[Isa Ferrall, ERG Graduate Student; Jonathan Lee, ERG Graduate Student; and Jordan Freitas, Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University]

Every day, 300,000 people are being connected to electricity through efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 7): “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” For them, new access to electricity comes with a host of new data harvesting by electricity meters, appliances, and payment tracking. Unfortunately, this data is typically collected ad hoc and shared in a bespoke manner or not at all, with concerns about privacy and provenance taking a back seat to increasing electricity service. However, lack of attention to data management practices around SDG 7 is slowing progress and creating potential problems down the line.

Connection to electricity often also means new connections to sensors, data collection, and privacy concerns.
Source: Alex Radelich via Unsplash

Effective practices aren’t only about protecting the privacy of individual end users of electricity. There is potential to create real value through systematic data collection and expanding access to more stakeholders, and improvements require considering the position of each. We recently coauthored a freely available review article in a special issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE on energy access, describing 1) the stakeholders involved in the data ecosystem of SDG 7, 2) the types of data at play and how they are being used (or not used), 3) potential value and risks of sharing these to each stakeholder group, and 4) data management principles to incorporate moving forward. We lay out a framework that we hope can be a foundation for initiatives to engage stakeholders in responsible and effective data sharing.

The key stakeholders we identify are electricity users, micro-utilities (mini-grids and solar-home-system providers), macro-utilities (national or regional), governments, development institutions (e.g. the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, Sustainable Energy for All, or national aid agencies), and researchers. We group the types of data as technical (electricity usage, system and product performance), financial (transaction records and costs of service), or demographic (income, cultural affiliation, etc.).

The risks and values to sharing depend not only on the type of data, but who it is about, who is gaining access to it, and privacy mechanisms that are put in place. In the full paper, we explore these combinations and provide detail about the different possibilities and current practices. Through that exercise, we identified areas for mutually beneficial data sharing, others that require careful navigation of tensions, and those where risks outweigh potential values. We found that a common and open platform for sharing technical data can enable efficiency in a number of areas, such as utilities providing better data access to end users to promote energy literacy and efficient use, and aggregating larger consumption data sets for better demand prediction. We surveyed a group of different stakeholders at a 2018 workshop in Nairobi on Decentralized Energy Solutions for East Africa and the Role of Research, and some of the responses illustrated areas with more tension:

• Micro- and macro-utilities sharing performance and cost data can increase competition leading to better quality service with fair pricing for users, but current market leaders may lose their competitive advantage
• Government and development institutions will have better reporting capabilities, but contradictions between promises and performance may be revealed
• Researchers can discover key insights and contribute to public education, but may risk using data that was improperly collected or poorly-documented

Our analysis suggests that fewer benefits are likely to be realized from sharing detailed – even anonymous – financial data of users without increased legal protections. Codesign of data sharing practices and platforms among all stakeholders is crucial to expanding access, realizing benefits, and mitigating risks. These discussions also need to be held in the context of changing regulatory landscapes and utility business models, so that data sharing practices can enable forward-looking goals and are not overly restricted by the needs of today.

We are actively continuing this work with a series of in-depth stakeholder interviews to contribute more primary data about perceptions. Please email Isa Ferrall, Jonathan Lee, and/or Jordan Freitas for more information on how to get involved or to participate in interviews.

This article was originally posted on the blog of the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) - an initiative of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) that leverages the data revolution to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

[Michelle Levinson, ERG graduate student]

Photo credit: natsihlaneone on Flickr

In the aftermath of another round of divisive elections in the United States (and around the globe) many of us feel distraught about the ability and speed of our political systems to address urgent social challenges. Political change requires organizing and community- slow but necessary processes. Meanwhile, from climate change to income inequality, gentrification and displacement to the gender-wage gap, the challenges we face as a society seem more acute than ever. Votes may have been cast and ballots counted, but that does not mean we must wait another two years for our next chance to shape our world. There are other avenues by which we can continue to make change.

Last week I attended the SRI Conference in Colorado Springs as one of twelve conference scholars, where I got to see how investors perceive of their role in mobilizing finance for energy decarbonization and how they are integrating climate change risk into investment decisions. I met people that have spent decades working to spread awareness and develop the tools to leverage the power of investments to achieve better outcomes for society: individual retirement advisors, endowments for religious orders, the City of Chicago, the Sierra Club Foundation -- Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is being practiced throughout the investment industry.

The principle is straightforward: when we own a piece of a company, be it via public markets, as debt, or as private equity, we are reducing that company’s cost of capital. In a way, we are betting that a company’s business model, practices, and products will contribute to a better, more prosperous world in the future.

This is what I call voting with your investment dollars, and this vote takes place every month of every year. Directly or indirectly, through our educational institutions, pension and retirement funds, and government treasuries, we are all investors in the global economy. But where do we direct this capital? To whom do we entrust it to be used well, and to build a foundation for our long-term personal and communal well-being? We are stakeholders in the economic system, but many of us do not wield this power with as much purpose as we could. 

I work with many people that strive to make such changes in the energy sector, where the financial factors that hinder the development of sustainable energy are perhaps just as daunting as the scientific, technical, and political barriers. Development in both the fossil-fuel and clean energy sectors is shaped by the market appetite for risks associated with investing in new projects, be they a new coal plant or an array of solar panels, which translate into the cost of capital for that project. These equations only account, however, for the internalized risks and costs that project investors are assuming. These may not be the same as the costs faced by society as a whole; they may not account for externalities. When determining our “required return,” investors have the opportunity to thoughtfully consider which risks they are willing to bear and what future they hope to facilitate with their capital for society at-large.

Why is Socially Responsible Investing hard?

Basic microeconomic principles show us that there are plenty of instances where corporate profit maximization can be misaligned with socially optimal outcomes, especially when those internalized benefits create externalized costs. In these cases, a rational business decision or practice that we are facilitating through our investments might run counter to our own long-term priorities and needs. There are lots of reasons why externalities are often not accounted for, such as measurement challenges, information asymmetry, and principal-agent issues. A classic example of private profit running counter to society’s values is the tobacco industry, where much of the healthcare costs that result from tobacco externalities are borne by society as a whole. This tension motivated famed moves by government agencies, such as CalPERS that manages health and retirement for California employees, to divest from tobacco. Even though this meant foregoing short-term profits, the long-term payoff was clear in the eyes of former California Treasurer Phil Angelides: “What sense does it make for CalPERS to be an investor in companies that cost the state billions of dollars?”

Avoiding negative externalities is a start, but investors are increasingly aiming to finance positive impacts. At this conference, Chicago City Treasurer Kurt Summers shared that his office sees its investment dollars as a way to “make a positive impact on some of the most fundamental challenges facing Chicagoans.” Considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors helps his office promote conservation and sustainability, racial and gender equity, better labor standards and more, all of which improve the quality of life for both the current and future Chicago community. I am especially pleased to see that the Treasurer’s Office is setting concrete goals for itself, such as achieving a carbon neutral investment portfolio by 2020. The city recognizes that as a first-mover it is a catalyst for change and is using this position to test new approaches and move new efforts forward.

Investment plan from a presentation by the Chicago City Treasurer

Under this banner of impact there were a number of innovative approaches to mobilizing finance for energy decarbonization and sustainable development on display at the conference. I chatted with folks from the Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT, who are making investments in organic farmland, and with clean energy project developers from Clean USA Power; both companies are applying financial products in new ways to move finance towards positive impact. I also enjoyed learning more about my favorite startup, Hyphae Partners, which works to bring finance to businesses that practice regenerative agriculture.

By definition, these negative externalities and positive impacts are not captured in traditional financial information. However, the finance industry is awakening to the notion that non-financial information can be material to a company’s economic performance. This is illustrated by the groundbreaking work of Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which are setting standards for corporate sustainability disclosures across industries and asset classes. Better sustainability information allows investors to employ more precise strategies when they invest in their values. SRI strategies were developed decades ago and have been continuously refined over the years, evidenced by the fact that this year’s conference was the 29th reunion of these industry practitioners.

SRI 2018 Conference Scholarship Winners

This year’s 29th SRI Conference provided attendees with a rich snapshot of a dynamic, multifaceted industry. This snapshot illuminated the industry’s shift from niche to mainstream, a growth in asset types and sectors represented, and a welcome intentionality around diversity of representation and perspectives. These trends ensure that this conference will continue to be a fascinating window into a the finance industry and bell-weather for its future. To read more about what you can do to align your personal finances with a future you want to live in, check out Nick Depsky’s great Life@ERG posts on Personal Banking and Retirement Accounts + Mutual Funds.

[Samira Siddique, ERG graduate student]

New paradigms

Currently, there are upwards of one million Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. For all the talk of moving the Rohingya elsewhere, such as Bashan Char Island, or repatriating them to Myanmar, it is almost certain that they will remain where they are for an indefinite period of time.

History has shown that the average age of a refugee camp is 12 years. Like most other refugee camp situations, this one will likely last for at least another decade.

Many NGOs and aid agencies that are working on Rohingya issues realize that this is not temporary, and are starting to take a longer-term view of the camps. The shift from emergency relief to development has begun, underscoring the fact that the refugee crisis has huge long-term implications for how development operates beyond state citizenship.

The Rohingya crisis is a useful case study to understand how refugees are slowly being brought into the traditional development framework. The scope of facilities and programs set up by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the hundreds of NGOs working in the camps over the past year is remarkable.

They have built camps from the ground up and organized them into zones with basic roads and latrines, tubewells, health facilities, and community centers. However, the separate institutions that are in place to deal with longer-term development and emergency relief are not aligned in their goals. This affects the extent of aid given, the type of facilities that are built, and of course the economic and political rights and social support that the Rohingya have.

A strong indication of the shift toward development in the Rohingya camps is the recent investment from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), of $480 million and $100 million respectively. Traditionally, these two institutions have invested in long-term development projects and supported governments in capacity building. In the past few years, they have created a relief fund for emergency situations exactly like the Rohingya crisis.

One of the investments from the World Bank and ADB is in renewable energy in the Rohingya camps. The investment in energy access shows a gradual shift toward longer-term, or at least medium-term, planning in the camps. Compared to international aid funding in every other sector—water and sanitation, health, shelters, etc.—energy had no allocated funding at the beginning of the Rohingya influx.

This is largely because energy is not seen as essential to emergency relief, which is arguably an outdated view from the aid industry, as energy access is linked to more positive health effects and gender safety and equality. Now with the World Bank and ADB’s investment plan, there is a portion allocated to set up some solar mini-grids in 2019, as well as constructing more solar lamps and distributing solar lanterns.

Historically, there has not been a systematic approach to energy supply in conflict settings because they are thought to be shorter term. Most of the energy is supplied ad hoc by individual NGOs or international aid agencies, usually through diesel generators. The move toward renewable energy shows increasing interest in long-term development because it is inherently sustainable and simple to use. A solar mini-grid offers a cleaner and more consistent alternative to diesel generators, and can potentially be used to anchor local mini-grids if the refugee camps are present in the longer term.

Out of all the Rohingya camps, it is striking that the only one that is connected to the national electricity grid, and thus situated for longer term, is a camp in Teknaf, where some Rohingya have been around for many years and have essentially assimilated into the surrounding community. Perhaps the thought here is that there is “value added” if the Rohingya contribute economically, so it makes sense to invest in electricity lines. However, this situation is exceedingly rare, as the vast majority of Rohingya cannot move freely outside the camps and thus are unable to be economically independent

While the notion of development is important for improving livelihoods, the development itself must be done differently for the stateless. Traditional forms of economic development do not work for stateless people who have no means to gain employment. Though there are some cash-for-work programs and recreation facilities set up by aid agencies, the vast majority of Rohingya have nothing to do during the day; their routines are often set around food and aid distribution schedules. They are recovering from unimaginable trauma. The camps will only continue to grow: Rohingya are still crossing the border, though at much lower rates, and there are projected to be 50,000 babies born this year. No amount of aid distribution or traditional notions of development will fix these facts of life for the Rohingya.

Part of the difficulty in streamlining development efforts is the institutional power structure of the camps. Since the exodus began in August 2017, the Bangladesh government has not officially labeled the Rohingya as “refugees.” Without this label, UNHCR could not head the emergency relief operations in the camps, as they normally would when refugees are involved. Thus, IOM took over camp operations. Within a few months, UNHCR was allowed to work in the camps and it started co-leading operations with IOM. The two humanitarian stakeholders now oversee relief operations in about 10 sectors and work alongside the government’s response to the crisis, which includes different government agencies and the Bangladesh army. This web of agencies does not have mutually exclusive goals, but since they do not normally collaborate in this way it has been challenging to settle on long-term goals.

Another challenge is that there is no direct guiding principle globally for how to integrate stateless people, let alone how to develop communities with them in mind. One of the main guiding principles for long-term sustainability planning is the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals that aim to end poverty with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, and environmental protection. None of the goals explicitly address development for stateless persons.

International NGOs and the UN could adopt a more explicitly rights-based approach to development, especially as more refugee crises and mass migrations are projected to occur in the future. This approach would combine different existing concepts of international development, such as capacity building, human rights, participation, and sustainability. The goal would be to empower the group that cannot exercise full rights and to strengthen the capacity of institutions and governments obligated to fill these rights. However, the main criticism against the rights-based approach is that it merely incorporates the language of human rights with development, but does not change the programs being implemented. In order for change to take place, governments must be willing to accept refugees and migrants, and hold other countries accountable for the processes that lead to refugees in the first place. Many governments that receive refugees, whether willingly or not, are not capable of developing long-term communities for the refugees in their own country.

There are currently about six million people in protracted displacement situations globally, and even more migrants, who are not officially given economic and political rights by the state. Crises like this will only continue to happen at varying scales, whether through ethnic cleansing, environmental disaster, economic crisis, or something else. The UN, development agencies, NGOs, and some governments are only just beginning to rethink how we prioritize refugees and migrants and integrate them into existing development frameworks. There will be many lessons to learn from the Rohingya crisis for years to come. A likely one will be how to conceptualize development for those that have been systematically “othered” and persecuted.

This article was originally posted on Dhaka Tribune.

[Rachel Golden, ERG graduate student]

My alarm goes off at 4:30 on Saturday morning in a hotel room in Chowchilla, a small city (under 20,000) in the San Joaquin Valley, that feels like a deserted rural town. Unsure if I have slept at all, I slip quietly out of the hotel and slowly drive through a thick darkness. Silently freaking out and cursing Siri, I drive for 20 minutes in the wrong direction on the I-99. My counterparts later teased me that “you city folk don’t know how to drive in the Valley.”  It’s true, I’ve gotten lost twice in 24 hours.

Once I reorient and backtrack, I begin to see cars lined up like a silent train along the side of the road, about a mile from the Chowchilla fairground. The fairground parking lot is where Valley Clean Air Now (ValleyCAN) will be hosting the “Tune In and Tune Up” event in a few hours.  Hundreds of people spent Friday night in their cars alone, with loyal friends, or with their families to get a place near the front of the line. Several people even arrived at noon the day before in order to ensure entrance to the event. The lined-up cars are old. Really old. Most are “pre-OBDIIs,” (made before 1996) and are classified as some of the most polluting cars on California’s roadways.  It is said that cars are born in California’s coastal cities (like the Bay Area) and come to die in the Central Valley. Only, they don’t die. These cars clunk around for well beyond their expected lifespan on expensive life-support, because people have few options for transportation and depend on these wheels for groceries, work, and taking kids to school.

Jose in the early morning directing cars into the parking lot from where they were parked (and slept in) overnight

The people in line aren’t sleeping in their cars to get Taylor Swift tickets. Or a selfie with Barak Obama. They are there for a free smog screening and a $500 voucher to get the needed car repairs for passing the smog test—a prerequisite in California for keeping your car registered. Wait, this is a story about SMOG TESTS? No! Okay, yes. Well, sort of. It’s really a story about much more. This is a story about community groups coming together from all parts of life to make living a bit easier and healthier.

Some quick stats to set the context:

• Smog (i.e. ground level ozone), which is just one of the forms of air pollution caused by cars, can cause asthma, hurt the linings of lungs, aggravate chronic lung diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis, and reduce the immune system’s ability to fight off bacterial infections in the respiratory system.
• The San Joaquin Valley is home to the worst air quality in the country and has some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in California.
• Those most impacted by smog are children, adults who exercise or engage in outdoor physical labor (think agricultural and construction workers), and those with continued exposure (think everyone who lives in the Valley).
• Smog’s not all. These nearly 2-decade old cars also produce considerable hazardous air pollution, contributing to increased risk of cancer, heart and lung diseases, and diabetes.

I pull up to the fairground gates at 5:45am to see Tom Knox standing in the dark wearing his white ValleyCAN t-shirt and holding a bottomless cup of black coffee. Tom seems to be in a long-term relationship with caffeine, and this event, “Tune In and Tune Up,” is their baby. Tom is the executive director of ValleyCAN and has generously met with me weekly for my research. I spend the next hour discussing the day’s logistics with him and the event manager Jose Martin, a community organizer from outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. Jose tirelessly travels up and down the Valley, building support from community groups for these events, which occur every other weekend as far north as San Joaquin County and as far south as Kern County.

At 6:30am the sun starts to rise and Jose opens the gates to the fairground parking lot. We see the silent train come to life as over 500 cars turn on their engines one by one and roll into the lot, which is lined with orange cones and tents staffed by people in orange vests. Many of the cars are without license plates, about half are unregistered, yet most people are smiling because they are a few feet closer to getting that voucher to clean up their cars. 

Lideres Campesinas, the women who cook lunch for all participants and provide community education for farmworkers about sexual assault and abuse

To a bird in the sky, this event just looks like a parking lot. But on the ground, there is more than meets the eye. The traffic is directed and the event managed by local community groups, like gang prevention groups, who get a modest payment and work experience. The cars are screened by local, top smog testers and students from community colleges across the Valley. In school, the students only see one car a day, but out here they see up to 550 in a day. The students soon become experts, able to open up their own local smog test shops and return here as teachers. Women from the group Lideres Campesinas get paid to cook a free lunch for all participants and set up their table of educational flyers for agricultural workers about sexual assault and violence. Three radio stations set up their tents to blast music and broadcast live from the fairground parking lot to cover the event.

Veronica, who manages a pilot program funded by the San Joaquin Valley Air District that gives qualifying low-income Valley residents up to $5,000 to retire their old car and purchase and lease a new cleaner model

And in a small tent off to the side sits Veronica, who manages a pilot program funded by the San Joaquin Valley Air District that gives qualifying low-income Valley residents up to $5,000 to retire their old car and purchase and lease a new cleaner model. Paired with California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, low-income drivers can get up to $12,000 to purchase or lease an advanced car like a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEVs). Since there are no PHEVs in dealerships in the Central Valley and inadequate chargers to keep these cars moving, most drivers opt for a smaller rebate for a less advanced vehicle, like a used minivan or occasionally maybe even an early-model Prius.

I can’t help wondering if some Berkeley environmentalists’ eyes are rolling. Cars are evil. Why aren’t they getting electric vehicles? What about public transit? We shouldn’t even be farming in the Valley anyway.

Yes, I know. Maybe I’m just sleep deprived, but the way I see it:  People live here, in the Valley. For their livelihood they need to drive long distances.

• Until we can make major system-wide changes so we can live in balance with the natural environment…
• Until state regulators (CPUC and CEC), utilities, and industry groups get EV charging stations installed at scale…
• Until the California Air Resources Board deploys hundreds of millions of dollars of cap-and-trade revenue to counties and community groups to increase low-income people’s access to EV cars, buses, and trucks…

Until any of this happens, simply retiring the oldest fleet and getting people into cleaner cars is the best game in town.

Until any of this happens, simply retiring the oldest fleet and getting people into cleaner cars is the best game in town.

Although it may make many environmentalists queasy, getting cars built in 1995 and earlier off the road for good, and replacing them with LEVIIs (cars made since 2008) will bring considerable air quality benefits to the Valley (i.e. reduced NOx, SOx, smog, particulate matter), improve fuel efficiency, and ease the financial burden for low-income people who are car dependent. This is just one first step in a longer-term game plan towards turning over the fleet and making way for near-zero emission vehicles.

In the meantime while the low carbon solution is being simmered and seasoned in state agencies and prodded by green groups, an under-the-radar smog event — which under most circumstances sounds like the last place to spend a Saturday afternoon — actually feels like a community party with music trumpeting, free food sizzling on the grill, and a team of unlikely partners bonding over a job well done.


Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

[by Daniel L. Sanchez, ERG Ph.D. Candidate] 

We’re all familiar with the drawbacks of food-based (“1st generation”) biofuels—food vs. fuel, fertilizer and water usage, low energy payback, and nutrient pollution. But this summer, a group of experts from across the U.S. gathered in Iowa to discuss the formation of a new, and advanced, biofuel industry. These biofuels—termed cellulosic or “2nd generation”—have the potential to reduce pollution and oil usage in transportation, with far lower impacts on agricultural markets and the environment.



The STRIPS (Science-based Trials of Row-crops Integrated with Prairie Strips) project will reduce the environmental impact of corn and soybean production. The group visited a trial site for this project.

Iowa is the center of food-based biofuels—particularly ethanol derived from corn and soy biodiesel—but is poised to become a leader in advanced biofuels. This new industry converts more of the plant, termed “lignocellulosic biomass,” to fuel. The advanced biofuels industry is poised to make hundreds of millions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol this year, satisfying and ever-growing demand for clean and domestically-sourced fuel.




Dupont’s Nevada facility will produce 30 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol each year from corn stover (stalks, leaves, and cobs), a byproduct of corn production.

The group, convened by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Great Plains Institute, toured two commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facilities, and heard from several experts from Iowa State University about advanced in biofuel production, conversion, and environmental sustainability. The facilities, POET-DSM’s Project Liberty in Emmetsburg, IA, and Dupont’s Nevada Site in Nevada, IA, are part of a fleet of homegrown fuel producers across the U.S. Engineers and managers from both facilities spoke to the group about advances in biofuel logistics that can form the foundation for more commercial production. Notably, both facilities we toured were “bolt-on” facilities that were co-located with existing corn ethanol plants.



Producing biofuels requires complex logistics and planning. Here, bales of corn stover await transport to the Dupont Nevada facility.

At Iowa State University, we heard from several leading academics about next-generation biofuel production and conversion technologies. Dr. Robert Brown is exploring flexible biofuel and electricity production processes, such as gasification and pyrolysis. Dr. Emily Heaton is leading field trials of fast-growing, low-input grasses such as miscanthus for efficient biomass growth, including growth on marginal or degraded lands. Dr. Matthew Helmers is exploring the integration of perennial crops into traditional agricultural systems to reduce erosion and nutrient pollution. These developments and others will form the foundation of a sustainable biofuels industry.

The group left Iowa convinced that advanced biofuels can play a large part in reducing oil consumption and global warming pollution in the United States, and around the world.



Iowa State University is pioneering advanced conversion technologies, such as gasification and pyrolysis.

Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

[by Nkiruka Avila, EDFCC Fellow at PerkinElmer & ERG Graduate Student]  

Energy efficiency is an essential part of climate change mitigation, which is my primary motivation for becoming an Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps fellow. My goal is to find energy and water savings at my host organization PerkinElmer in Santa Clara, California. PerkinElmer designs and manufactures medical imaging technology that tackles the world’s most critical health related challenges.

The facility I am working in this summer has a class 100 clean room (we call it “the Fab”) where 50x50 cm digital flat panel x-ray detectors are fabricated. Any impurity in the Fab could cause defects in the panels. PerkinElmer’s fabrication process is unique because each of the panels produced is kept as a whole unit and is not cut into smaller pieces. This makes it critical to produce flawless panels every time as a defect could ruin the whole panel.

Recently, I took a tour of the Fab with my supervisor Joe Batdorf and my EDF engagement manager Serena Mau. The tour of the Fab was fascinating and revealed just how energy intensive the fabrication process is. I was impressed to see that several energy efficiency projects, headed by my supervisor, had already been implemented at the facility. Energy efficiency is not a foreign idea to PerkinElmer and they have invested in several energy saving measures over the years.  For example, PerkinElmer completed a reheat coil optimization project and replaced two inefficient boilers with efficient condensing boilers saving almost 70,000 therms of natural gas annually and eliminating over 300 tons of carbon emissions.

Despite the implementation of several energy efficiency measures, there is still room for more. I am working on proposing further energy efficient lighting, computer power management software and other energy saving measures for the air compressors and fume scrubbers in the facility. Silicon Valley Power offers great resources like lighting audits to help identify potential rebates. I am also investigating water conservation measures for a reverse osmosis system and two fume scrubbers that have the potential to save three million gallons of water annually. With California’s drought, these water conservation measures are direly needed.

Being an EDF Climate Corps fellow has given me the opportunity to learn about energy efficiency solutions and their financial and political obstacles. I am learning about the many incentives offered by the state and local governments in California to promote energy sustainability. EDF Climate Corps has also opened up to me a vast network of professionals and students working towards a more sustainable future. The experience is invaluable and substantiates my intuition that my work is headed in the right direction.

Crosspost from EDF Climate Corps.

 


Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

[by Rebekah Shirley, ERG PhD Candidate]

Can an innovation in charging vehicles turn into the vehicle for more innovation? What works, what sticks? May be risky business to find out, but it’s well worth the ride…

Electric Jeepney (eJeepney) plying on the streets of metro Manila

It is a bright, sunny morning in the steamy Metro Manila. Men in wilting business suits and women waving folding hand fans scuttle into the shady respite offered by blue construction tarpaulin billowing overhead. Yet another new office high rise being built, squeezed into the bursting Manila skyline. Carefully skipping over mud puddles of cement mix, I follow the pedestrians hustling down Tuazon Avenue sharing the roadway with brawny buses, swerving motorcycles, honking taxis and the iconic, kaleidoscopic jeepneys. I am in the Philippines visiting the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC) - a local Filipino NGO focused on community empowerment and clean energy solutions. They birthed the famous ejeepney, an electric battery powered version of the local minibus - a successful first fruit of clean, electric public transportation for the developing world. With a surging population of almost twelve million metropolitan Manila is one of the emerging cities of Southeast Asia and cleaner, cheaper ways of transporting throngs of people to and fro are now imperative.

As the city blossoms it also becomes more vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters - something the island archipelago is already familiar with. Memories of Typhoon Yolanda hang in the air of our discussion at the iCSC head office, a groovy alcove of repurposed furniture and hand painted windows overlooking an old trade fair. “Filipinos have been adapting since before it was en vogue,” Red chuckles. Renato ‘Red’ Constantino is the Executive Director of iCSC and all around visionary. “Mitigation, adaptation, can we truly separate these ideas?” he asks, with palms outstretched, as though holding the very words in his hands. A tattoo snake slithers up his left arm and his wrists are banded with a charming collection of bracelets and amulets. With spikey black and gray peppered hair and red worn boots, he is the stuff of adventure tales. “It is not about warding off danger or merely coping with the times. It is about building better, healthier, stronger, resilient cities, no matter what the future holds.” His philosophy is compelling and indeed, iCSC has had recent success lobbying the government for a legislative fund to support community capacity building - aptly named the People’s Survival Fund.

Rebekah and Reina in Tacloban. In the background is a container ship that is marooned on land by the typhoon.

Red’s team is a select handful of policy experts and technology managers, all home grown and passionate about environmental activism in the Philippines. The beautiful Reina Garcia has managed the ejeepney program since its inception in 2005. She takes me out to see the fleet in action. iCSC has found local battery manufacturers and a local electric vehicle manufacturer able to assemble the jeepneys at low cost. Made of light weight metal and without the need for a rumbling diesel engine, the ejeepney offers a quieter, cooler ride to passengers, all while reaping the savings from no fuel cost. A subsidiary company now operates twenty ejeepneys, routed throughout the metropolitan region. iCSC hopes that the model will be adopted by other jeepney operators in the near future. “They’ve integrated quite seamlessly,” Reina tells me. “Anyone would jump into an ejeepney, most without even knowing they are in an electric vehicle.” We hop into one for a ride to the charging stations and chat with some of the drivers – all women. In fact half the fleet is operated by female drivers, an iCSC strategy to promote employment equality. It is refreshing to see a simple, functional operation working so steadily for years in the tropics. It parallels the team’s action-oriented tone of simplicity and efficiency. Bottom-up technologies that work: no catch, no twist, no hidden charges.

Tacloban City on the island of Leyte, leveled by Typhoon Yolanda

These are exactly the types of solutions that the Philippines needs right now, especially in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda and with the promise of stronger, larger storms to come. Yolanda struck the Philippines last November and went down in history as the largest typhoon ever to make landfall. I got the chance to visit Leyte, the island most devastated by Yolanda, and Tacloban, its capital – which was completely leveled. It was a tremendously moving experience. From the moment of getting off the plane at the ghostly remains of the airport, it felt like being on the set of an eerie end times post-apocalyptic movie. Rows and streets of houses, churches, malls, completely reduced to rubble. Ships stranded hundreds of meters inland. Blue and white relief aid tents stretched for miles on end. iCSC is now expanding the ejeepney operation here, to be part of the respond and rebuild effort as transportation is still a scarcity. Every so often a jeepney passes by with people piled onto the roof, risking limb for a precious ride in to or out of the city. Teddy Arellano is the special project’s manager and he lets me tag along as he travels through Tacloban surveying new the operation sites, signing leases, meeting contractors. The ejeepney holding bay and charging station will be solar powered, Teddy tells me, and they want to try a new idea: mobile charging stations – driving the ejeepneys to communities still left without electricity and charging phones, radios, anything, through the vehicle batteries.

Standard diesel-powered Jeepney on the streets of Tacloban

“It will be our little experiment” laughs the affable Teddy with a playful smile. Someone has to be willing to take the risk to see what works, what sticks. As we travel through the torn city I marvel at his calm and ease. Teddy greets everyone we meet with a comforting familiarity, jokes ready in hand. He chats to families with deep condolence but also with a pleasantness that makes the air less solemn. He points out to me all the progress, the new stores, the neighbor helping neighbor rebuild what was lost. Positive, purposed and practical, the iCSC team speaks volumes to me about the true meaning of bottom-up engagement. They are not in the business here of bemoaning tragedy or laying blame to a slow emergency response. Rather, the team is taking up the challenge and opportunity to study a new technology’s usefulness and economy in the space of most urgent need. Unlike the stormy waters, sorrow and pain have not yet subsided in the Philippines, but human nature is resilient. If I’ve learned anything from my time with iCSC, it is that hope can bring the change that people need. Hope can make ideas reality. Hope can stand as the foundation for resilient cities of the future. I’ll be sure to stay posted on the ejeepney’s journey to Tacloban.

Read more on the ejeepney's journey to Tacloban here:  http://pacifictimes.org/blog/2014/05/20/630/

Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

[By Dimitry Gershenson (ERG Grad Student) and Brian Edlefsen Lasch (MicroEnergy International)]

Village Mini-Grid

Symposium: UC Berkeley, April 10 – 12, 2014
Innovating Energy Access for Remote Areas: Discovering untapped resources

Flying out to San Francisco, the hills look like waves of mountains, rolling toward inland California farms. Situated within this amazing landscape is one of the world’s most innovative communities working on inclusive and sustainable energy. Numerous universities, start- up entrepreneurs, financiers, technology companies and consultancies address distributed and affordable energy markets in myriad countries. In less than two weeks, prominent researchers and scholars in this field will arrive in the Bay Area, and spend two days discussing pressing issues in expanding energy access: policy, finance, implementation, technology innovation, and more.

On April 10th, MicroEnergy Systems (MES) and the Berkeley Rural Energy Group (BREG) will be holding the first joint MES/BREG symposium on Innovation in Energy Access for Remote Areas. Hosted by Prof. Dan Kammen (Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab) and Prof. Martina Schäfer (Technische Universität Berlin), BREG and MES have invited over 50 Presenters, academics and practitioners, from around the globe to focus on the special theme of 'discovering untapped resources'. Select papers will be published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, and will also be considered by Springer Press for addition to a special edition book. The local Bay Area Energy Access community, notably through networking organizations such as Energy Access SF, are invited to register their attendance and represent their organizations. For Day 3 of the symposium, attendees are also encouraged to book their ticket for an optional day of exploration and networking. A driving tour will take you across three bridges of the San Fransisco Bay, including a guided visit to the California Academy of Sciences and an outdoor picnic in a Golden Gate Park museum courtyard. RSVP only (to Dimitry Gershenson (d.gersh@berkeley.edu), limited tickets available (cost: $60/person or less depending on demand.)

April 10th and 11th
2 days of presentation and discussion, including light workshop sessions.
30 new papers, presented in concurrent sessions and plenaries.
20+ poster topics, presented during an evening mixer at the Blum Center for Emerging Economies.
4 different venues, explored by participants across campus.

Support this good event by registering at:  http://www.microenergysystems.tu-berlin.de/conference/registration/  (Please Register by April 2nd)

See you soon,
with our best regards,

Sebastian Groh, MES, Dimitry Gershenson, BREG, Jonas van der Straeten, MES, Brian Edlefsen Lasch, MicroEnergy International (MEI), Liisa Andersson, MEI

By Diego Ponce de Leon Barido

A first lesson, taken strictly from ecological economics and its use of thermodynamic laws, is very telling about the history of resource exploitation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Energy quality and energy surpluses often determine the development of social and cultural patterns, and the unidirectional character of energy can dictate the economic and social arrangements through which wealth accumulation occurs in society.^1,2

Consider the unidirectional flow of water (and energy) downstream. Historically, bulky raw materials such as grains, ores, and timber were ‘produced in the hinterland and sent downstream to river mouth cities where those raw materials were combined to produce more valuable goods’.^1,2 For this process of ‘upgrading’ matter into highly ordered thermodynamic structures, economic production is established, adding productive value to the economic cycle at each stage of thermodynamic progress.^3-5 Great accumulations of wealth occurred in downstream cities, but very rarely did this wealth find its way back upstream. Silver from Potosi (Peru) and Guanajuato (Mexico), gold from Ouro Preto and Minas Gerais (Brazil), sugar cane from Cuba, coffee from Colombia, precious woods (and later sugar) from the Caribbean, and bananas and fruit from the entire Western Hemisphere were sent to the United States and Europe. Resource wealth flowed in one direction, fostered industrial growth in the north, and created a Latin American and Caribbean dependence for technology and goods produced in the industrial north.^6-8

More recently it is rare earth metals, oil, and drugs that flow downstream.

The City of Potosi and Cerro Rico, Bolivia. Image Source: Andrea Marston.

Nothing has changed since the 1800’s, 1900’s, or the last two decades. Today, Chinese businessmen and Mexican drug cartels trade cash for iron ore in Michoacan, Mexico’s most violent state, to fuel industrial growth and quench demand for steel in China and elsewhere.^9,10 Mexican politicians undergo ‘reforms’, and change the constitution, to re-introduce American oil companies into the energy sector where the energy return on investment is increasingly lower, but the prices – higher.

A recent article in the journal Science, highlighted that beyond the obvious impacts of drug related violence and crime, deforestation rates in the Central American Isthmus exploded at the beginning of 2006-07 – as Mexico began waging a violent, yet largely unsuccessful, war against the drug cartels.¹¹  It is true that throughout the Isthmus, forest loss has historically been a product of weak governance, conflicting property regimes, poverty, climate change, illegal logging, and infrastructure megaprojects and agribusiness expansion. Recent evidence, however, shows that the high growth rates of new ‘deforestation patches’ can be attributed to cocaine growth (> 5 hectares), as they overlap in both space and time with drug trafficking nodes. As cartels cut roads and landing strips for their operations, they intensify preexisting pressures on forests by weakening governance structures and narco-capitalizing other trafficking agents to pillage, often at the expense of indigenous small-land holders.

Amazing places and reserves such as the ‘Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve’ (Honduras), el Petén (Mexico), and Laguna del Tigre (Guatemala) have recently been recording annual forest losses as high as 5%.

A Drug Landing Strip in Honduras. Is it be possible that scientists at Oklahoma State University can analyze drug related deforestation using Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, yet, governments cannot locate and capture drug king pins, their money, and operations?
Image Source: Science.¹¹ Text: Author.

This way of doing businesses has been forced upon us. A few people have decided, mainly the financial, political, and academic elites, that all wealth can be expressed using money; and that endless growth is indeed, not only desirable, but possible. Is exponential, infinite wealth creation really possible? Nobel Prize-winning Chemist Frederick Soddy (1921) would suggest otherwise – compound interest does not create wealth, but endless debt.^12,13 We live in a world dominated by the economics of debt, which is nothing but a mathematical construct, and like the U.S economy would suggest, debts need nothing but higher ceilings. Wealth, on the other hand, has an irreducible physical dimension, it grows and rots. It has limits.

For businessmen, politicians, and drug cartels, the dollar cost of extracting an energy carrier, a mineral, or a drug from the crust and face of the earth can be useful. However, many would argue that the real cost can be given only in matter of energy units – and this exercise is hardly ever done.^14,15 The energy embedded in the extraction, purification, removal, transportation, construction, decommissioning, and operations of an energy carrier (plus many other matter types) minus the total useful energy delivered is the energy value of the carrier. ^14,15 Consider the polluted water of a shale gas site (for example, Oklahoma), the radioactive pollution left from uranium mines (for example, Navajo lands), transportation and energy generation related emissions in cities (for example, China), and deforestation in a ravaged forest (for example, Honduras). The only thing accruing here is physical debt – not wealth. This debt is being paid by many of us through pollution, crime, and inequality, while the creditors are syphoning the wealth away.

Protests abound in the world today.

Will it, how will it, and when will it end?

Obama, Peña Nieto, and Stephen Harper in Mexico at a recent NAFTA ‘Free Trade’ talk in Toluca.

Nothing useful came out of the meeting. Earlier, when in California, Obama golfed for hours with Big Tech Company CEOs while the state endured the most serious drought it has ever seen (golf courses can consume up to 3.8 Million liters of water/day). ¹⁶
Image Source: washingtonpost.com, Text: Author.

On a recent trip to Indonesia, U.S Secretary of State John Kerry announced to the world that Climate Change was the modern day equivalent of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). At home, however, he has yet to forbid the construction of the contentious Keystone XL project. American Style consumption levels, not Climate Change, are the WMDs. Climate Change is simply the mushroom cloud.
Images: Adbusters.org, Text and Image Composition: Author.

Sources

1. Cottrell, W.F. Energy and Society. McGraw-Hill. New York. 1955.

2. Cottrell, W.F. Technology, Man, and Progress. Merrill, Columbus, OH 1955.
3. Cleveland, Cutler J., Costanza, Robert, Hall, A.S, Charles et al. Energy and the U.S Economy: A Biophyscal Perspective. Science. 225 (4665); 1984.
4. Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas. Energy and Economic Myths. Southern Economic Journal. 41 (3); 1975.

5. C Roberts. Energy and value. Energy Policy. 10 (3); 1982.
6. Galeano, Eduardo. Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina. Siglo XX1. Mexico City. First 1971.
7. Gunder Frank, Andre. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York, 1967.
8. Furtado, Celso. La economia latinoamericana desde la Conquista iberica hasta la Revolucion Cubana, Santiago de Chile, 1969; Mexico, 1969.
9. CNN Report
10. Reuters Report: Chineseiron trade fuels port clash with Mexican drug cartel.
11. McSweeney, Kendra, Nielsen A. Erik, Taylor J. Matthew et al. Drug Policy as Conservation Policy: Narco-Deforestation. Science. Vol. 343 no. 6170 pp. 489-490.
12. Soddy, Frederick. Wealth, VirtualWealth and Debt The Solution of the Economic Paradox.
13. NY Times: Mr.Soddy’s Ecological Economy.
14. Manfred, Max-Neef, B. Smith, Philip. Economics Unmasked. Gree Books. Cambridge. 2011.
15. Lasn, Kalle (Editor). MEME Wars: The creative destruction of Neoclassical Economics. Adubsters. 2013.
16. Time: Obama Plays Water-Guzzling Desert Golf CoursesAmid California Drought.

Crosspost from dleonb.com.

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of this entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

By Jess Reilly

Thanks to the recent dedication of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS), the corresponding scathing article in the Wall Street Journal, and Dan Kammen and Tonio Buonassisi’s appearance on NPR’s On Point, Ivanpah and solar energy in general has been back in the news.

Tortoise at Ivanpah (J. Reilly)

ISEGS is a concentrating solar plant (CSP) driven by technology from BrightSource Energy: it uses mirrors to reflect the sun’s light to the top of tower, where the heat turns water to steam. This steam then turns a turbine and generates electricity. CSP has the added benefit of heating a salt medium that can store the heat with minimal losses. Therefore, the plant can provide electricity to the grid not only during the day when the sun is shining, but at night as well. This storage reduces the intermittency of the CSP energy supply and allows the plant to compete with other ‘baseload’ energy supplies like coal and natural gas.

ISEGS happens to be the largest example of concentrating solar in the world, with 360,000 garage-door-sized mirrors and three giant towers sprawled over 5 square miles of Mojave desert. It generates electricity just north of Interstate 5 at the Nevada-California line and transmits to southern California.

Burrow excavation at Ivanpah (J. Reilly)

I walked nearly every inch of those five miles when I worked as a biologist at ISEGS. I was there from the moment the first bulldozer broke ground in the Ivanpah Valley in 2010, under the regal summit of Clark Mountain, until I came to ERG as a graduate student in the fall of 2012.

Ivanpah (J. Reilly)

I returned to graduate school in large part because I could not stand to supervise the destruction of the desert anymore. Having lived and worked in this fragile and biologically diverse desert since 2001, I watched my backyard plowed under for energy that would feed the demand of 140,000 homes hundreds of miles to the west. It did not seem environmentally or socially equitable. After living and working in the Ivanpah valley for two years, I promised this valley I would not let it be further destroyed, and I went back to school to figure out how to protect it.

Here’s what I have discovered:

Solar power protects Ivanpah Valley.

Horned lizard at Ivanpah (J. Reilly)

This is not to say that Ivanpah got it right. I was witness to painful foibles throughout the process as it stumbled forward. It has been a learning experience for everyone involved, from federal agencies to technology innovators.

Yet the very plant that displaced hundreds of tortoises may be the very thing that will save these individuals, their species, and ours.

An energy system built with renewables is necessary if the Mojave desert ecosystem, including the desert tortoise and all its migratory birds, are to survive into the coming generations. Previously, I did not fully understand the implications of a grid that continues to rely on fossil fuels.  But at 400 ppm of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and rising, many habitats and backyards are changing. Global sea level rise is now almost 7 inches higher than pre-industrial times, with the rate of increase today nearly double that of the last century. The extent and thickness of sea ice has dropped dramatically. Glaciers are retreating, and cities that rely on their consistent water supply are looking into a near future where they have no water for their millions of inhabitants.

Kangaroo rat at Ivanpah (J. Reilly)

Therefore, utility-scale CSP is an effective way to bring renewable energy online right now, in tandem with rooftop photovoltaic solar and other renewable technology. In addition, stumbles at Ivanpah have provided the agencies and the industry with the experience for doing things better in the future, and a paper that thoroughly details these possibilities can be found here. In addition to wildlife impacts, solar energy can consume water resources, increase particulate matter in air, and have an unknown impact on soil carbon (sequestration of carbon in soil and rock.)  Yet even this article addresses the cobenefits that the BLM and companies such as BrightSource have learned:

• we can use degraded land and avoid pristine habitat
• we can co-locate energy with agriculture and other renewable technology
• we can carefully address siting with each individual project with thorough consideration given to local environmental, cultural, and social impacts

Dust winds at Ivanpah (J. Reilly)

I am the person who picked up dead lizards, mice, or birds at Ivanpah. I am the person who dug up the tortoise burrows and removed them from their homes. I cried many mornings on my way to work. But I am also the person who, along with the men driving the bulldozers and road blades, stopped equipment to catch and remove lizards, mice, and rattlesnakes. And now, I am a person fighting to preserve the habitat not only in my backyard in the desert, but in rainforests and coral reefs as well, because climate change is insidious: it is often only with extreme events that we are able to take note of changes.

In a sense, I have broadened my backyard: it now includes Los Angeles, the Philippines, and Beijing. And it is only by protecting the environment and fighting climate change in these places that we can hope to preserve a future for the desert tortoise and the peregrine falcon in my desert home.

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of this entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.