renewable energy – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "renewable energy"

Finally: Countries Start To Rebel Against Corporate Sovereignty, But Ten Years Too Late

from the we-did-warn-you dept

Back in 2013, Techdirt wrote about “the monster lurking inside free trade agreements”. Formally, the monster is known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), but here on Techdirt we call it “corporate sovereignty“, because that is what it is: a system of secret courts that effectively places companies above a government, by allowing them to sue a nation if the latter takes actions or brings in laws that might adversely affect their profits.

In 2015, we warned that corporate sovereignty would threaten EU plans to protect the environment in the TAFTA/TTIP trade deal between the US and the EU. TAFTA/TTIP never happened, but fossil fuel companies were able to to use other treaties to demand over $18 billion as “compensation” for the potential loss of future profits as the result of increasing government action to tackle climate change.

Chief among those treaties with corporate sovereignty provisions was the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which is designed to protect investments in the energy sector. Research by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) shows that the fossil fuel industry accounts for almost 20% of known ISDS cases, making it the most litigious group. Recently there has been a wave of corporate sovereignty cases brought by fossil fuel companies, with most settled in their favor. The average amount awarded was over $600 million, almost five times the amount given in non-fossil fuel cases.

It has become clear that corporate sovereignty represents a serious threat to countries’ plans to tackle the climate crisis. The obvious solution is simply to withdraw from the ECT, but there’s a problem. Article 47 of the treaty states:

The provisions of this Treaty shall continue to apply to Investments made in the Area of a Contracting Party by Investors of other Contracting Parties or in the Area of other Contracting Parties by Investors of that Contracting Party as of the date when that Contracting Party’s withdrawal from the Treaty takes effect for a period of 20 years from such date.

This “sunset clause” means any of the 53 signatories to the ECT can be sued in the secret ISDS courts for 20 years after withdrawing from the treaty. As a result of this, the EU in particular has been pushing for the ECT to be “modernized”, and recently announced an “agreement in principle” to achieve that. However, it still contains a corporate sovereignty tribunal system:

The modernised ECT will allow the Contracting Parties to exclude new fossil fuel related investments from investment protection and to phase out protection for the already existing investments. This phasing out of protection for fossil fuel investments will take place within a shorter timeframe than in the case of a withdrawal from the ECT, for both existing and new investments: existing fossil fuel investments will be phased out after 10 years under modernised rules (instead of 20 years under current rules) and new investment in fossil fuels will be excluded after 9 months.

Countries that later withdraw from the modernized ECT can be sued for 10 years, rather than the current 20 years. Several EU countries have decided that is not good enough, and have announced their intention to withdraw from the treaty immediately, as Politico reports:

Spain, the Netherlands and Poland have all declared their intention to exit the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). Italy left in 2015. Germany, France and Belgium are examining their options, officials from those countries said.

France has confirmed that it will be pulling out, as has Belgium. For those countries that leave before the “modernized” ECT comes into force, companies can potentially use the sunset clause to sue them during the full 20 years afterwards. The only solution that addresses the serious threat of corporate sovereignty is to remove the sunset clause completely from the ECT. According to one analysis from the IISD, that’s possible if a group of ECT’s contracting parties agree to the move amongst themselves (“inter se”) as part of a joint withdrawal:

There is a legal basis for a withdrawal from the ECT with an inter se neutralization of the survival clause. In contrast to the continued protection of existing and certain future fossil fuel investments under the EU’s amendment proposal, such a withdrawal would put an immediate end to treaty-based fossil fuel protection and ISDS among all withdrawing states. In the short term, this would significantly reduce ISDS risks, given that 60% of the cases based on the ECT are intra-EU. It would also enable the EU and its member states to comply with the EU’s climate objectives and EU law. If further contracting states were to join, the ISDS risk to strong climate action would be further reduced and could pave the way for a fresh, unencumbered negotiation of a truly modern energy treaty that would support the expedited phase-out from fossil fuels and the transition to renewable energy.

It’s an imperfect solution, but better than the half-hearted “modernized” ECT proposed by the EU. The current mess shows that the issue should have been addressed ten years ago, when the problems of the “lurking monster” of corporate sovereignty first became apparent.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or Mastodon.

Filed Under: climate change, corporate soveriegnty, eu, fossil fuels, isds, renewable energy, sunset clause, tafta

DailyDirt: Capturing The Power Of The Sun…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Solar power is literally everywhere, just not at night. But it’s free to capture, if you have the means. Plenty of folks have been trying to capture enough solar energy to power cities or cars or whatever gadget you can think of, but sunlight just isn’t as convenient as we’d like it to be. Solar energy is still going to become a larger and larger contributor to the mix of energy resources, and even as oil prices remain low, it looks like some companies are still committed to investing in it. Go, solar power, go….

The world’s largest coal supplier, Shenhua Group Corp, is partnering with SolarReserve to build 1,000 megawatts of solar power facilities in China for a couple billion bucks. This is just one step towards China building solar power plants capable of generating 10,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020. [url]
Ivanpah is a huge solar energy farm with about 350,000 computer controlled mirrors redirecting sunlight at a tower in the middle of a California-Nevada border desert. A few of its mirrors were aimed incorrectly and damaged its operations, but this kind of solar farm design might not be very economical for very long, anyway. [url]
New solar energy capturing materials could help harvest sunlight during the day and release the energy at night — or at any other time, on demand. Chemically-based storage materials — aka solar thermal fuels (STF) — have been around for a while, but the development of inexpensive, durable solid (transparent) materials with this ability might be more practical and lead to smarter windows and surfaces that can absorb light and emit heat. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: energy, ivanpah, materials, renewable energy, solar, solar farm, solar thermal fuels, stfs
Companies: shenhua group corp, solarreserve

DailyDirt: Thanks For The Free Energy, Sun

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The world economy still largely depends on fossil fuels for energy, and nuclear energy isn’t exactly popular after decades of use. Until we figure out nuclear fusion, if we want to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons, we’re going to need to ramp up renewable energy sources from solar and wind. Solar energy capacity seems to be growing robustly, but apparently, there are still some bugs to work out.

Solar farms in California are producing “too much” electricity in the spring and fall — and the solution so far is to just turn them off. This problem of “excess” renewable energy isn’t expected to get better as more solar energy is added to the grid, but hopefully, the state of California will figure out a better way to balance the electrical supply and demand (such as exporting the solar power to nearby states or storing the energy in large batteries). [url]
Los Angeles might have some problems with blackouts this summer due to that enormous gas leak that was only somewhat recently plugged. That natural gas leak shut down one out of 17 natural gas facilities in the area, but the other facilities may need to be taken offline for safety inspections — and unfortunately, renewable energy sources and other power plants can’t handle the peak electricity demands during hot LA summers. [url]
China has become the nation with the highest amount of solar energy producing capacity — 43.2 gigawatts — compared to 2nd place Germany at 38.4 gigawatts and the US with 27.8 gigawatts. Solar capacity numbers don’t exactly translate into how much energy is expected to be produced (or actually will be produced), but more is presumably better. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: blackouts, energy, fossil fuels, natural gas, renewable energy, solar, solar farms

DailyDirt: The Growing Pains Of Biofuels

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

So far, grabbing fossil fuels out of the ground has been an unbeatable way to get cheap energy. Since fossil fuels (presumably) come from decaying dinosaurs (and their contemporaries), it makes some sense that growing biofuels might be a way to generate a more renewable source of energy. Unfortunately, biofuel projects haven’t quite demonstrated an obviously better way to replace fossil fuels. Here are just a few links to some biofuel info that could lead to more environmentally friendly fuels.

Biofuel derived from corn waste might be no better (or worse) than gasoline for carbon dioxide emissions. A recent study estimates that burning corn waste biofuels releases CO2 faster than if the corn waste was left to rot in the fields. There are some questions about how accurate these estimates are, but it raises the question of how green some biofuels really are. [url]
Breeding algae for biofuels isn’t easy — especially if you want to extract the a significant amount of algae oil from a large photobioreactor. However, if someone does figure out a cost effective way to grow biodiesel (or any important organic compounds) from algae, it’ll be a real game changer. [url]
Ideally, biofuels would take more CO2 out of the air than they emit. At least one startup, Cool Planet, thinks it can do this at a decent-sized scale — making 10 million gallons of fuel in a year by the end of 2015. [url]