Category Archives: Energy Storage
Addressing Corruption In Electric Vehicle Battery Supply Chains – New CLEE/NRGI Issue Brief
Fighting corruption in mining approvals – DW – 12/05/2017

In the race to scale up a global supply chain for electric vehicle batteries, mining justice advocates have sought to ensure that the ongoing clean technology minerals boom does not exacerbate longstanding negative impacts from the global mining industry. Chief among these are corruption risks.

To provide guidance to electric vehicle purchasers (particularly fleets), advocates, and leaders in “downstream” markets about how to support anti-corruption measures in the battery supply chain, Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) partnered with the Natural Resource Governance Institute to issue a new policy brief: Corruption Risks in the EV Battery Supply Chain: What Advocates, Automakers and Fleet Purchasers Can Do.

The brief presents a set of actions for “downstream” markets, such as in the United State and European Union. Among the steps that the report recommends these actors take:

  • Battery manufacturers, automakers, and fleet purchasers could integrate checks on corruption risks into responsible sourcing and due diligence systems. Risks from supply chain relationships may directly affect company operations, and companies can leverage their influence to promote better practices and policies. When necessary, they should be willing to disengage or suspend engagement with suppliers.
  • Manufacturers, automakers and purchasers could also encourage project-level contract, payment, commodity trading, and beneficial ownership transparency and robust ethics and compliance policies from suppliers. Companies could look for comprehensive project or sale-level disclosure of contracts and licenses, payments to governments, and verified beneficial ownership information, internal oversight and independence of ethics and compliance procedures, robust disciplinary and remediation procedures.
  • Electrification and sustainable mining advocates in North America and Europe could emphasize the importance of governance and anti-corruption measures in their advocacy. Specifically, advocates can better incorporate anticorruption into benchmarks or reports that assess companies’ sustainability provisions and/or responsible sourcing.
  • Advocates could push for governments to incorporate strong anticorruption provisions into sustainability criteria for mining projects, in policies and legislation addressing responsible sourcing or due diligence, and in partnerships or trade deals with mineral-producing countries.

Ultimately, corruption is not a victimless crime. It undermines trust in government and deprives the public of needed revenues from mining projects. It can also jeopardize supply chain affordability and reliability as the world makes this critical transition to a cleaner transportation system. With the steps outlined in Corruption Risks in the EV Battery Supply Chain: What Advocates, Automakers and Fleet Purchasers Can Do, advocates, purchasers and downstream market leaders have an opportunity to ensure that the electric vehicle mining boom doesn’t replicate past and ongoing harms from the global mining sector.

The US Should Plan For Sustainable EV Battery Mining — My New Op-Ed In The Hill

We need electric vehicles to fight climate change, and that means a lot of mining for minerals like lithium and graphite for the batteries. It’s better if that mining happens in the US rather than overseas, where worker and environmental protections may be weaker. But we still need to improve mining processes here.

My new op-ed in The Hill has recommendations on how to do so, following the release of a new federal interagency report on mining. The report calls for permitting agencies to conduct better upfront planning to ensure new mining activity is not sited in sensitive areas that would likely produce conflict, litigation and delay. To do this, I argue:

Specifically, the country can take its cue from California, where a public-private partnership among state government, academic institutions and nonprofits pioneered a stakeholder-led process to map lands for large-scale solar development in key regions in the state. That process resulted in the identification of hundreds of thousands of “least conflict” acres, which participants as diverse as Tribes, ranchers, endangered species advocates and developers agreed would be feasible to develop without harming communities or important resources. This approach is now being replicated in other states.

If we can pull this process off in this country, the result would be fewer conflicts, a more sustainable supply chain for EV batteries, and economic and environmental wins for the communities surrounding mines, including many tribal and rural communities. And maybe it could provide a model for other jurisdictions to follow suit, as the world undergoes a dramatic and badly needed transformation in its vehicle fleet to EVs.

New CLEE/Ceres Report: How Major Corporate Fleets Can Drive Sustainable EV Battery Supply Chains

The electric vehicle (EV) market is growing rapidly, but with this growth comes public pressure to ensure supply chains for EV batteries are sustainable. The soaring demand for batteries relies heavily on the extraction and refinement of critical minerals, processes that have far-reaching environmental and social impacts. Moreover, the global distribution of these operations leaves them susceptible to geopolitical instability, further complicating the supply chain. 

At the same time, this growth in mining and manufacturing also presents an opportunity to avoid recreating the harms of past mining and industrial activities. While individual EV buyers have little leverage over the industry, fleet purchasers of EVs instead have an opportunity to use their combined market power to ensure upstream suppliers adhere to strong sustainability standards.  Corporate fleets can wield their collective influence and purchasing power to drive change on a large scale.

With that market power in mind, our climate program at Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) has partnered with the nonprofit Ceres and its Corporate Electric Vehicle Alliance (CEVA), a collaborative group of companies focused on accelerating the transition to EVs, to release a new report with recommendations for major corporate EV fleet purchasers for how they can help ensure supply chain sustainability.

Among other solutions, the report recommends that corporate actors looking to make EV fleet purchases:

  • Join the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) in order to publicly demonstrate commitment to responsible sourcing; and add political momentum and end-user economic clout to IRMA’s efforts to engage and audit the mining industry
  • Advocate for domestic mining reform that expands mining only as much as necessary while ensuring responsible environmental management and clean up as well as community and Tribal engagement
  • Participate in extended producer responsibility schemes and build partnerships with second life and recycling entities.
  • Advocate for federal policy to standardize EV battery labeling and traceability through an open-source, interoperable digital product passport with requirements designed to improve environmental and human impacts, carbon footprint, and end of life opportunities.
  • Advocate for federal policy to standardize EV battery labeling and traceability through an open-source, interoperable digital product passport with requirements designed to improve environmental and human impacts, carbon footprint, and end of life opportunities.

While the report’s primary focus is on U.S. companies operating electric vehicle fleets, the information and recommendations can also benefit other companies involved in the EV supply chain. The goal is to highlight areas where corporate advocacy and procurement practices can have the most impact in promoting a sustainable EV industry.

Ensuring a sustainable EV battery supply chain—one that maximizes benefits for communities, industry, and the environment—will require long-term, coordinated action by stakeholders across the globe. Large fleets and major companies can leverage their purchasing power and engagement with industry to incentivize manufacturers and mining operators to prioritize sustainability and responsible practices. The recommendations in this guidebook offer a roadmap for corporate procurement practices, supplier engagement, and support for policies and initiatives that aim to make ethical sourcing and environmental stewardship the industry norm.

Access the full report here: Electric Vehicle Batteries: A Guidebook for Responsible Corporate Engagement Throughout the Supply Chain

This post is co-authored with Shruti Sarode and cross-posted on Legal Planet.

California Lithium & EV Battery Supply Chain — KQED Forum 10am PT

Can California become a global center for lithium production for EV batteries? How sustainable is the global battery supply chain? I’ll be a guest on KQED Forum today at 10am PT to discuss, as part of the show’s “In Transit” series.

Today, Australia, Chile and China are the top three sources of worldwide lithium production. But California’s Imperial Valley contains a vast underground reserve near the Salton Sea, with enough lithium potentially to meet all of U.S. future demand and more than one-third of global demand.

Along with me to discuss this potential will be Eduardo Garcia, Assemblymember, representing California’s 36th State Assembly District in eastern Riverside County and Imperial County.

Tune in on KQED radio or stream live at 10am PT!

Global Mining Reform Must Be Everything Everywhere All At Once — My Op-Ed In The Hill

To achieve a sustainable supply chain for electric vehicles, especially from the mining of key battery inputs, we’ll need global reforms on how mining is conducted. These reforms will need to be everything everywhere all at once, and I offer some suggestions how in this new op-ed in The Hill:

Advocates can help…by supporting laws that require automakers (and energy storage companies) to source battery minerals from companies and countries that adhere to strict standards to protect local communities, such as [the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, or IRMA]. Advocates and philanthropies can also support local advocates in key mineral-producing countries, by arming them with the resources they need to effect change within their jurisdictions, including via anti-corruption measures such as improved transparency requirements and whistleblower protections. Finally, policymakers can work to reduce the overall demand for new mining, such as through mandates and infrastructure planning for battery reuse and recycling, as well as promote demand reduction through more public transit, walking and biking — an important complement to electrifying transportation.

Meanwhile, the situation has only become more urgent with proposed deep sea mining that could happen as soon as later this year, if an international agency charged with regulating the seafloor outside of national boundaries doesn’t take action. I discussed this prospect recently with the Washington Post and KCBS radio in San Francisco.

Ultimately, the success of electric vehicles is a good thing. But we can’t repeat the mistakes of the past with harmful fossil fuel extraction. Sustainable supply chains, including responsible mining, must be a top priority for reformers around the world.

Need Quick Climate Solutions? Check Out Our “Climate Break” Podcast

Climate change news is often quite depressing, with frequent stories on the science and ever-worsening impacts. What gets lost in this otherwise important coverage is the amazing and inspiring tales of innovation and solutions happening all around us, in every sector and walk of life.

That’s why Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE), in partnership with the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, launched the podcast Climate Break, which tells stories of climate solutions in less than two minutes. Climate Break features interviews with compelling scientists, innovators, organizers, and leaders discussing breakthroughs, new approaches, and examples of progress on climate change. And it’s almost entirely student run.

Over the past two years, we have recorded interviews with climate leaders like former California governor Jerry Brown and Arizona governor (and former Homeland Security secretary) Janet Napolitano, youth activists protesting fossil fuels, corporate leaders pushing for proactive climate lobbying, and entrepreneurs building clean energy facilities in tribal communities and retrofitting internal combustion engine vehicles in Egypt into electric models, among many other solutions.

And as of this year, a new episode of the podcast airs every Thursday on NPR-affiliate KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco, offering listeners “climate solutions in a hurry.” In fact, you can tune in or stream live today at 7:19am and 3:48pm PT to hear our newest episode. We hope to expand to more radio stations soon.

For more on the podcast and its origins, Berkeley Law News profiled me and CLEE Project Climate Director Ken Alex, who had the idea for the program. Ken also serves as the show’s executive producer, along with CLEE senior climate fellow Chandra Middleton, who supervises the student team that helps produce the clips and draft additional information on each topic on our website.

So if you’re looking for inspiring solutions to address the climate crisis in less than two minutes, subscribe to Climate Break today on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!

As EV Sales Increase, Can Any Company Dethrone Tesla?

Car sales data from 2022 is now out, and the results are encouraging. According to the Wall Street Journal, automakers sold 807,180 fully electric vehicles in the U.S. last year, or 5.8% of all vehicles sold, up from 3.2% a year earlier. And as E&E News reported (paywalled) 19 percent of new car purchases in California were zero-emission vehicles. This is a big increase from the 12 percent in 2021, according to the same California Energy Commission data, and a positive trajectory to a state-mandated goal of 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035.

But only one EV company dominates. Tesla Motors accounted for 65% of total EV sales last year, down from 72% in 2021, but with no real competition in sight. Ford Motor Co. is a distant number 2 in sales at just 7.6% of the U.S. market, with Hyundai and affiliate Kia combined at third with 7.1% market share. In California, the top vehicles sold overall by a large margin were the Tesla Model 3 followed by Model Y, with combined sales of more than half of all EVs sold in the state. What’s more, Tesla earns large profit margins per vehicle compared to other automakers.

Other legacy automakers appear to be asleep at the wheel (so to speak). They are instead largely committed to making money on gas guzzlers, despite press releases and limited EV releases to the contrary. General Motors, for example, is allocating only 10% of a new $860 billion investment into EV development, according to Eletrek.

But not everyone thinks Tesla’s lead will continue. As Paul Krugman wrote in December after a stock price drop:

[I]t’s hard to explain the huge valuation the market put on Tesla before the drop, or even its current value. After all, to be that valuable, Tesla would have to generate huge profits not just for a few years but in a way that could be expected to continue for many years to come.

He cited the lack of obvious attributes that would give Tesla the kind of market dominance that we see with monopolistic companies like Apple or Google in their sectors.

But what Krugman and others miss is the significant technological advantage Tesla has right now over its competitors, in terms of charging speeds and user friendliness of the vehicles (Krugman admits he’s not a “car guy” and so likely hasn’t test driven EVs from different brands before to understand this difference).

But second, and perhaps most importantly, people like Krugman mistake Tesla as just a car company. But it’s not. It’s a fuel station operator, too, with the most significant build out of EV charging infrastructure in the world. What’s more, compared to the competition (third party charging companies rather than other automakers), Tesla’s chargers are higher-powered and more convenient and reliable.

But wait there’s more, as they say on the game shows. Tesla is also an energy storage company, with 152 percent growth last year in its stationary battery business. And it’s a solar roof company, though that latter business has largely been stalled in recent years. So when you package all of these business lines together, you’ll find a vertically integrated monopoly with a significant head start in essentially all of the climate-fighting tech that will dominate the future.

Yes, Tesla stock may be overvalued. But the perception behind it is quite justified. Other automakers need to catch up, as the 2022 sales data reveal, or they will face an existential threat to their survival — much as humans now do, thanks to their gas-guzzling products.

SF’s Climate Action Plan, Alcatraz History & The Pacific Pinball Museum — State Of The Bay 6pm PT

Tonight on State of the Bay, I’ll be hosting Jessica Wolfrom, environmental reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, for an update on San Francisco’s climate action plan. As my colleagues at CLEE analyzed in a report last year, the city may need up to $22 billion to meet its climate goals.

Then we’ll uncover the mystery and history of Alcatraz: the prisoners, protests, escapes and more. We’ll be joined by John Martini, author, historian and former Park Ranger on Alcatraz Island, and Karley Nugent, current Park Ranger on Alcatraz.

Finally, we’ll hear about another great bay area gem: The Pacific Pinball museum in Alameda, with Larry Zartarian, president of the Pacific Pinball museum.

What would you like to ask our guests? Post a comment here, tweet us @StateofBay, send an email to stateofthebay@kalw.org or leave a voicemail at (415) 580-0718‬.

Tune in tonight at 6pm PT on KALW 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live. You can also call 866-798-TALK with questions during the show.

Carbon Capture & EV Mining Impacts + San Francisco Housing Debates — Your Call 10am PT & State Of The Bay 6pm PT
air-air-pollution-climate-change-221012.jpg

It’s another double shot today of me hosting shows on KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco Bay Area. First, at 10am PT, I’ll be guest hosting Your Call’s One Planet Series, where we’ll discuss the viability of carbon capture technology in combating climate change. Carbon capture and storage is the process of capturing and storing carbon dioxide from polluting sources and storing it deep in the ground.

The just-passed (but not yet signed) Inflation Reduction Act includes a change in a crucial tax credit for the carbon capture industry—increasing the government subsidy for capturing CO2 from polluting sources from $50 to $85 per metric ton.

Some environmentalists call these carbon capture subsidies a handout to the oil industry and a distraction from urgently needed actions. How effective is this technology? Joining us to discuss are:

Tony Briscoe, environmental reporter with the Los Angeles Times

Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.

Then we’ll cover the socio-environmental impacts of lithium mining to produce electric vehicles. Joining us will be Jennifer Krill, executive director of Earthworks, a nonprofit organization committed to protecting communities from the adverse impacts of oil and gas and mineral extraction.

Second, later today on State of the Bay at 6pm PT, we’ll cover the latest in San Francisco’s housing saga, as the state threatens to take over land use planning for the City. Plus we’ll discuss the rise of autoimmune disorders and learn about California’s youth governor’s race, covered in a new documentary.

Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT for Your Call and then again at 6pm PT for State of the Bay. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!

Will California Stymie Desert Solar?
Beacon of Light: A Solar Plant Shines in the Mojave Desert Western Energy  Summer 2019

UPDATE: Here’s an op-ed I wrote in CalMatters on this subject, published on June 14th. The Commission ultimately deadlocked on the decision and will revisit in October.

California is supposed to be a model for the world on how an advanced economy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the state is not on pace to meet its legislated 2030 climate goals, and part of the problem is that state leaders are falling behind on deploying renewable energy. A recent controversy in the Mojave Desert over the iconic Joshua Tree is emblematic of the state’s challenges building the clean technology necessary to limit catastrophic climate change.

The goals are aggressive. The state requires its electricity grid to be completely carbon-free by 2045, including an interim target of 60% of grid power from renewable sources by 2030. This goal requires tripling the current annual build rate of solar and wind facilities. While state policy makers and industry leaders envision siting these clean energy projects all over the state, including offshore wind turbines and smaller-scale distributed solar resources in existing urbanized areas and brownfields, a substantial portion of that solar energy will need to come from utility-scale installations in the state’s vast, sun-soaked desert region. But the legal obstacles there could soon become formidable.

Specifically, the Center of Biological Diversity petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission in 2019 to list the iconic western Joshua Tree as a “threatened” species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. If state leaders were to affirm that petition, it would have the potential to undermine the state’s ability to meet its climate goals by effectively placing much of the Mojave Desert off limits to clean energy.

In its review of the Center’s petition, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife assessed the science last month and recommended not listing the species. It found that the trees are “currently abundant and widespread” with up to five million of them currently growing on a combined total estimated range of 3.4 million acres, in both their northern and southern desert areas. As with virtually all species, the department expects climate change to impact Joshua Tree habitat (though the species is still expected to persist in high numbers) through the end of this century. But as the temperature increases and rainfall patterns change (assuming it becomes more dry), lands to the north and at higher elevations could provide a refuge, with future climatic conditions similar to their present-day ones.

The commission will make a final determination in June. But if the commission overrules the department’s recommendation and lists the Joshua Tree as threatened, the consequences for California’s clean energy goals could be dire. Developers will either be prevented from building solar power in much of the Mojave Desert or will face costly mitigation measures to do so, which would diminish this needed deployment in one of the prime solar-generating areas of the state. Globally, it would hinder the state’s ability to show the world that a renewable build out in an advanced economy is feasible.

To be sure, these desert ecosystems are fragile, host unique species and are iconic in their majestic scenery – as is the Joshua Tree itself. No one (I would hope) enjoys seeing Joshua Trees cut down, even if it’s for a critical cause like climate change. But how much desert land are we talking about? The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the state’s grid operator, currently has 19,000 megawatts of solar power and energy storage facilities in its queue that are located in the Joshua Tree’s southern range. Even if all these facilities were built (and some will almost certainly fall out), they would occupy only a tiny fraction of the range of the species. It’s a relatively small footprint for a technology that California desperately needs to deploy to benefit us all.

To put this desert deployment in context, a state energy agency report last year found that in tripling its annual build rate of clean energy, California will need to go from a 2019 deployment of 12.5 gigawatts of utility-scale solar to 69.4 gigawatts by 2045 – an almost 6-fold increase. Those 19 gigawatts of desert solar power and storage would therefore greatly help the state meet the long-term deployment needed to completely decarbonize the grid.

But perhaps worse, if the California Fish and Game Commission chooses to list the Joshua Tree as threatened for the sole reason of a warming climate, then under that logic, virtually any species could be listed as threatened, given the climate disruption the entire planet faces. That justification would in turn make it virtually impossible for the state to deploy precisely the clean technology we need to avoid making the situation worse, from energy storage to wind to solar.

All of us — humans, plants and animals — are threatened by the emergency of climate change, unless we take the necessary steps like deploying more wind and solar energy to combat it. The technology exists to stop climate change from worsening. What we lack is the political will to get it done. The Fish and Game Commission now faces that same test, whether to follow the department’s scientific findings or place yet another obstacle in the path of clean energy.

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