beckham--grabs the spotlight for a time and sells product, but it is in the dry, dusty fields of the developing world where perhaps the biggest and most lasting impact of soccer happens--where kids learn the joy of play, even in the harshest of circumstances. Their daily lives may seem to offer few solutions for a better life, but the simple love of a game and a joyous sense of play offers solutions in unexpected ways.

Take the Soccket ball. At first glance it looks pretty much like any other soccer ball. As far as a kid playing soccer with his or her friends in an empty field after school, it is like any other soccer ball. But Soccket is different.

Soccket, the flagship product of New York City-based startup Uncharted Play, harnesses the energy of play to literally light the path of a child’s education in the developing world. In fact, 30 minutes of play translates into three hours of light from the Soccket's companion LED light.

The idea is at once startlingly simple and eloquent; kinetic energy is stored for later use as an electrical source to power a light. Critics may--and have--assert that poverty or the energy crises can’t possibly be solved by “kicking a ball around,” and they’d be right. They’d also be entirely missing the point.

The conversation shouldn’t be how Sockket solves the energy crises, but rather what it can contribute to a single village or even a single child. And that is where the idea of Soccket goes beyond a product--becoming a process, an approach, a first step of many that will solve real problems and have real impact in people’s lives. To really understand what all this means, let's start at the beginning.

Class project

It all began as a Harvard class project for Uncharted Play cofounders Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman. Harvard may seem a long way from the fields and empty lots of a village in the developing world, but it is a path familiar to both Matthews, born in Nigeria, and Silverman, who volunteered on various occasions in regions of Kenya and South Africa with a focus on sustainable development. As part of their Harvard course focusing on design for non-engineers, the two social science majors were tasked with devising a multiplayer online game. The pair took their experience on a different path for the project, inventing the initial idea that would eventually become the Soccket.

Understanding the needs of these communities “they quickly put two-and-two together,” says Uncharted Play’s VP for Product Development Victor Angel. Play is universal, and so is the need for education.

“We have seen so many kids play with balls,” or whatever they could find. “Sometimes,” says Angel, “all they have to play with is trash.” So Matthews and Silverman asked themselves “what if we could capture this motion and use it for something useful for these kids?”

“The common denominator among [all these kids] is that they go home and do their homework or their tasks with kerosene lights,” Angel continues. And so the concept of the Soccket was born, and for Matthews and Silverman the play had just begun.

When the big boys say no

The idea is simple; stored kinetic energy generated in the motion of a ball to use later as electricity. Execution wasn’t so easy.

After securing some seed money from Harvard, Matthews and Silverman took their idea to a large product development firm in California. It took all that seed money for a working prototype, but a general consensus from the development firm was that their idea was possible but wasn’t really feasible.

The first requirement of a soccer ball is that, within reason, it do no harm. But for Matthews the idea was just too good to give up on. There was a lot of work to do to make Soccket a reality, so in 2011 Matthews launched Uncharted Play and brought on board a small team of inspired young professionals, including Angel.

The team was in place, all with a conviction to bring the idea to fruition. All they needed were the tools necessary to carry out their mission.

“I remember playing with those prototypes,” says Angel, “they would hurt your foot, they would eventually crack and they were very expensive to produce. We started to think ‘how can we move forward? We can’t distribute this to kids, we have almost no money to develop anything, we can't afford another round with a product development firm.’ So we decided to do it ourselves.”

As the guy in charge of product development, Angel searched for the path forward. That’s when he came across the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner program.

“I have no idea how I came across it,” says Angel, “but I came across the Clean Tech Partner program and I realized right away that it was a good investment. I think it’s one of the best purchases we ever made”

Once the team had the Autodesk Inventor software to work with “we were able to get the design started.”

The eventual result became the Soccket: A durable, airless ball weighing the same as a standard soccer ball.

The engineering hurdles were the first step. Next came devising a program to bring greatest impact from the underlying concept. It isn’t about dumping nifty power-generating soccer balls on villages, but taking what Soccket represented and making a real difference in people's lives; the joy of play, the power of education, and the connection between the two.

Education is key for Soccket

"One thing we don’t want to do is simply drop off merchandise in a foreign country and then leave. We actually want to monitor the usage, we want to make sure the ball is being used in a way that’s educational above anything.”

Working through corporate backers, individual funders and on-the-ground NGOs, Uncharted Play connects with local communities and schools in need. Soccket teams of five children each share one Soccket “station” that include one Soccket ball, five portable LED lamps and an interactive STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The Soccket ball is kept at school and play time is supervised by the teacher.

After the kids play with Soccket, each team member can charge their light to take home. With the LED light they can do their homework without the noxious and unhealthy fumes from a kerosene lamp. Every morning they bring their lamp back to school for more play and charge time--and more learning.

Soccket is the tactic, health and education is the strategy, improved odds for a better life and more sustainable community is the goal.

“It’s a way to keep the students engaged with the educational program,” says Angel. “At the end of the day education is really our sustainability model. We’re not really about the energy we produce, but we’re more about educating people about creative thinking and innovation; taking matters into their own hands.”

After all, it’s by taking matters into their own hands that the Uncharted Play team made Soccket a reality in the first place.

Still scrappy after all these years

“So you want to be in show business”

What does show business have to do with  any of this? It seems like a glamorous life--until you try it. Some succeed and most fail. It’s arguably the same thing for social entrepreneurs. Young, talented idealists want to devote their lives to changing the world. Then the world intrudes on their best intentions and tells them it isn’t possible.

But with perseverance, a playful mindset and the right tools, some actually succeed. That’s Uncharted Play. Inspired by an idea that the established product development firm said wasn’t realistic they carried on, maintained a positive outlook and availed themselves of the tools they needed to bypass the naysayers and make their vision a reality.

"We're still pretty scrappy. Something we've learned along the way is that we can make really great prototypes and really advance our ideas with very, very low expenses. We work with anything that's around the office, we go to the hardware store, we go to the dollar store. We have a very playful, very organic [approach] that has saved us a lot of money and allowed us to explore ideas."

“I think it was definitely the way to go to design it ourselves.” says Angel. “I think it’s also the fact that a lot of product development firms, although they do have the framework and tools, and the capability obviously, I think when designing for developing countries specifically there’s a big gap in understanding who your end user is.”

This is key, Angel says, to the success of the Uncharted Play. “Most of our team has had significant exposure to these communities. It’s been a lot more organic for us to design for developing continents rather than trying to do it from the bubble that is New York City or California.”

Currently Soccket programs are active in Nigeria, Mexico, Brazil and Haiti. As Uncharted Play continues to grow, they have “a little more bandwidth to explore” worldwide. There are plans for adding some “smartness” to the Soccket. “A lot of people are keen on knowing how much energy is being generated or being able to track the location of the ball you donated is at, so we’re adding a few bells and whistles to the ball,” says Angel.

Along with improvements in the Soccket and continued outreach in communities in Latin American and Africa, Uncharted Play has plans for developing other "energy harvesting sports products," including the Pulse, now in Beta release. Pulse is a jumprope that, like Soccket, stores kinetic energy and converts it into electricity.

Uncharted Play demonstrates that the power of change sometimes comes in small packages, that a playful outlook is often the road to success, and if you can light the path of learning one child at a time, the world is a better place.

Stay scrappy!

Image credit: Uncharted Play

By Linda M. Lowson, Esq.

In this age of transparency and accountability, negative issues can't hide for long. And so it has been reported by all the major news media: We have a dark and gruesome cloud hanging over the traditional celebratory atmosphere of the Sochi Olympic Games—the brutal mass extermination of stray dogs in Sochi.

Thousands of dogs have been killed. Despite promising there wouldn't be a street cull in preparation for the Olympic Games, the Sochi local government hired a private exterminating company to kill "as many as possible" for the Olympic Games, referring to the dogs as "biological trash." The International Olympic Committee has done nothing to stop it.

These innocent animals are shot with poisoned darts that cause them to suffocate, and then thrown into waiting trucks to be disposed of as garbage, at a cost of $25 to $35 per dog. Many of the strays were pets, or the offspring of pets, abandoned by families whose homes with yards were demolished over the past few years to make way for the Olympic venues. The stray population also increased due to being fed by construction workers in the Olympics construction projects.

Despite the global outrage and negative media publicity, the killing goes on. A few dogs have been spared, in a rescue effort on behalf of a charity called Volnoe Delo (“Good Will”), who was told, “Either you take all the dogs from the Olympic Village, or we will shoot them." The charity is being funded by Oleg V. Deripaska, one of Russia’s billionaire oligarchs, and one of the major investors in the Sochi Games, who paid for several huge projects. His modest $15,000 contribution has been used to construct a shantytown of doghouses on the outskirts of Sochi that now houses about 200 dogs. He also pledged $50,000 per year for operations.

The Sochi Olympics are costing Russia an estimated $51 billion, four times higher than the $12 billion cost Russia originally projected in 2007, and more than all the previous Olympic Games combined. Sochi’s government budgeted a paltry $54,000 "to catch and dispose of" the strays, according to the official Russian website for open tenders. This amount could have funded the cost of several modest dog shelters for hundreds of dogs. Is it comprehensible that the Russian government cannot spend $200,000--0.004 percent of the total cost of the Olympics—for proper dog shelters and a sterilization/vaccination program, not only to save the stray dogs and effectively address the problem, but also to save the image and reputation of Russia that Putin has strived to cultivate, that of a civilized and welcoming country?

This mass animal killing is not a new issue, but this time it is receiving significantly more media attention and global outrage. Some may remember that both the Athens and Beijing Olympics caught bad press for their handling of the local stray animal populations. In 2004, the Greek authorities ordered the poisoning of 15,000 stray dogs ahead of the Olympic Games in Athens, desperate to show the world that their country is “modern and civilized." Of course it showed just the opposite. On a more egregious and insidious scale, in 2008, for the Beijing Olympics, China's leaders convinced Beijing inhabitants that cats were a serious urban health risk, and ordered a cull of an estimated 500,000 cats, an extreme measure by communist leaders to ensure that the capital city appeared clean, green and welcoming during the Olympics. This time, the animals were thrown into overcrowded shelters with no food or water, and left to suffer a slow, agonizing death.

The real paradox and senselessness of this unspeakable brutality is that this kind of “extermination” does not solve the problem, even in the short-term, and does nothing to address the long-term problem. Humane Society International (HSI) and other well-known and well-funded animal welfare organizations have worked with thousands of organizations and governmental agencies worldwide to address this issue in a scientific, humane and cost-effective way--using mass dog sterilization and vaccination programs that very successfully control the stray population and eliminate rabies risk, over both the short term and long term.

The Russian government knew this expert assistance was easily available and could have collaborated with HSI or other organizations, with the cost potentially funded in whole or in part by private donations. Why do the Russian and Sochi governments refuse to take a moderate, proactive approach?

Worse, will we see a repeat in Rio de Janeiro in 2016?

The time to act is now. What is at stake are the integrity and respect of the Olympic Games, the lives of thousands of innocent dogs and cats, and the dignity of the human spirit, very large stakes indeed. The International Olympic Committee and Rio de Janeiro’s governmental officials need to hear from all concerned citizens.

Linda M. Lowson, Esq., is CEO and Chief Counsel for the Global ESG Regulatory Academy.

By Tess Riley

Our food system generates roughly a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions, in large part due to agriculture’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels. But far from demonizing farms, many see them as part of the solution. One reason is farm-generated renewable energy.

In the U.K., more than 70 percent of the land area is in the agricultural sector. In China and the U.S., two of the world’s largest food producing nations, this figure is 55.7 percent and 45 percent respectively. Large amounts of land combined with significant volumes of animal or plant waste make farms an obvious place to turn to, not just for food but also for biofuel, solar and wind energy. If we’re going to move towards a decentralized, sustainable energy system, farms and rural communities will play a significant role.

Take Nigel Joice, the award-winning Norfolk poultry producer whose farm generates 8,500 tons of manure a year. Three years ago, Joice invested a $3 million (£1.8 million) bank loan into an on-farm biomass plant to help meet his goal of turning the farm’s manure into an asset, and–with the addition of solar panels–to become energy-positive. An Environment Agency licence to use poultry litter rather than woodchip to heat the chicken sheds is now bringing Joice closer to realizing that vision. Over the last year, Uphouse Farm has cut its gas consumption by 92 percent and solar panels are expected to reduce its (grid) electricity use by 80 percent during daylight hours. What’s more, the anticipated eight-year return on investment has been cut in half, thanks to improved feed conversion from the poultry litter. Joice is now earning money through the Renewable Heat Incentive and Feed-in Tariffs.

With an increasingly unpredictable climate for crops and question marks over agricultural subsidies, such diversification will only become more important to farmers. For Tobi Kellner, renewable energy consultant at the Centre for Alternative Technology, clean energy generation offers a tremendous opportunity: “In some cases, additional income from renewables may be the only way for the next generation to make a farm financially viable.”

Individual farmers play a crucial role in developing farm-based energy schemes, but they can’t do it alone – not yet, and not at scale.

The National Farmers’ Union has called on the U.K. government to broaden its scope of community energy support criteria to include rural businesses that demonstrate a significant level of community benefit.

Almost 40 percent of U.K. farmers are investing in renewable energy compared with just 5 percent in 2010–but they are doing so in spite of the system rather than because of it, says Iain Watt, an energy specialist at Forum for the Future: “While pockets of government are quite supportive, the overall message seems to be that small-scale renewables will only ever play a role at the margins, while all the effort goes towards big centralized solutions. We need to change this mindset by demonstrating that smaller, community-scale energy can play a substantial role in the energy system.”

One organization doing just this is the National Trust, one of Britain’s largest landowners, which has committed to generating 50 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020, and has installed around 250 small- and medium-scale renewables on its land. It is collaborating with Good Energy on a $5.8 million (£3.5 million) pilot renewables program which, if successful, will see 10 times that amount invested. The trust also works further afield to help communities develop renewables elsewhere, such as the Anafon Community Hydro Scheme in North Wales.

Tim Crisp, director at Sustainable Charlbury CIC, is adamant that such programs must direct as much financial and social benefit back to the local community as possible. Sustainable Charlbury CIC was established in 2007 to reduce the carbon emissions of this Cotswolds town. In partnership with Cornbury Estate, which (subject to planning permission) the organization has provided 30 acres of land on a 20-year lease, and the Low Carbon Hub, which works across Oxfordshire on carbon reduction projects that benefit communities, it is developing Southill Solar, a 5-megawatt solar farm which members hope will be complete by mid-2014. The Feed-in tariff and the revenue from the power purchase agreement will provide approximately $142,000 (£85,000) annually for the community (that’s $2.5 million over the life of the project). The projected IRR for investors is 5 percent, but this could be enhanced through the Enterprise Investment Scheme to 8.5 percent, and to 12.5 percent through the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme.

“By making large-scale energy projects community-owned, and returning a financial benefit to the shareholders and to the community at large, Sustainable Charlbury CIC sets a framework for a sustainable local energy future," says Crisp.

It’s clear that some farmers and rural communities already have the skills, land and access to subsidies to enable them to invest in on-farm renewables, thanks in part to support from organizations like the Low Carbon Hub and the National Trust. What they lack is the infrastructure to help them take on-farm energy production to scale, as farmer Peter Thompson points out:

“I don’t see much stopping farmers becoming energy neutral. The real challenge is enabling farmers to become major generators for their communities and beyond. Buying new plant and machinery is second nature to farmers, so the first step is pretty easy. Supplying others is far more challenging.”

This is what we need to work towards.

Image credit: Loraks/iStockphoto/Thinkstock, Uphouse Farm/National Farmers Union

Tess Riley is a freelance environmental journalist and communications consultant.

More information: www.forumforthefuture.org/farmpower

Some coal mining companies are getting a bargain on federal land and skirting export royalties, buoying their profits at the expense of taxpayers, according to a report released by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this month.

Initiated last year by committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who will soon step down to join the Senate Finance Committee, the report found that several state Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices sold tracts at below-market prices to mining companies and also shared information with the companies during the leasing process, which would violate protocols for the “blind lease” process used to get taxpayers a fair deal on public land sales. The same report also found that coal companies in several Western states booked coal exports through trading desks, thereby skirting the 12.5 percent export royalty payments due to taxpayers.

A separate report from the Government Accountability Office released earlier this month found that the BLM’s federal coal leasing program lacks sufficient oversight and sometimes fails to properly value the land it sells to mining companies, costing taxpayers an estimated $200 million in lost revenue.

Besides raising serious questions about federal and state employee misbehavior, the revelations also beg the question: How much does coal, the cheapest and most used energy source, really cost U.S. taxpayers? If we look at all the ignored costs of coal--preferential land leases, direct subsidies, not to mention collateral damage to public health and the environment--is this fuel source really the cheap, patriotic option that we should continue to subsidize, and how do the costs, all considered, stack up against renewable energy sources?

Let’s focus on solar, since that industry has received significant subsidies and also the most scrutiny of all renewables, post Solyndra-gate.

In 2010, direct federal subsidies to the renewable energy industry totaled $14.6 billion, up from $5.1 billion in 2007. Solar installers received $1.1 billion of those 2010 subsidies, according to the EIA.

To give these numbers some perspective, the coal industry has been receiving subsidies since 1932, and in 2007 the industry benefited from about $4 billion in direct government assistance. In 2010 this number shrank to just $1.4 billion. However, estimates on current coal subsidies vary widely, depending on how one accounts for indirect benefits like railroad subsidies that cut transportation costs. The Environmental Law Institute puts total coal subsidies from 2002 through 2010 at $25.4 billion. The price of generating electricity using coal has steadily risen since the 1970s and the cost of coal (including taxes) per million Btu increased 90 percent in the 10 years since 2002, hitting $2.38/million Btu in 2012.

Meanwhile in the renewable energy world, the cost of solar energy has dropped 50 percent since 2008, driven in part by falling solar panel prices as demand grows and the technology gets more efficient. While solar remains an expensive option for many areas, overall the industry is nearing cost competitiveness with stalwarts like coal, even without federal subsidies.

Variations in state subsidies for both industries, plus changes in solar capacity in different geographic areas, make nationwide apples-to-apples comparisons for coal- and solar-generated electricity difficult. But, a recent analysis by Lazard, a financial advisory firm, put utility-scale solar generation within range of the cost of coal power by 2015. Without subsidies, the levelized cost of energy (the cost of producing electricity, including capital costs, fuel and other operating costs) from utility-scale solar plants in 2013 ranged from $89 to $104 per megawatt-hour. But the firm estimates that the bottom end of this range will hit $64 per MWh in 2015 due to the continuing drop in solar panel and system costs. By comparison, coal generation costs between $65 to $145 per MWh.

Coal remains by far our biggest source for electricity, fueling 37 percent of the country’s power. Solar accounts for 1 percent (overall, renewable energies make up 12 percent).

There are pros and cons for every fuel sourced and used in America, and industry advocacy groups on both sides will always spin the numbers to their benefit and make the energy portfolio debate more simplistic than it is in reality.

But there are a few undeniable facts that might start to reshape the energy debate over the next few years: climate change is a very real problem, the environmental risks of clean coal are now better understood (just ask West Virginians in the wake of the Elk River spill) and renewable energy companies aren’t going away anytime soon--subsidies or no subsidies.

Image Credit: greatlettuce, Flickr

Guess what? It turns out that Valentine’s Day chocolate you recently enjoyed might have been the product of child slave labor. If that’s true, and if the multinational corporations responsible for producing that chocolate ignored or unwittingly aided the use of child labor in their foreign supply chains, can they be held liable in U.S. courts? For now, the answer appears to be a resounding (and perhaps encouraging) "maybe."

Chocolate and human rights

First, a few words about chocolate. Until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made news with its December 2013 opinion in Doe v. Nestle, I was mostly in the dark regarding the chocolate industry’s exploitative underbelly. I was keenly aware that my coffee habit perpetuates barely-livable wages for farmers in South America and East Africa; that my affordable clothing probably came from a Bangladeshi factory that may have recently burned to the ground (with the workers trapped inside, of course); and that my steak can likely be traced back to a corn-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-laden cow who once lived on a farm that spewed feces into the water supply. But chocolate? Surely that is produced by well compensated, humanely treated and unionized farmers, yes?

As it turns out, no. Chocolate is just like everything else, and we should all now feel doubly guilty when we indulge.

According to the World Cocoa Foundation, West African countries like Cote d’Ivoire supply more than 70 percent of the world’s cocoa market, and much of that cocoa is farmed by children. Some of the children end up farming cocoa because they need work; others are sold by their families to traffickers or farm owners. The slave and child labor practices of the cocoa industry have been well documented, and legislation aimed at clarifying the sources of consumer chocolate even made its way to the Senate back in 2001 (where, to nobody’s surprise, it died).  The aborted U.S. legislation, introduced by Democratic Congressmen Harkin and Engel, led instead to the creation of the well-meaning but toothless Harkin-Engel Protocol (aka the “Cocoa Protocol”) -- a voluntary agreement among the world’s major chocolate producers to end the worst forms of child labor in their supply chains. Yet, years after the Cocoa Protocol’s adoption, UNICEF estimated that as many as “200,000 children are [still] involved in the worst forms of child labor on cocoa farms throughout Ivory Coast."

Chocolate in the courts

Which brings us back to Doe and the real point of this post. Nearly a decade ago, three former cocoa farmers from Mali (the “Doe Plaintiffs”) filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, against Nestle, Archer Daniels Midland (“ADM”) and Cargill (together, the “Chocolate Defendants”) under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”). The Doe Plaintiffs alleged that they were trafficked into Cote d’Ivoire from Mali at young ages (between 12 and 14 years old); spent years working on Ivorian cocoa farms that supplied the Chocolate Defendants; were never paid for their often grueling work; and were frequently beaten.  Further, they claimed that the Chocolate Defendants were liable for aiding and abetting the forced labor, cruel and inhuman treatment, and torture they suffered at the hands of the Chocolate Defendants’ Ivorian cocoa suppliers.

How did the chocolate defendants “aid and abet” human rights violations?

Mostly by implication. According to the Doe Plaintiffs, the Chocolate Defendants had especially close relationships with their Ivorian suppliers and, as a result, exercised significant control over the suppliers’ operations and conduct.

Moreover, “[a]s part of Defendants' ongoing and continued presence on the cocoa farms, Defendants had first hand knowledge of the widespread use of child labor on said farms, in addition to the numerous, well-documented reports of child labor by both international and U.S. organizations.” Doe v. Nestle, 2009 WL 2921081, at para. 45 (C.D. Cal. July 22, 2009) (Plaintiffs’ first amended complaint).

Put another way, the Chocolate Defendants had to know about the abusive conduct and, despite having the power to change that conduct (or sever the relationships), the Chocolate Defendants did nothing and instead continued to rely on these suppliers for cheap labor and cocoa.

Wow. Yet, as compelling as those allegations may sound, the California District Court threw the case out because--and I’m oversimplifying a bit here--the aforementioned Alien Tort Statute “does not recognize an international law cause of action for corporate violations of international law” in the first place.  Doe, 748 F. Supp. 2d 1057, 1124 (C.D. Cal. 2010) (my emphasis).

But I thought that was the whole point of the ATS...

Well, you thought wrong! Over time, the ATS has generated a rich and confusing body of law, and the question of the statute’s application to corporations was recently addressed in the landmark 2013 Supreme Court decision, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (where Nigerian citizens alleged that Shell and other oil companies aided the Nigerian government in violently suppressing resistance to drilling operations). Plenty of smarter people have opined on Kiobel and the evolution of the ATS, but suffice it to say that, as of the end of last year, the prospect of successful ATS claims against corporations (at least for conduct occurring outside the U.S.) appeared dismal.

Yet, the Doe Plaintiffs appealed anyway and the Ninth Circuit, playing David to Kiobel’s Goliath, reversed (!). In December of last year, the court held that Kiobel actually supported ATS liability against corporate defendants like Nestle, et al., and granted the Doe Plaintiffs leave to replead. (Don’t bother asking how or why the Ninth Circuit reached this conclusion, but it was probably right.)  An unexpected victory for the plaintiffs and international human rights lawyers around the world, to say the least.

Access to justice

So, that’s great, right?

Well, Ninth Circuit-inspired hope aside, the prospect of corporate liability for human rights abuses still looks pretty grim. The truth is that many U.S. courts remain hostile to claims like those pursued in Doe, and even if the Doe Plaintiffs wind up prevailing in the Ninth Circuit, it is hard to imagine such a decision holding up on appeal to the Roberts Court.

Of course, local courts -- to the extent they even exist -- are unlikely to be any help to plaintiffs alleging human rights violations against multinationals. As Human Rights Watch observed of Cote d’Ivoire in 2010: “The [Ivorian] judicial system remains plagued by corruption, a lack of independence, and insufficient resources.” Unfortunately, those are traits shared by many states on the African continent and beyond, particularly in regions with cheap labor and abundant resources.

It seems to me that the ATS exists for these very reasons; otherwise, what are foreign victims to do when a major corporation contributes to international human rights violations? Access to effective remedies is the third pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the current realities have led some nations to call for a binding treaty on business and human rights.  Yet, it is hardly clear that such a treaty would solve the access-to-justice problem.

So what is the way forward? First, we can hope for a well-reasoned, positive outcome in Doe, and for (favorable) clarification from the Supreme Court regarding the application of the ATS to corporations. In the meantime, we can work toward strengthening the rule of law and encouraging multinationals to continue to take seriously and work to implement the Guiding Principles. It may be a dim light, but it’s there.

Image credit: Flickr/little*star

In the wake of the tragic New Year's death of a 6-year-old girl in San Francisco caused by an on-duty Uber driver, along with another recent collision involving a Lyft driver, the public’s attention has turned to the insurance gaps in the fledgling ridesharing industry. To help bridge these gaps, Lyft announced last week a new Peer-to-Peer Rideshare Insurance Coalition, comprised of transportation companies, regulators, insurance providers and other stakeholders that have come together to address how the insurance industry can continue evolving to support the ridesharing economy.

With the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) as a founding member, the coalition’s mission is to build a foundation of insurance best practices, policies and information for P2P ridesharing. Earlier this week, Lyft published an official list of the coalition members, which in addition to Lyft and CPUC includes: Sidecar, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for U.S. DOT, Allstate Insurance, Esurance, Farmers Insurance and even Uber (although initially it was reported that Uber would not take part).

Lyft says the coalition will work to drive additional partnerships between insurance carriers and P2P ridesharing participants, while providing information resources for regulators, drivers and riders to “ensure a safe and trusted future for the emerging peer economy.”

Since launching a year and a half ago, Lyft says it has successfully increased transportation safety in three fundamental ways:

1. Established background check and driving record standards that are more strict than taxis, limos and black cars and the most stringent in the industry;


2. Used technology to create more accountability and trust through in-app feedback, ratings and photos as the only company in the space to have all these elements for both passengers and drivers;


3. Pioneered the first-of-its-kind $1 million excess liability policy in 2012.

Lyft says after working with insurance carriers, it can now provide additional insurance solutions for Lyft drivers, including:

• Collision: Contingent policy - $2,500 deductible and $50,000 maximum applicable to drivers who have purchased collision coverage on their personal policy;


• Uninsured motorists: Added to $1 million Excess Liability policy - covering drivers if they are hit by an uninsured motorist that is at fault;


• Underinsured motorists: Added to $1 million Excess Liability policy - covering drivers if they are hit by an underinsured motorist that is at fault.

There is no doubt it will be some time before all of the insurance and liability questions surrounding the sharing economy, especially those related to ridesharing, are answered. But it is heartening to see Uber and Lyft working together for the public interest, even as they continue to be engaged in bloody competition for ridesharing supremacy.

Uber has been taking advantage of its more than $200 million investment from Google Ventures to bring Lyft, it’s main rival, to its knees. For example, last year Uber launched a “Shave the Stache” campaign, which featured Lyft-bashing ads plastered on the sides of trucks and, perhaps ironically, city buses. The ads criticized Lyft’s “donation” approach to payment and sought to convince drivers to switch to Uber.

Image credit: Flickr Spiros Vathis

Based in San Francisco, Mike Hower is a writer, thinker and strategic communicator that revels in driving the conversation at the intersection of sustainability, social entrepreneurship, tech, politics and law. He has cultivated diverse experience working for the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., helping Silicon Valley startups with strategic communications and teaching in South America. Connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter (@mikehower)