Tag Archives: business

Can impact investing cross from land to sea?

The Guardian US/UK | September 5, 2013 | Original headline: Can impact investing successfully cross from land to sea?

Impact investors have plunged headfirst into food and agriculture deals, but when it comes to ocean ventures, they’re just starting to learn how to swim.

Fishing pier

Fishing pier by timparkinson via flickr/Creative Commons

Impact investing in fisheries and oceans has been slow to emerge, compared to dairy, poultry and beef ventures — in part, it seems, because these companies can seem like a safer bet. The supply is fairly predictable, and there aren’t as many middlemen cutting into producer profits.

Yet it’s possible to apply the lessons learned from food and agriculture deals toward investing in fisheries and ocean-related businesses, which could lead to larger profits for fishing communities, restored fish stocks and improved marine health.

“We see tremendous opportunity because of issues and gaps in the marketplace,” said Taryn Goodman, director of impact investing at RSF Social Finance, during an ocean investing panel Wednesday at the Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco.

Know the differences

That said, investors also should realize there are differences between the ocean and agriculture sectors. Knowing those differences, panelists emphasized, can help craft a deal that meets both investors’ financial and impact requirements.

For one thing – as Goodman observed through a RSF Social Finance loan to Kuskokwim Seafoods, a Native Alaskan-run fishing company – the seafood supply chain is made up of a more concentrated monopoly of only a few companies and is disconnected from local food systems.

“The system is broken,” Goodman said. “Getting in to process fish is very difficult – you go head to head with the big guys.”

Though Kuskokwim made a deal agreeing to process everything it caught, Goodman said, “the deal went south. No money was made because you’re competing with others and not building out your supply chain.”

Seafood supply chains are filled with middlemen, explained Beau Seil, managing partner of Unitus Impact. “Fish can change hands 14 to 15 times before it gets to our plate in the US.”

Not being able to predict how much fish would be caught, Goodman said, also made it difficult to know the maximum processing capacity needed or how to get the greatest profit margin. The unpredictable length of the season, as well as Alaska-issued quotas, also threw her off.

Consumers as influencers

The public, Goodman noted, also influences how the seafood supply chain works.

“The majority of chefs, once you take the skin off, can’t identify what fish it is,” she said. “It’s lack of knowledge and awareness. It surprises me.”

Many restaurants don’t want to take a chance with smaller suppliers, who might not have what they need on any particular day, she said.

A lack of transparency creates another challenge. “Opaqueness in the space enables more poor behavior . . . you can create monopolies,” she said. “It’s like the underworld in there.”

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Cloud technology brings clean drinking water to India

GreenBiz | September 4, 2013 | Original headline: How cloud technology can bring clean drinking water to India

Women and children collect drinking water from tanks at an urban resettlement slum in Delhi, India

Women and children collect drinking water from tanks at an urban resettlement slum in Delhi, India. Credit: Frog Design

Imagine not having access to clean drinking water because you refused to vote for a particular politician, or didn’t pay bribes to the driver delivering your supply. Even after doing both these things, you’re still not sure just exactly when the next delivery will arrive.

This is the case in India, where access to drinking water is not universal. As India increasingly urbanizes and water becomes even more scarce, solutions that raise access will be more important in the coming decades.

That’s why the Piramal Foundation — which addresses India’s development challenges through social ventures — funded Sarvajal, a company that uses cloud technology to provide water via filtration stations and solar-powered ATMs.

UNICEF reports that water-borne diseases such as cholera, gastroenteritis and diarrhea in India are responsible for $600 million in medical bills and lost productivity per year, but it could get worse. The national government estimates that demand for clean water will rise 50 percent by 2031 if current delivery models stay the same. According to the World Bank, 220 million Indians will migrate to cities over the same 20-year period.

The problem: Steady access to clean water

In rural areas, residents often have no other choice than to capture groundwater.  “The water was brackish, there were no pipes, no tankers, and filters were too expensive,” said Anand Shah, former head of the India-based Piramal Foundation, of the lack of access. “They’d sift it but would still have large amounts of kidney stones, joint pain, arthritis and gastrointestinal problems.” Plus, the reverse osmosis process to desalinate and filter out impurities was inefficient.

In urban slums, the situation can be better, but not optimal. Although tankers arrive to dispense water for free, they’re intermittent and unpredictable, Shah said. Residents invest large amounts of time pursuing the tanker, jostling to fill containers they carry home. And even if the driver has the best intentions, the country’s rough roads lead to unexpected roadblocks.

Through a monitoring device attached to each filtration unit, embedded sensors and an RFID reader, Sarvajal tracks water quality in real time. It follows user activity, how many times the water has been backwashed and rinsed, when filters need changing, how much water a station has dispensed and how many times the power went out.

Service and maintenance were costly, so a monitoring device was built in-house allowing the company to diagnose machines from one central location.

The company grew from one pilot location in 2007 to more than 200 filtration station-ATM combos in villages of at least 5,000 people each across India. One resident per village can purchase a franchise for about 30,000 Indian rupees, about $500, and sell the filtered water for a penny per liter, he said.

Users pre-pay for their water, and funds are loaded onto Sarvajal ATM cards.

Selling, really?

Shah said he realizes that selling water in a country that has offered water as a public resource could appear off the mark. But delivery via the tankers is unpredictable, and it takes families time to collect water from the tankers and filter it at home.

“We looked at every alternative out there, and even if a family buys the cheapest water filter, we’ve priced it still under what it would cost them per liter,” he said. Bottled water costs 32 cents and water pouches 14 cents per liter on the street, and creates more waste than refilling reusable containers.

According to Shah, local franchise owners can earn a good living — up to two to three times what they would make for unskilled labor. While Sarvajal still owns the water filtration equipment, it takes less than a year for the franchise owners to start returning profits, he says. Sarvajal, on the other hand, doesn’t expect to profit for another five to 10 years.

Shah says Sarvajal launched as a for-profit company in part because a non-profit would have a harder time attracting technical talent.

Scaling into urban areas – with some help

Sarvajal has secured the go-ahead from the local government in the metropolitan area around New Delhi to set up some 50 filtration station-ATM units — areas without regular access to drinking water.

Because Sarvajal mostly had operated in more rural areas, it needed help. To that end, the company hired Frog Design, a consultancy that engineers and designs products and services in energy, health care and social innovation.

Jan Chipchase, Frog’s creative director of global insights, set up a team of staffers from India. They spent over a month in Delhi interviewing and observing how residents navigated securing drinking water. The group also spoke to water providers who had opened businesses related to supplying clean water.

Savda Ghevra, a resettled slum on the edge of Delhi, was the focus of the research. Frog wanted to find out the value of clean drinking water, how a delivery system would meet residents’ needs and what might arise during the implementation of an alternative system. (The extended research was funded by the Institute of Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California-Irvine).

“A water ATM allows stored value to convert to digital credit. As the world digitizes, we wanted to find out to what extent a low literate community was willing to invest in these types of technology,” said Chipchase.

Using digital tools to store value in less developed countries is not unheard of, says Chipchase, who cited Kenya as a country where much of the population banks online.

As a result of their research – detailed in a report, “Journeys for Water” released Tuesday – Frog concluded that in the context of the current water delivery model for Savda Ghevra, the “belief that water is a right and should be free is moot. In the slum residents pay for their water in one way or another – with time and money, with their ability to move and make political choices based on their interests.”

“It’s realizing that the current practice of water tankers isn’t working from a social and practical perspective,” Chipchase said. “This project is far more about understanding politics and economics in the broader sense.”

But Frog found that despite all the advanced technology enabling a water delivery system such as Sarvajal’s to exist in a country lacking adequate infrastructure, it must give residents some ownership and control for the system to be sustainable.

Shah said his team estimates that Sarvajal needs to scale to 1,000 to 1,500 locations to break even.

Democratizing of technology

Chipchase said Sarvajal is a perfect example of how “reverse innovation” is taking place through combining “mature” technologies such as the mobile telephone system, RFID tags and sensors. “The ability to prototype is becoming mainstream. It’s not just Silicon Valley anymore.”

Shah is a CalTech and Harvard-educated Indian-American who grew up in Houston, then spent 13 years in India after college, yet most of the 120 employees at Sarvajal are Indian nationals. His team of 25 engineers developed the filtration system’s monitoring device, coined the Soochak.

Coin-operated water filtration stations exist in Vietnam and Thailand. Yet Sarvajal’s pairing of cloud-based monitoring and an ATM service appears to be unique.

Capital returns should be secondary

Shah has been contacted by the Indian division of water giant Pentair and an array of venture capitalists about potential investments. But after learning more about the company’s timeline for return, he said, they lost interest. The same thing happened, he said, with larger companies interested in moving into the space themselves.

“My response to them was you’re asking the wrong question – you should be asking how long it’s going to take to solve the problem,” he said. “We’re in this to solve the problem, not for money to be made. Things like water — where innovation hasn’t happened in 50 years – these are really big opportunities to think about them freshly from a new perspective. Returning capital should be a byproduct or a secondary [outcome].”

Middle image: Women collect filtered drinking water at a solar ATM and filtration station operated by Sarvajal. Bottom image: Sarvajal’s filtration stations are operated by local villagers and are monitored for maintenance using sensor technology. All photos courtesy Frog Design

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Dairy farmers move ahead on sustainability

GreenBiz | July 9, 2013

Farmer and cow at Foster Brothers Farms dairy in Middlebury, Vt.

Foster Brothers Farms dairy in Middlebury, Vt. Photo: Skye Chalmers for Cabot Creamery Cooperative

As a fourth-generation farmer, Bob Foster worked for decades under his father and uncles as they taught him how to run Foster Brothers Farms, his family’s 1,800-acre dairy tucked away in Middlebury, Vt.

When he was growing up, following sustainable practices was not always front and center of the industry’s business strategy.

“As a kid, it was okay to mix the bags of superphosphate in with the manure,” Foster said.

But the energy crisis of the 1970s spurred an awakening. “We had one of the last loads of fuel and we were trying to harvest crops,” he said. The situation jump-started his efforts to lower his farm’s carbon footprint through a closed loop system.

In 1982, the farm installed an onsite anaerobic digester. Since then, it has been producing electricity and compost from cow manure. So in addition to the 1.4 million gallons of milk it produces each year, Foster Brothers also sells excess electricity to the grid and compost varieties to regional farms.

But for all his efforts towards becoming a more sustainable producer, Foster was frustrated that companies looking to buy his products had a different approach towards measuring emissions and the farm’s carbon footprint.

Although many companies circulated questionnaires asking what his farm was doing to monitor its emissions and shrink its carbon footprint, Foster didn’t think they were asking the right questions. “A lot of the scorecards when you push it down to the farm gate don’t measure up,” he said.

So Foster joined efforts with Agri-Mark (a dairy co-op Foster Brothers belongs to) and over 40 other Northeastern dairy producers working alongside the Manomet Center for Conservation Science to develop the Vital Capital Index. Released in 2010, it was the U.S. dairy industry’s first effort to measure impact on a social, environmental and economic level.

Now, a national effort to standardize the way U.S. dairy producers are measured in the same three areas is almost complete.

The industry-funded organization leading the efforts, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, says that the new framework is a science-based tool for dairy producers and processors to benchmark their own progress. It enables them to report data on a variety of indicators such as their energy and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, working conditions, animal care and impacts on the local economy. Indicators were developed in collaboration with dairy producers and processors, nongovernmental organizations, academics and companies that purchase dairy products as part of their supply chain.

The framework — detailed in a document titled the Stewardship and Sustainability Guide for U.S. Dairy — is an evolution of the work the Innovation Center started in 2008. In 2009, the industry had made a voluntary commitment to reduce 25 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions from milk by 2020. So when the Vital Capital Index was released one year later, the Center was ready to build upon and expand those efforts.

The Center hopes that the framework will enable both companies and consumers to better understand dairy’s impact on the supply chain.

Kenton Holle and daughter Jennifer at family-operated Northern Lights Dairy in Mandan, N.D.

Kenton Holle and daughter Jennifer at family-operated Northern Lights Dairy in Mandan, N.D. Photo courtesy Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy

“It allows for standardization in communication and consistent definitions throughout the industry,” said Sandra Vijn, a sustainability metrics specialist at the Center who is leading the effort. “We want the producers and processors to tell their own sustainability story.”

The indicators are based on several performance indicators from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines that Vijn helped to develop.

Yet considering that most in the industry do not report on sustainability issues at all — and that using the Center’s framework is voluntary — how much can the effort really standardize sustainability reporting? Will it really help conscientious consumers decide which brand of milk, yogurt or cheese to buy when one farm reports progress on sustainability using the framework and another does not?

Even if both did participate, applications still appear limited. The Center emphasizes that reporting results should be used as to benchmark one’s own progress, not as a comparison tool.

Still, Foster says that if companies adopt the framework as an evaluation tool — and if the questions asked are those his peers have the data to answer — an enormous amount of time would be saved when responding to each questionnaire.

Jed Davis, director of sustainability for Agri-Mark Co-op — comprising 1,200 dairy farm families in upstate New York and New England — said that the sheer variety and ever-changing nature of questionnaires from potential customers frustrates him.

“We take all of the questionnaires at the moment and boil it down to the questions we most want to ask our farmers,” he said. “The next month we get a whole bunch more, but the next month [they’re] slightly different. More than once we have to go back — which is too much to bother them for information when they have to stop and pull it together.

“As a dairy industry, if we can help our customers ask better questions of us, we can give better answers.”

One such example of a poorly developed question, Foster and Davis agreed, was one asking about the source of the cows’ feed when not all dairies grow their own crops; sometimes, the source can change from one week’s delivery to the next.

But compared to its sister industries in agriculture such as beef, soybeans and corn — dairy appears ahead of the game. (While hackathons held recently in Silicon Valley and New York in pursuit of a more sustainable meat industry appear to be fostering a new wave of innovative ventures between farmers, hackers and entrepreneurs, they were not organized by an industry association).

What the beef industry just started doing last year  — pulling together a group of stakeholders together at a sustainability “roundtable” — is what the dairy industry did in 2008 with the first of its sustainability councils, Davis said.

Earlier this year, the Center’s framework was pilot tested by a group of dairy producers and processors in different regions of the country. Testers were provided with a suite of location-specific tools (for a farm, processing plant or fleet) and handbook for guidance and support in how to report using the framework. And on July 14, the Center will wrap up a 60-day stakeholder comment period on the framework.

But plans for third-party certification are not in the immediate future. “We think that by working through a multistakeholder process, basing it on science, and getting nongovernmental organizations and customer feedback brings credibility to the process,” Vijn said.

GRI has reviewed the indicators to make sure they’re in line with its own, and the Center has been working with the Carbon Disclosure Project on processor indicators, she added.

Next, the Center will be working with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a larger group of academic institutions and USDA labs to study how the industry can adapt their production methods to a changing climate. It has the support of a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“It’s not a complete picture yet,” Vijn said. “Greenhouse gas and energy is one thing, but we also want to make sure we bring in other indicators over the years.”

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How Google is changing the renewables game

GreenBiz | April 24, 2013 | Original headline: How Google is changing the renewables game for Apple, Facebook

Nightfall over Google data center in Lenoir, N.C. The need to consume ever-increasing amounts of energy in their data centers — yet continue marching towards renewable energy goals — has been an ongoing challenge for Google and Apple.

Google has offset electricity needed for its centers through purchase power agreements that enable an equal amount of renewable energy to be created, yet has lamented that managing power sales and purchases on the wholesale market takes time away from its focus on building user products.

And despite Apple’s onsite generation of renewable energy, it has still had to supplement its need for renewables through buying off the grid and purchasing renewable energy certificates to offset the conventional portion, green IT experts say.

It’s a conundrum that has kept the Silicon Valley tech giants within the constraints of local utilities’ energy mix in states that don’t permit direct purchases of renewable energy.

Nowhere has this challenge been more evident than in North Carolina, an indirect access state that houses data centers for Google, Apple and Facebook as well as AT&T, Wipro and Disney. Compounding matters further is proposed legislation that would repeal the state’s renewable portfolio standard mandating that 12.5 percent of North Carolina’s energy mix come from renewable sources by 2021.

But things are looking up. Now, Google is trying to transform the local landscape in North Carolina by partnering with Duke Energy. The pair worked together to develop a mechanism which will enable companies of all sizes to directly purchase renewables through a new category dubbed “renewable energy tariffs.”

“The tariffs are creating a new class of service,” said Michael Terrell, who leads Google’s public policy efforts in energy and sustainability. “We think it will be a good framework for purchasing renewable energy,” he told GreenBiz.

Before the program can be launched, though, the new class and tariff structure needs to be approved by the North Carolina Utiltiies Commission. Duke Energy will make a regulatory filing asking for its adoption within the next three months.

Under the tariff, renewable energy will be sold at specific rates yet to be determined — higher than conventional sources, of course, but passed on only to those who choose to participate in the program.

“What we think is exciting is that it’s scaleable – it allows companies to buy large amounts of renewables … not every company can manage power on the wholesale market,” Terrell said.

Terrell said that he hopes the tariff will be in place by the end of the year.

Google’s announcement of the renewable energy tariff concept last Friday came on the same day it released plans to expand its Lenoir, N.C. data center with $600 million in investments. The possibility of accessing more renewable energy directly will come in handy for the company striving to reach a commitment it made in 2007 to become carbon neutral.

Implications for Apple, Facebook

Apple

The renewable energy tariff promises to boost Apple’s tally of renewable energy directly purchased for use at its data center in Maiden, N.C.

Despite Apple’s claim last month that its data centers are powered by 100 percent renewable energy, experts say that based on the information the company has released, it does buy conventional power off the grid in North Carolina (comprised mainly of coal and nuclear power in 2013, according to a Duke Energy report filed to the state’s utilities commission) to supplement what it cannot supply on its own from its 20 MW solar array and 10 MW fuel cell installation at the Maiden data center.

According to Brad Brech, a data center energy efficiency expert and board member of the Portland-based Green Grid, Apple fell short of its claim.

“Assuming that the facility runs the fuel cells at their rated capacity, they will be running their data center at its average operational load in 2012 on 85 percent renewable energy. On a sunny day, the facility will be running on 100 percent renewable energy for eight to 10 hours because the 20 MW solar farm is feeding the grid during that time period, increasing the percentage of the time the data center runs on renewable energy to 91.3 percent of the day,” Brech told GreenBiz. “On a rainy day, it will be 85 percent.”

Brech used Apple’s reported figure of the Maiden data center’s total consumption of 104,000 MWh in 2012 as a basis for his calculations, which he said on average requires 11.8 MW of generation capacity.

“With the current renewable energy generation and energy storage technologies, it is extremely difficult to run a facility that uses large amounts of electricity on renewable energy 24 hours per day, seven days per week,” Brech added. “Most renewable energy generation sources for electricity are intermittent and then are no economical, large scale energy storage technologies available to store electricity for release when the renewable sources are not generating.”

Gary Cook, an IT analyst for Greenpeace, also weighed in. “Apple is otherwise buying renewable energy credits to allow it to claim that all of the electricity it buys is renewable energy,” he told GreenBiz. “It’s not clear how much of Apple’s 100 percent renewable energy claim is being supported by REC purchases. … Technically speaking, if Apple used the current standard for reporting greenhouse gas emissions, Apple would have to use Duke’s grid mix.”

“Given that they expect the Maiden facility to grow and its electricity use increase it will be difficult to achieve 100 percent renewable energy use and assure the reliable operation of the facility,” Brech concluded. “The reality is that all users of renewable energy, whether they are residential or commercial, depend on grid-generated electricity for some part of the day.”

Apple did not make a spokesperson available to respond.

Facebook

The social media company runs a data center in Forest City, N.C., operates another in Prineville, Ore., is building a third in Lulea, Sweden and recently announced plans for a fourth near Des Moines, Iowa. While it has not been as aggressive as Google or Apple in the renewables market so far, it has a goal to reach 25 percent use of renewable energy at its data centers and facilities by 2015. And it’s planning to tap into renewable energy sources for its data centers in Sweden and Iowa, according to Reuters.

If Duke Energy’s regulatory filing to the North Carolina Utilities Commission to establish renewable energy tariffs is approved, Facebook will also have the opportunity to increase its use of renewables in Forest City.

Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks told GreenBiz that he didn’t know whether Facebook or Apple has expressed interest in participating in the renewable energy tariff program.

GigaOM‘s Katie Fehrenbacher reported last summer that Facebook’s head of energy efficiency and sustainability Bill Weihl expressed interest in purchasing renewable energy through an industry trade association which would “influence utilities’ grid choices through the group purchasing of clean power,” the article read.

How the renewable tariff program would work

Google and Duke Energy still have yet to hammer out much of the details of the renewable tariff program, which is a separate initiative from the state’s renewable portfolio standard.

The program will initially focus on large commercial and industrial companies as customers, according to Google.

“They have fairly predictable energy loads and it’s consistent, which makes it easy to design a rate that will meet their needs,” said Brooks, who added that Duke Energy had been discussing the tariff program with Google in detail for the last several months. General discussion about the idea began when Google first asked Duke Energy for a renewables rate during initial discussions about expanding its Lenoir data center, according to Brooks.

To start, the customer will decide if they want to offset some or all of its energy consumption, then the utility will match the customer with a project in the region that has a third party purchase agreement, Brooks said.

In addition to the utility going out and identifying renewable project sources, projects can approach the utility and come in under the tariff, he continued.

While Brooks could not project the level of demand in North Carolina for directly purchased renewables, he said he sees a potential for long-term growth of renewable energy sources.

“We’ve seen renewable energy projects bloom in the state over the last few years, and we’ve seen a great interest in solar energy companies, wind and even biomass and other forms of methane gas projects too. Solar in particular has really boomed in the past few years, and we’ve seen costs come down for those technologies,” Brooks said.

Terrell said that Google has been speaking to other utilities about the renewable energy tariff proposal. According to Brooks, the idea to offer renewable energy rates to various customer classes is fairly new but not entirely unique. Dominion Virginia Power, he said, provides a similar offering.

“It’s [an idea] that utilities are exploring in different ways,” he said.

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Lessons for business in the age of climate change

Bill McKibben marching with crowd at climate rally in Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 2013

Bill McKibben (center right) marching at Forward on Climate rally in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 12, 2013. Photo: 350.org

GreenBiz | April 1, 2013

Perhaps one of the most well-known climate activists of our times, environmental writer Bill McKibben is on a mission to slow down the effect of greenhouse gases on the earth. Alongside his colleagues at the nongovernmental organization 350.org, McKibben has spearheaded a campaign calling upon communities, governments and universities all around the world to take action by divesting from fossil fuel companies.

Last summer, McKibben laid out his case for divestment in Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, an article he wrote for Rolling Stone. The piece stated that while the United Nations’ Copenhagen Accord climate agreement recognizes that the earth’s temperature should not rise by no more than an amount just under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), global temperature has already risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius — and that many scientists such as NASA’s James Hansen believe that a rise of two degrees is too much. McKibben closes his case by highlighting research by the Carbon Tracker Initiative which reports that burning the total amount of coal, oil and gas reserves currently held by fossil fuel companies would release five times the amount of carbon needed to stay under the two-degree threshold.

McKibben is also reaching out to business. Later this month, he’ll speak to the health care industry at the CleanMed conference in Boston (April 24-26) about what it can do to fight climate change.

GreenBiz Interim Managing Editor Kristine A. Wong recently spoke with McKibben about lessons for business in the age of climate change.

Kristine Wong: There’s only so much government has been able to do to address climate change, and business is a clear part of the answer.  What are some of the top things that business needs to do to move this process forward? 

Bill McKibben: Well, I think that there’s a lot of things that individual businesses can be doing in their own business, and we’re seeing a lot of that start to happen already. Apple announced that their entire server farm is running off of solar energy. People are making good transitions in their operations in a lot of cases.

But just in the same way that we always say to people ‘It’s important to change your lightbulbs, but it’s more important to change the structures of your energy system,’ the most important thing that businesses can be doing is to join in a real concerted political effort to cause change – not letting the fossil fuel industry win through letting its vehicles like the Chamber of Commerce dominate the discussion. You need to bring pressure on [the Chamber of Commerce].

There may be no more important player in Washington – I haven’t seen the latest numbers, but in the 2010 election cycle they spent more than the Republican and Democratic National Committee parties combined. And they’re stone cold climate obstructionists. They filed a brief with the EPA saying something like don’t worry about climate change – if it ever happens, humans will adapt their physiology in order to cope. They’ve been way, way, way outside the mainstream on this issue, carrying water for the fossil fuel industry, and the rest of the of the business community has let them get away with it.

Wong: Why do you think that is?

McKibben: Because it’s not their main business to be focused on that. If you run a furniture company, your main thing that you spend all day thinking about is making and selling furniture. You don’t have a lot of bandwidth left to think about climate change – or at least you haven’t had a lot of it — and the only people who have that bandwidth left is the fossil fuel industry because they understand that doing anything for climate change is a mortal threat for their industry. They’ve been there day in and day out.

It’s starting to change because renewable energy groups and things are beginning to acquire some power, but lobbying power belongs to people who’ve made money already. It represents the accumulated money and power of the last 50 years, not the next 50 years. Fifty years from now, I have no doubt that the wind industry lobby will be powerful, and perhaps obnoxious. Maybe it will be stepping on the neck of the tidal power industry, or whatever else is coming next.

But for the moment, we need everybody who’s at all concerned about climate change — the biggest problem facing the world — to make it their business. This, at this point, is everybody’s business. And it better be fast because the economic consequences of not doing anything about it are staggering, quite aside from the moral human consequences.

Wong: There’s a lot of Fortune 1000 companies that have the money to do something — and they have sustainability departments. What’s the best way for them to be engaging with governments and the grassroots?

McKibben: Companies are deeply politically involved all the time. If they’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce, then they’ve joined the movement to do nothing for climate change. So maybe a good first step would be quitting. But internally within their businesses, it’s very easy to do figure out how to do things like setting an internal carbon price and quickly make fossil fuel reduction a priority. And these things are starting to happen at your better-managed companies now. And they’re important and good, but they’re also not a substitute for political engagement.

Wong: What companies do you think are doing a good job in this area, and who needs to improve?

McKibben: I don’t track individual companies. But I know there have been some interesting focused efforts at some of the chemical companies – DuPont, I think, has done an interesting job of energy use reduction. Sometimes, one’s a little sad that the same handful of companies are being held up again and again – Interface, for example — because it sort of implies others aren’t moving as fast as one might want.

Wong: What are some strategies to get businesses to change — whether it’s from within or from the outside?

McKibben: Consumers and others are increasingly putting pressure on businesses and trying to hold them accountable. In extreme cases of the fossil fuel industry, we’re now having a huge divestment movement break out across the entire country. It’s at over 300 college campuses now, and it’s moving to cities and religious denominations and things like that. People are cutting their ties with this industry.

But it doesn’t mean that they’re the only ones needing to change. Consumers are paying attention as well as activists and citizens. Climate change by far is the biggest problem that human beings have ever faced. So what companies do and don’t do will be long remembered.

Wong: Are there particular influencers that you think might have a snowball effect? For example, a company that can have an effect on its peers and unlock change?

McKibben: Yes. There’s companies that are starting to do — we all know what companies people really pay attention to as examples of good management and innovation and things.

In the tech sector, it’s Apple and Google. And both of them have done some progressive things in energy. And I believe that Apple anyway has severed its relations with the Chamber of Commerce, and I believe Microsoft, at least, has stepped down from its board. And there are sector leaders in almost every place that it would be good to see doing this.

One of the things that makes it more difficult is that there’s a constant ongoing desire too among many environmentalists and activists, including myself, to see a somewhat more decentralized, spread out and diverse business sector than we have at the moment. There’s a great interest for environmental reasons to have people moving towards more localized business opportunities too. So companies that figure out how to get in front of that trend and help it instead of hinder it, I think, will also be useful.

Wong: I know you’re fighting the Keystone XL pipeline right now. What are the next steps for you and 350.org?

McKibben: We’ll see what kind of decision comes down [on the pipeline] and whether our effort needs to be going to jail in Nebraska — we’ll find out. That’s a big and important paddle.

What we’re doing at 350.org is trying to take it all around the world. We’re convening a huge summit of 500 young people from pretty much every country on earth. We have about 5,000 applications we’re weeding through at the moment. It will be in Istanbul in June, and the purpose is to produce as many fired up and confident organizers to take this divestment campaign and spread it everywhere. We have to put the fossil fuel industry on the run, and fast.

Wong: What are some of the critiques and praises about how climate change has been covered by the media?

McKibben: The media has not done itself any great credit in the fight over climate change. It’s treated it as a ‘He said, she said’ thing. And in the case of Keystone, it hasn’t even done a very good job getting down what’s actually the facts of the situation. There has been a ton of lazy reporting. That’s starting to change because it’s becoming so obvious to everyone in this country that the climate is changing fast, so I think there are a lot of reporters starting to play catch up now.

I do think there are a few examples of people who have done strong powerful work on climate reporting over the years and have helped a lot. Elizabeth Kolbert at The New Yorker would be a good example.

Wong: Later this month, you’ll be speaking at the CleanMED conference focused on sustainability in health care. You’re talking to an industry that has already made a lot of progress in greening their industry. What’s the message you’ll be bringing them?

McKibben: Since many parts of that industry come from the nonprofit sector, I’ll be bringing people up to date on this work we’re doing on endowments and portfolios around divestment from fossil fuel companies. In general, I’ll be reminding them that the rest of the business community needs to really sharpen their game on dealing with climate because they’ve tended to leave it as an issue to the fossil fuel industry, whose great desire is to have nothing happen at any time.

Why Kimberly-Clark is banking on bamboo

GreenBiz | November 9, 2012

When Kimberly-Clark announced its plan to source 50 percent of its wood fiber to alternative sources by 2025 — more than the amount that’s in three billion rolls of toilet paper — the company wasn’t quite sure how it would make that happen.

It’s a tall order, even for the one of the world’s top suppliers of facial tissue, toilet paper and paper towels.

“We don’t know how we’re going to get there yet,” Brenda Nelson, a director of business planning and sustainability for the company’s family care division, told GreenBiz. “It’s not like there was a lot of precision around number and years,” she said of the pledge made in June.

So why would Kimberly-Clark, best known for its Kleenex, Huggies and Scott brand products, commit to an actual deadline? After all, Walmart famously announced goals to become 100 percent supplied by renewable energy and create zero waste — yet failed to disclose a timeline.

Like the advice given to Benjamin, the young man searching for a future in the 1967 film “The Graduate,” the answer lies in one word.

Kimberly-Clark is banking on bamboo.

“We did enough research on the fibers and potential barriers to know that it’s achievable,” Nelson said. “2025 was a date we put out there to hold ourselves accountable to make it happen.”

Mitigating risk

In 2011, Kimberly-Clark used 3.53 million metric tons of fiber to manufacture its products, according to company figures. Less than one-third of that amount – 1.05 million metric tons — came from recycled sources, the company reported.

Eighty percent of Kimberly-Clark’s product line contains wood fiber. Its primary sources are from the U.S., Brazil and Canada. In a 2011 report, the company describes itself as “highly reliant” on the material.

In the last few years, Kimberly-Clark has been hunting for a commercially viable alternative to wood fiber. In 2009, the company adopted a procurement policy requiring 40 percent of its fiber to be sourced either from FSC-certified or recycled sources by 2011. The move brought an end to a five-year campaign by Greenpeace pressuring the company to cut its ties with suppliers hawking non FSC-certified wood. The policy also banned the use of any fiber from endangered species.

But the motivation for the search extends beyond environmental reasons, Nelson says. It’s also an effort to insulate the company from a fiber market marked by volatile prices and a dwindling supply.

“We’ve taken a long look at what are the outlook and trends in virgin and recycled fiber supply,” she says. “There’s increasing pressures and demand on land that’s available. We know that where there’s constraints in terms of resources, we’ll someday have business impacts associated with them.”

To build the business case for alternative fibers, Nelson’s team examined a whole range of characteristics for several materials including bamboo and wheat straw, a product left over from wheat farming. They looked at fiber characteristics, biomass available, processing requirements and whether the infrastructure needed for processing was available. The group also identified barriers to commercializing the materials, along with broader trends that could affect the supply.

After a year of initial R&D tests, bamboo appears to have become the focus in the company’s alternative fiber strategy. Kimberly Clark is also evaluating other candidates, Nelson said, but declined to disclose more information.

With its ability to grow four times faster than trees — and without fertilizer, pesticides or a lot of water — the towering plant from Asia is a favorite for companies specializing in sustainable goods. As a result, the bamboo goods market has grown into a robust industry within the past ten years.

According to Susanne Lucas, executive director of the World Bamboo Organization, an industry association, the annual global bamboo market is currently estimated at $7 billion a year. In 2017, it’s expected to more than double to $17 billion, she says, due to increasing commercial applications such as combustion, pyrolysis, fibers, metabolites, water purification and phyto-remediation.

For Kimberly-Clark, bamboo’s ability to grow in the southeastern U.S. as well as be processed locally at wood pulping plants is significant, as the company won’t need to invest in new infrastructure, Nelson said.

Of course, Kimberly-Clark isn’t the first company to take steps toward sourcing sustainable bamboo. Cape Cod, Mass.-based Bum Boosa, which makes bamboo toilet paper and baby wipes, sources its bamboo from an FSC-certified supplier in China, according to owner Sonja Sheasley. Sheasley says she turned to a Chinese source since they accept smaller orders.

But for companies as large as Kimberly-Clark, volume is a problem.

Because bamboo only flowers once every 60 to 100 years, there hasn’t been enough of a supply to keep up with the demand. Bamboo forests around the world have been overharvested to meet consumer demand. In fact, half of all bamboo species are at risk of extinction due to forest destruction, according to a report issued by the United Nations.

Upturning sourcing on its end

But Kimberly-Clark’s development deal with Booshoot, a tiny biotech upstart located north of Seattle in Mt. Vernon, Wash., has the potential to upturn bamboo sourcing on its end — for the better.

Over the course of 12 years, Booshoot developed a now-patented method using non-genetically modified tissue culture to grow large volumes of bamboo fast enough for it to be sourced at commercial scale.

“We shattered that scientific bottleneck … it’s really a complicated cloning process,” said biologist Jackie Heinricher, Booshoot’s founder.

Booshoot’s technology created the solution Kimberly-Clark was looking for: A way to develop a recycled fiber source that could deliver the high volume it needed in a sustainable and economical way.

The deal

Under its development deal, Booshoot is providing Kimberly-Clark with tens of thousands of bamboo starts for its R&D projects.

The goal: to bring bamboo into the company’s fiber fold.

Kimberly-Clark is testing the plants to see if they can grow efficiently, and whether the fiber will hold up to standards expected by consumers, such as strength and softness.

Though not exclusive, the focus is on the Moso species, a giant that grows up to 100 feet tall, produces more fiber than wood and captures four times more carbon than most trees. Because of its fast growth, less land is needed to grow bamboo fiber when compared to the same amount of wood fiber. It can be harvested in less than a decade.

If the material passes the tests, Kimberly-Clark will become the largest grower and processor of bamboo in the U.S.

Nelson said her company is also investigating how to process bamboo “with a lighter footprint, less complex processing and a higher yield” than the predominant method currently used, which includes carbon disulfide, sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide among its inputs. Bamboo goods company Bum Boosa employs a processor that uses water, steam and friction to pulp the cellulose, Sheasley said.

Kimberly-Clark’s trials are being conducted with the potential of using bamboo in products across all types of its tissue products, Nelson said.

Working with a team of external consultants and advisors, the company is also conducting a lifecycle analysis for its products that might be manufactured with bamboo.

“It’s challenging – especially in this case to do a LCA on something theoretical,” Nelson said. “We can’t say for sure when the work will be done. But if it shows a negative impact on the total lifecycle, that would cause us to pause.”

One of the issues that the team is investigating is whether bamboo could have an invasive effect on local ecosystems — something that’s commonly associated with the plant.

The ripple effect

“It’s a really bold move,” said Richard Brooks, a Greenpeace forest campaigner in Toronto, Canada, who led the successful campaign against Kimberly-Clark that ended in 2009.

Brooks predicts Kimberly-Clark’s alternative fiber goal will send ripples throughout fiber supply chains.

“We’ve seen it before,” he said. “You can be sure there are other Fortune 500 companies looking into alternative fibers.”

“It’s actually hard for companies to be the first to make the first move,” Brooks said. “We’re seeing Kimberly-Clark make the move, get early adopter status and benefits — and other companies quickly follow them.”

It’s not clear yet whether Procter & Gamble and Georgia Pacific — Kimberly-Clark’s largest competitors in the market — will follow suit.

In the months following Kimberly-Clark’s announcement, Brooks reports that an increasing number of companies around the world who source fiber — and their pulp suppliers — are asking Greenpeace for guidance about alternatives.

“The conversations we’re having with these companies are more sophisticated,” he says. “They’re seriously exploring how to start purchasing these types of pulp.”

Brooks, who thinks the 50 percent reduction goal by 2025 is “realistic,” gives credit to Kimberly-Clark. “It’s the first time we’ve seen a large announcement that puts a number out there and puts research dollars behind it,” he said.

Still, he cautions that there are some actions that the company needs to take as part of its effort to source alternative fiber at commercial scale.

“There is no third party certification system for alternative fibers. Right now, Kimberly-Clark needs to come together with other companies and define some minimum criteria before certification is set up,” he said, referring to social, labor and environmental standards.

He also emphasizes that any potential use of post-agricultural wheat straw must be weighed in consideration with the global food supply.

Clark has been working with Kimberly-Clark along with a group of other external advisors on developing a socially and environmentally responsible alternative fiber supply chain.

“We know that we can’t do this alone,” Nelson said. “Getting the right partnerships in place, identifying the stakeholders and who to have conversations with — it’s all important to be successful.”

“It really is the next step of where the pulp and paper sector and companies need to go,” Brooks said. “We simply don’t have enough forests to be able to supply the growing demands of consumers.”

Photo of bamboo in test tubes courtesy of Booshoot

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One grower’s $17 million quest for a greener tomato

GreenBiz | August 30, 2012

More than 15 years ago, Casey Houweling ventured from his native Canada to start raising his tomatoes in the Southern California sunshine. From Romas to grape tomatoes and tomatoes on the vine, Houweling’s Tomatoes grows a wide range of GMO-free varieties at its outpost in Camarillo, Calif. in addition to its original facility in British Columbia, Canada.

It’s a massive operation. Each year, rows and rows of plants inside the company’s glass-enclosed greenhouses produce over 108 million pounds. Growing the tomatoes hydroponically — without the use of soil — enables Houweling to use less water, yield more on less land and save money. He has also outfitted his greenhouses with solar panels, reuses water and recycles or composts the majority of the company’s waste.

Over the last three years, Houweling has aimed to boost productivity even more — and reduce his environmental impact further — by making a major investment.

He recently unveiled the fruits of that investment: a new 125-acre greenhouse powered by two high-efficient, two-stage turbocharged gas-powered GE Jenbacher J624 engines. The combined heat and power (CHP) system can produce 8.7 megawatts of electrical power — enough to run about 8,800 homes — and goes beyond capturing and reusing heat, as traditional cogeneration systems do.

It also captures CO2 which can then be pumped in to the greenhouse as a fertilizer, as well as water that can be used in facility operations.

As the first commercial CHP greenhouse in the U.S., it’s arguably poised to become the most efficient in the country, and is expected to increase tomato production by 20 percent.

The system makes use of excess low grade heat and water released during production which would normally be wasted, according to GE spokesperson Scott Nolen. And since all of its power output won’t be needed 24 hours a day, Houweling plans to sell the excess power back to the grid.

“From a common sense perspective it seemed like a no-brainer,” Houweling said, reflecting back to his mindset when he first took on the project financed by lease and equity from company profits.

Yet by the time the greenhouse is ready for use, he’ll have spent a total of $17 million — with no idea what his financial return will be.

Certain risk, uncertain reward

Common sense?

As a self-proclaimed risk-taker, Houweling thinks so.

“If we waited for certainty for every decision we make in our facility, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” he said.

“We take a lot more risk than other companies and this has been the biggest risk,” he added, acknowledging that Houweling’s size (with $150 million in annual revenue) lowers the level of risk in comparison to its smaller counterparts.

Houweling said he experienced a defining moment in 2008 after expanding on the final 40 acres needed to build the last in a series of greenhouses at his Camarillo facility.

“I looked at it and said ‘I want it to be completely energy neutral,’” he said. For once, he realized, he wanted to build something that didn’t create any pollution.

How it works

The system’s heat output is stored in up to one million gallons of water that are then available to warm the greenhouses on demand. On top of that, the nitrogen oxide (NOx) produced by the system’s exhaust gas is converted into CO2 and water.

The CO2 is then vented into the greenhouse as fertilizer, while the water — estimated to be about 9,500 gallons a day — will be used in the greenhouse.

According to David Bell, a spokesperson for Houweling’s Tomatoes, most of the NOx — a known air pollutant — is eliminated during the NOx conversion to water and CO2.

“Although a portion of the CO2 will be absorbed by the tomatoes, it is not expected that the tomatoes would absorb the air toxics from the cogeneration units,” Bell said.

In contrast to the 5 parts per million by volume (ppmv) emitted by the new CHP system, greenhouses at Houweling’s Tomatoes that are heated by boilers are permitted to emit up to 40 ppmv NOx, he said.

Improvements aside, Houweling said getting the system online has presented many challenges, namely because he is the first to operate a U.S. facility using the Jenbacher J624. The other Jenbacher J624 engines operated as part of a CHP system are installed in greenhouses across the world.

Houweling reports spending $10 million in equipment and $7 million in infrastructure costs. That includes getting the facility ready for permitting and establishing interconnecting power between the greenhouse to the grid managed by Southern California Edison, the regional electric utility.

The biggest challenge was getting the green light to sell power back to the grid.

While the application to interconnect power and the facility permits have been approved, Houweling said the system has been delayed from going online due to the lack of a full-capacity power purchase agreement from California’s grid operator, the California Independent System Operator.

Though the facility is equipped to generate 8.7 MW — with an additional 4.4 MW in capacity anticipated to come online in the future — it’s currently allowed to sell just 2 MW.

In Houweling’s opinion, the hurdles stem from “the way the American electrical power distribution is set up — having a big centralized power generating station and distributing power to where the demand is,” he said. “What we’re doing is producing the power where the demand is.

“There’s hundreds of documents you have to sign and read through — just to sell your electricity to the grid,” he said. “You can’t estimate the time or cost it takes to build it.”

What delays could cost

As a result, Houweling expects he won’t be able to take the system online until Jan. 1, 2013 — four months later than he initially planned.

And he still isn’t even completely sure he’ll be able to fire up the facility in early 2013. “We could be sitting idle for another year after this –- costing us $15,000 a day,” he said.

Houweling says if he knew three years ago what he knows now, he’s not sure if he would do it again.

Still, interested parties did make the trek out West to see the Jenbacher J624 in action. “There were people from the East Coast here mostly from utilities, someone from Alaska that was interested in doing something, and other industry people,” he said.

But based on what Houweling’s Tomatoes, GE and California government agencies learned from the experience, Houweling said, companies interested in investing in the equipment and getting it online in the U.S. will have others to draw upon for advice.

If not for all the logistical and bureaucratic hurdles, Houweling is convinced many more growers in the U.S. would be adopting the system.

But the path to getting a CHP system up and running might be less bumpy in the future, thanks to a directive issued just this morning from the White House. The Executive Order aims to increase the amount of CHP-generated industrial power in the U.S. by 40 GW by the end of 2020. Assistance will take the form of technical guidance, financial incentives and assistance to states.

California is perhaps one of the best-positioned to receive that help. The state is working towards a goal of boosting the amount of power produced by CHP facilities by 6500 MW — also by 2020.

And while it’s definitely “uncharted territory” in Canada, Houweling says — GE operates one Jenbacher J624 in Ontario and it’s primarily a standby facility — since the government manages and owns the electrical distribution, he expects fewer hurdles to overcome than in the U.S.

Lessons learned

Companies interested in installing the technology should “be prepared at how difficult this is going to be,” Houweling said. “Go into it knowing you can’t set the timeline and you don’t know the cost.”

Houweling acknowledges that these two factors make it difficult to finance such a project.

In addition to GE, Houweling recommends Western Energy Systems, GE’s distributor and installer for the cogeneration technology that works alongside its Jenbacher J264 engines, as a resource throughout the process.

“I would use them on lean on them and be much more diligent to be very sure that you have all questions answered,” he said. “Give a lot of time,” he added.

Companies should allow 15-18 months to go through the process before the equipment arrives on site, Houweling said.

While Houweling’s Tomatoes is the only company in the U.S. that is using the Jenbacher J624 as part of a commercial operation, GE’s Nolen is optimistic.

“This is an early gate launch of the project,” he said. “ We’re really hopeful. Market research people want to see it work in the U.S. first, as they’re risk averse.”

In the meantime, Nolen says that GE is working on an even more efficient engine as a followup to the Jenbacher J624, which at 46 percent efficiency runs as the highest in its class. “We’re pushing to get to 50 percent,” he said. “But this doesn’t happen overnight.”

Photo of Casey Houweling in company greenhouse courtesy of Houweling’s Tomatoes

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Inside the military’s billion-plus push for renewables

Story by Kristine A. Wong
This piece was originally published on GreenBiz on Aug. 22, 2012 with a headline of “Inside the military’s multibillion-dollar push for renewables”

As the largest consumer of energy in the world, the Department of Defense has a long way to go before becoming a sustainable operation.

But a recent push to purchase 3 gigawatts (GW) of locally generated renewable energy is opening up billions of dollars in market opportunities — and it’s not just energy companies that stand to benefit. Companies that can finance these deals also stand to carve out a substantial piece of this pie.

The military’s goal?

To become more energy independent.

“By diversifying our installation energy sources to include sustainable, reliable energy, we improve our ability to fulfill our mission during energy interruptions and to better manage price volatility,” said Katherine Hammack, U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Army for installations, energy & environment.

Plans are underway for the Army, Navy and Air Force to each deploy 1 GW of renewable energy on U.S. bases by 2025, an effort announced in April. The 3 GW goal is tied to a 2007 DOD initiative to source 25 percent of its energy from renewables by 2025.

It’s one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history, according to the White House.

Three gigawatts are equivalent to the amount needed to power 750,000 homes, said Hammack.

The military will purchase the power generated through privately owned solar, wind, geothermal or biomass facilities under power purchase agreements.

Companies can build their facilities on military bases or on some of the 16 million acres of military land recently opened for renewable energy development. They will be expected to own and maintain the facilities, as well as arrange private sector financing for its construction and operation.

One aim of the effort is to develop energy security on U.S. military bases, according to DOD spokeswoman Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan.

“Together with smart microgrid and storage technologies, renewable and other forms of on-site energy will allow a military base to maintain its critical operations ‘off-grid’ for weeks or months if necessary,” said Morgan.

Noteworthy opportunities for experienced developers, investors
Billions of dollars in federal funds will be available to the private sector in contracts for the purchase of renewable energy.

“This is an end-of-the-game market creator for renewable energy and cleantech,” said Taite McDonald, a senior advisor at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) in Washington, D.C. who advises energy and clean technology companies interested in working with government.

Opportunities are materializing. Earlier this month, the Army took an important step forward in laying the foundation to fulfill its commitment of deploying 1 GW of renewable energy. The Army Corps of Engineers released a call for companies to bid for up to $7 billion of contracts to purchase energy from renewable facilities that will be installed on military land.
The contracts –- in the form of power purchase agreements, or contracts that define the terms between buyers and sellers of electricity – could be in place for as long as 30 years. More likely, though, they’ll be 23 to 25 years in length, according to McDonald.

The number of contractors is dependent on the capabilities and qualifications of the bids the Army receives, said Hammack. It’s also dependent on the type of energy that’s supplied and the size of those projects. One gigawatt can be generated through 10 very large projects, 100 medium-sized projects or 500 small projects, according to Hammack.

The Navy is now soliciting feedback regarding what type of projects industry may want to build on its bases such as the Naval Air Weapons Station in China Lake, Calif. It’s planning to continue the process with other bases in the future, according to McDonald.

As for the Air Force, McDonald predicts it will likely start to release more opportunities for building renewable projects with enhanced-use leases in the coming months. The first step in the process to develop such an opportunity is now underway at the Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico.

In the future, more requests for proposals focused on purchase power agreements are likely to become available, McDonald said.

Getting qualified under the Army’s $7 billion opportunity

Those qualified to be renewable energy contractors for the Army have demonstrated the ability to finance, design, build, operate, own and maintain their own energy facilities, Hammack said.

“If your company qualifies under this opportunity, you can go after up to $7 billion in contracts –- we call it a hunting license,” said McDonald.

Throughout the last year –- as a service to help educate and prepare companies for this contract opportunity –- McDonald and colleagues have acted as advisors-for-hire with several renewable energy companies, developers and investors interested in getting their “hunting licenses.”

A significant number of developers, small businesses and defense contractors have been preparing for this announcement for some time, McDonald said.

She estimates that while Army Energy Initiative Task Force officials have met with about 150 entities, only 50 will qualify as prime contractors for hunting licenses. The Army Corps of Engineers will evaluate all applicants.

According to McDonald, those best positioned to qualify are experienced renewable energy project developers and operators — not those who are selling technology in the developing stage. Most of the opportunities will be for purchase power agreements for solar, she added.

“Unless you are a very large and reputable developer that has just recently begun to learn about this opportunity, you probably want to join other teams instead of submitting a proposal to be a prime contractor,” she said.

But small businesses shouldn’t fear being edged out of competition by their larger counterparts. Projects that are slated to produce less than four megawatts of energy will be reserved for small businesses first. Those that fall in the 4-12 MW capacity range may be reserved for small businesses as well, depending on the project size, complexity and level of financing required. Projects over 12 MW in capacity are open for unrestricted competition.

And there are still opportunities available for investors who can bring capital to the table as well as finance commercial projects.

“That’s where we’re seeing the most gaps,” McDonald said.

The Army will likely announce the firms that are qualified for its $7 billion in contracts during the first quarter of 2013, she predicted.

Three to six months after determining which companies are qualified, the Army will issue its first task orders, Hammack said. Task orders detail contracts available for bidding, including the energy capacity of the project and the type of technology to be used.

“At least 100 megawatts in task orders will be issued a year,” Hammack said.

Hammack said the task orders are currently being determined by the Army Energy Initiative Task Force through environmental analyses of more than 180 military installations. After evaluating the natural resources available at each site, the task force will match it with the technology best suited for the site and calculate the amount of energy that can be generated onsite.

Companies whose technology is not ready to scale at a commercial level need not despair. There are a number of demonstration opportunities with the military services and with the Office of the Secretary of Defense that will become available next year, McDonald said.

Photo of wind turbines courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Cities 2.0 prep for growth through open data, tech

GreenBiz | July 19, 2012 | Original headline: How city-level innovation is creating business opportunities

If you want to visit the future, go to Philadelphia.

The city of brotherly love has published more than 100 datasets since April, when Mayor Michael Nutter issued an executive order requiring city branches to release their once-buried information through an online portal accessible to anyone. The site includes data from nonprofits, universities and businesses, as well as municipal data from maps of enterprise zones to a searchable database of childcare providers.

“Helping government become an enabler and a platform for innovation” is what his job is all about, Adel Ebeid, Philadelphia’s first Chief Innovation Officer, told attendees at the GreenBiz Cities 2.0 webcast on Wednesday.

The intersection between local governments, big data and innovation was the key theme of “Leveraging City Investments in Technologies,” part one in the three-part series of presentations.

As urbanization accelerates, cities are poised to play a crucial role in fostering innovation, even as their swelling populations and sometimes-creaky infrastructure create a massive business opportunity for the corporate sector, webcast speakers said.

The world will undergo a huge demographic shift over the next four decades, said Eric Woods, a director of Pike Research, a global market research and consulting firm focused on cleantech. Currently, a little more than half the global population lives in urban areas. By 2050, the share of the world’s population that’s urbanized will rise to 70 percent, with the fastest urban growth taking place in Asia, he said.

“We’re going to be adding around a million people a week to the urban population for the next 40 years,” he said.

As a result, new market opportunities are blooming. According to Woods, more than $100 billion will be spent on “innovative infocentric technology” worldwide over the next 10 years. By 2020, almost $16 billion will be spent annually on that core technology.

Plus, cities of the future will need to provide infrastructure and services on a larger scale than ever before, he said.

That includes working with companies and citizens to harness data, lowering operating costs and delivering needed services as efficiently as possible.

“Cities have become a learning laboratory of innovation and new kinds of capabilities,” said GreenBiz chairman and webcast moderator Joel Makower.

Makower cited a report published by GreenBiz Group and London-based SustainAbility earlier this year focusing on how cities are “vital to the future of sustainability.” Turns out, the report concluded, that sustainability needs cities just as much as cities need sustainability.

How, then, can cities leverage their investments in technologies to provide the greatest benefit possible? And what are the opportunities for business to partner with cities in pursuit of a more sustainable future?

Leveraging technology upgrades

There’s an easy answer to the question of what a city can do first for the most effect with the least cost, according to Jim Anderson, vice president of Schneider Electric and head of its U.S. Smart Cities program.

Upgrading buildings is the low hanging fruit for cities, he said: “Many are not upgraded or updated over the years, so it becomes a big energy user and can be upgraded at not really any cost to cities.”

Water use efficiency and transportation should be the next targets. “A lot of water is lost from leaks and old pipes and old systems out there that probably in many cases goes unnoticed,” he said.

Mobility from a traffic and congestion standpoint should also be attended to, Anderson said, along with improved traffic management. For example, new sensors available in the marketplace can help address traffic flows through real-time data.

“There are some new and evolving business models evolving around traffic and traffic congestion involving tolling,” he said.

“[There’s] huge cost savings about understanding the benefit you can get from improved competition, growth of innovation and the decrease of congestion,” said Helen Honisett, director of emerging solutions ecosystems at Cisco. “It costs cities to have people sitting in cars.”

Financing Cities 2.0

A key issue is “how we finance the technology innovation that we need,” said Woods of Pike Research. “There’s going to be increasing focus on looking at new business models, new ways of financing operations in cities and new types of partnerships.”

Anderson used as an example his company’s Smart Cities division, which works with cities to devise efficient strategies across six domains: energy, mobility, water, public services, buildings and homes and smart integration.

When U.S. Smart Cities does performance contracting for government buildings, it conducts an energy efficiency assessment in those buildings and installs upgrades.

Costs are paid for up front from a third-party financial institution based on the expected energy savings after the upgrades are complete. This poses virtually no risk from the city’s end, Anderson said.

“It’s a way cities can upgrade their infrastructure, upgrade their faciilties without any taxpayer issues or having to come up with any up-front money to fund that,” he said. “And those savings are guaranteed by Schneider.”

Driving the conversation

Since most cities don’t have chief innovation officers, who drives the conversation between companies and cities when it comes to these initiatives? And are cities starting to work together in their efforts as well?

It can start within city departments, such as a city’s office of sustainability, and eventually get to the mayor’s office, but it all depends on the city, said Ebeid of Philadelphia.

He participates in a working group made up of seven U.S. cities’ Chief Innovation Officers. Calling themselves the G7, the group shares experiences as a way to learn from each other.

The same dynamic is taking place in Europe, Honisett observed. One difference she’s noticed is that there’s been a shift where cities are less competitive. Now, they’re willing to share with each other and partake in discussions regarding how to move from one stage to the next, she said.

Cisco runs a Smart+Connected Communities initiative aimed at economic, social and environmental sustainability.

“One of the things that Cisco that works with cities on is to understand the benefits around technologies,” said Honisett. “We see huge amounts of cost savings that can be made within cities by using technology.”

The case of Philadelphia: Cities 2.0 on the ground

In Philadelphia, Ebeid said he wants to reenergize city residents to see themselves as innovators working not just on one project here and there, but to set up frameworks for sustainability.

In the next few weeks, Ebeid said the city will designate a chief data officer to oversee its open data effort — which, to be sure, came a couple of years after San Francisco made a similar open-data move, but which has made great strides.

Since 2010, the city’s Greenworks program has published an annual report which tracks 160 metrics across goals in energy, environment, equity, economy, and engagement. Greenworks is a project of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability.

One data set that the city will be delving in the next year or two, Ebeid said, is residents’ requests for non-emergency services – something almost every city has.

“We’d like to mine that data and visualize the community chatter and try to put into perhaps what the next conversation is going to be about. That is what will set us apart from traditional mining of datasets,” he said.

In addition to working with the tech and startup community through hackathons and meetups, Ebeid’s office is starting to engage with the 83 higher education institutions in the area – the second-highest number of local collegiate institutions in the country.

“In many cases, that’s perhaps an underleveraged asset,” he said.

Ebeid said he’d like the partnerships to be focused on business incubation and scaling.

“Universities certainly have the wherewithal to scale it quickly so that we can respond to almost any situation,” Ebeid said.

Photo of Philadelphia night skyline by Thesab/Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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Half Moon Bay Fish Go Hi-Tech

story and photos by Kristine A. Wong (Note: This story originally appeared on Half Moon Bay Patch on June 10, 2011).

With the debut of a new Community Supported Fishery (CSF) in Half Moon Bay, a group of Pillar Point fishermen are collaborating with local community members, businesses and Internet giant Google as a way to support sustainability of fish stocks, the ocean, and local livelihoods.

They’re also providing employees of the Silicon Valley company with access to fish much fresher than what’s in their local supermarket, according to Google chef and Half Moon Bay resident Olivia Wu. The CSF is the first of its kind in Northern California, and one of a small handful in the state.

For those who can’t drop by Pillar Point Harbor to buy fish off the boat on their way home from work, a little more than 48 hours from ocean to table doesn’t seem to be too bad—a plausible scenario for Google employees who picked up a 1-pound fillet of chinook salmon on a recent Friday caught two days before by Half Moon Bay fisherman Jim Anderson.

How did this all begin?

From her five years of writing about sustainable seafood for the San Francisco Chronicle — as well as her self-described passion for fresh seafood and support of sustainable fisheries — Wu got to know the Half Moon Bay fishing community well from regular forays down to Pillar Point Harbor.

Though her role changed a few years ago after taking a position at Google as one of six executive chefs, seafood was still on her mind.

“It was really obvious to me that there should be a partnership between local [seafood] producers and Googlers,” she said, referring to employees of the famed company which has 10,000 employees working at its Mountain View campus. “Googlers care a lot about the quality of our food and its impact on the environment,” she said.

Wu found a natural collaborator in fellow Google Executive Chef Quentin Topping, who grew up on the East Coast and had been on a personal quest to find fresh seafood at markets since his move West. Like Wu, Topping was aware of the precarious positions of the oceans with their declining fish stocks, and the tough times small fishermen had weathered in recent years.

“Seafood these days is moving in the direction of long hauls, which are destroying habitats,” he said. “When you have a great seafood resource you have to protect it and treat it in a responsible manner from the boat to the end product.”

Both Wu and Topping knew fishermen at Pillar Point Harbor who fished using sustainable methods in day boats, described by Topping as using “artisan” ways.

“We both realized that we could bring this amazing product to Googlers,” Topping said.

The idea also fit with Google’s policy of supplying their 27 workplace cafes with fish caught within 200 miles of its Mountain View campus.

So a few years ago, Wu brought Pillar Point fishermen and Half Moon Bay resident and San Mateo County Harbor District Commissioner Pietro Parravano to Google. Then, she approached Parravano with the idea of bringing freshly-caught Half Moon Bay seafood to employees.

“It was a slow process, it took two years,” Parravano said. He already had a hand in starting the Cape Ann Fresh Catch CSF in Gloucester, Mass., which is part of a larger network of CSFs on the East Coast.

The hangup? Parravano said it was “consistency”: finding a time that worked each week for all the fishermen to have their catches ready.

But at the end of March something clicked, and Jim Anderson, who fishes solo on the Allaine boat, got the call for help. He previously co-championed the first off-the-boat crab and fish sales at Pillar Point Harbor, held positions on the California Salmon Council and the state Dungeness Crab Task Force, and is involved in a salmon DNA identification project along the West Coast.

“Forty-eight hours later, we had our first meeting,” Anderson said. The exploratory gathering included a select group of peers like Duncan MacLean, head of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association, and Ben Parsons, an El Granada resident who fishes on the Mr. Morgan Boat docked at Pillar Point with Captain Steve Fitz.

The meeting indicated an interest in a Half Moon Bay CSF, so Anderson and Parsons’ wife Shannon acted quickly to form a Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Association. The association was a necessary configuration if the fishermen were to get paid and engage in other business transactions as a CSF.

What motivated Parsons’ involvement? “I want to be able to support the fishermen and help them do what they love to do, what they’re good at, which is fishing,” she said.

Seven fishermen are currently on board to fish for the CSF. Parsons says participating boats represent those who provide quality fish using sustainable methods. The Mr. Morgan boat, for example, fishes for flatfish using Scottish seines, a type of equipment that lacks steel trawl doors or cables associated with degradation of ocean floor habitat.

The CSF was modeled after Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs where farmers are supported by locals who purchase shares of the farm’s production in advance of a season. The up-front investment supports small operators who might not have the capital to continue operating otherwise.

“They don’t have to worry about selling the fish when they get back,” Parsons said, adding that with the CSF, the fishermen know how much fish they have to catch before they head to sea — which not only saves time, but also gas, money, and wasted fish the boats cannot sell upon their return.

And since what’s delivered each week to members are what the fishermen are able to catch, it’s discourages overfishing and focuses on seasonal fish instead, according to Anderson.

“It also allows people to eat food that is incredibly fresh and local, not a product that’s been trucked up and down the coast just to get here,” he said.

With the basic structure in place, the group had a flurry of meetings over just eight weeks to prepare for the May 27 debut. Other key players involved CSA software specialist Farmigo and Eriko Fujino, owner of Princeton fish processor Blue Ocean Smoke House.

Fujino receives deliveries from the fishermen, cuts and package the fish for CSA shareholders (in biodegradable trays and plastic bags purchased especially for the CSF by Wu), and sends it south with fish wholesaler Monterey Fish to Google for a Friday morning delivery.

Using Farmigo’s software, which is built on a Google platform and designed for ventures like CSAs, Google employees can sign up for up to receive fish every week or every other week for three months. They can even put their account on a vacation hold. Parson and Anderson plan to open an online store in July, where subscribers can purchase additional fish or order other items such as squid or smoked salmon.

One $26 share will get an subscriber one pound of a more expensive fish (like chinook salmon), to two pounds of a less expensive one such as petrale sole. The catch being distributed today for week three is chilipepper, a type of Rockcod.

Subscribers make a short trek to a warehouse on the Google campus each Friday to pick up their weekly allotment packaged in the biodegradable materials, which they can pack home in a reusable bright green fabric container insulated by a gel pack to prevent spoilage.

And just like at the farmer’s market, when buyers can meet the people who produce the food on their table, Parsons sends each subscriber a virtual introduction to the fisherman that caught each week’s offering along with a link to an online recipe.

The CSF has been growing steadily, doubling subscribers from week one to two with more than 100 subscribers to date, Parsons said. She and Anderson have been getting requests to start additional CSFs.

“We’ll be focusing on this pilot program at Google until the first-season subscription ends in mid-August,” Parsons said. A CSF for Half Moon Bay and Coastside residents is in the works for August, and a pickup location already has been secured.

They’ll also look to expand with a CSF for Google employees working out of the company’s San Francisco office, as she said they’ve received a good amount of interest from workers there.

Half Moon Bay fishermen with the CSF don’t get paid as much as they would if they sold their catch off their boat in Pillar Point Harbor, Anderson said. But there’s still a big advantage to taking part.

“This provides a fresher product to the people, and builds a direct relationship between the fishermen and the consumer,” he said.

Crab Strike Broken by San Francisco Fishermen

Story and photos by Kristine A. Wong

This story was the first to break the news that the 2011 Central Coast crab strike had been broken due to an unexpected action by fishermen at San Francisco’s Fishermen’s Wharf. It was published (along with an accompanying photo gallery) as breaking news on Half Moon Bay Patch on Nov. 28, 2011 and was reprinted on Huffington Post San Francisco.

Fishermen in Pillar Point Harbor and ports along the Central Coast have been scrambling to get out to sea today to set their crab pots, despite no known confirmed price agreement with the buyers, according to Half Moon Bay fishermen.

“We don’t know how much we’re fishing for right now,” said Jim Anderson, an unofficial liaison for Half Moon Bay’s crab fishermen, as he readied his Allaine boat to head out today from Pillar Point Harbor.

According to Anderson, the strike was broken unexpectedly this morning when San Francisco boats left after some fishermen weren’t allowed to attend the price negotiations meeting this morning at Fishermen’s Wharf.

“A group of guys weren’t allowed to come to the meeting so they said they were going fishing, and when we were in the meeting people we heard the boats leaving,” Anderson said.

It is not currently known whether any of the fishermen and the seafood buyers agreed to a price per pound for the crab, Anderson said.

Large-scale seafood buyers could not be reached for more information on whether any price agreement had been met.

The San Francisco boats’ actions triggered fishermen in Half Moon Bay and Bodega Bay to head out right away — in order to get a good position for their crab pots and maximize the amount of crabs their boat has a chance of bringing in, according to Half Moon Bay fisherman Bill Webb.

Half Moon Bay fishermen have said that this year’s supply of crabs are significantly lower than last year’s record-breaking season.

“I’m pissed right now, just like a lot of other fishermen,” said Webb via phone as he drove towards Pillar Point Harbor from his home in Antioch so he could ready his boat and head out to sea.

“We voted to hold out for $2.50 the other day [Friday] and now we don’t know what we’re fishing for. Right now Pillar Point Harbor is half-emptied out and it’s derby fishing,” he said.

Crab fishermen have been holding out for $2.50 per pound since the commercial season’s official start on Nov. 15. They also sat out Thanksgiving, which they say is a big part of their busiest season of the year.

Irene Hurwitz, who fishes with her husband John on the Irene Marie boat docked out of Pillar Point Harbor, said that there were rumors of an agreement for $2.25 a pound between the buyers, but “that’s all conjecture now,” she said.

Like others, the couple was readying today to set their pots as soon as possible.

“We’re not going to really know what the price is until we start bringing the crab in,” she said, “which will be late tomorrow at the earliest.”

Webb said that he and the other fishermen were upset because the next meeting had been originally scheduled for this Wednesday afternoon, and that if they had agreed to a price then all the fishermen would have agreed to leave Thursday morning so that everyone started the season from an equal position.

Many of the men live in farther-flung areas such as Watsonville and Sacramento, he said, and today had to unexpectedly drop what they were doing and drive over to go out fishing.

“We were supposed to all hold together,” Webb said.

“The boats that went out shot our bargaining power,” Hurwitz said. “To not go out now means we don’t even have a chance to set our [crab] gear.”

“It’s majorly disappointing to lose a big part of our sales for the year and not to reach an agreement with the buyers,” she said.

“And now to be faced with not having any agreement, and yet have no other choice but to go out fishing at this point…it’s discouraging,” Hurwitz said.

Crab Fishermen Decide to Sit Out Thanksgiving

Story and photos by Kristine A. Wong

This piece was the first to break the news that Central Coast fishermen decided to give up fishing for Thanksgiving with the hope of a better price per pound for their catch. It was published (with an accompanying photo gallery) as breaking news on Half Moon Bay Patch on Nov. 21, 2011.

If you want to eat fresh crab this Thanksgiving, you’re going to have to catch it yourself.

With the window of opportunity to meet Thanksgiving market demands diminishing quickly due to time and bad weather  — and large-scale buyers still holding tight to a price 50 cents short of the fishermen’s call for $2.50 a pound — over 30 boats in Half Moon Bay’s Pillar Point Harbor decided this weekend not to head out in time to meet the holiday dinner rush.

“We’re the 99 percent waiting for the 1 percent of the fish buyers to share the wealth,” said Jim Anderson, an unofficial liaison for the crab fishermen docked out of Pillar Point Harbor.

Approximately 100 fishermen gathered at the harbor Saturday in the hopes of working out a solution that would be able to get their boats out during what is traditionally their most lucrative time of year.

Central Coast fishermen have stayed in port since the commercial season’s opening nearly a week ago on Nov. 15, saying that the large seafood buyers’ offer of $2 a pound doesn’t cover the rising costs of fuel, equipment and supplies needed to crab in 2011.

At the meeting, fishermen discussed how they could sell to smaller buyers — such as Morningstar Fisheries located at Pillar Point—  willing to pay $2.50 per pound.

Steve Melz of the Sunrise boat suggested fishing for $2.50 a pound on limits, a strategy which caps how many crabs each boat in the fleet is allowed to catch a day.

Melz said that fishing on limits would prevent the market to be flooded with crabs, a condition which could effectively lower the buying price offered by the larger buyers.

“It’s a way to slow the market down and still support the demand for a stream of crabs,” he said.

Other fishermen said some boats wouldn’t adhere to the limits, which would defeat the purpose of the gentlemen’s agreement.

“It’s not cost-effective for the larger boats to go out for a smaller amount,” said John Hurwitz, whose boat Irene Marie operates out of Pillar Point Harbor. “They would never agree to that.”

To settle the matter, Half Moon Bay fisherman Duncan MacLean asked each boat in attendance — over 30 at least — to write on a slip of paper their desired price per pound and whether they supported fishing limits.

Out of 41 votes, 34 wanted to keep their asking price at $2.50 per pound, 3 favored $2.25 and 4 were fine with the $2 offer. Two-thirds opposed fishing limits.

With the decision made, the group made plans to reconvene in another week, giving the men the opportunity to go home for Thanksgiving. MacLean and Anderson told those assembled to leave their contact information if the situation changed before then.

“Over Thanksgiving we’re going to have to do something creative,” MacLean said.

Fishermen, Buyers Locked in Crab Price Stalemate

Story and photos by Kristine A. Wong

Note: This story (with accompanying photo gallery) originally appeared on Half Moon Bay Patch as breaking news on Nov. 16, 2011 and was reprinted on Huffington Post San Francisco.

Dungeness crab for Thanksgiving is still a possibility, but the chances of being able to serve up fresh crab this weekend are diminishing quickly.

Though Tuesday was the official start of the commercial Dungeness crabbing season, Half Moon Bay fishermen and their counterparts along the Central Coast continue to stay in port, holding out for a $2.50 per pound purchase price – a cost which they say will support the rising costs of crabbing in 2011.

“We’re locked out because the buyers don’t want to pay more than $2 per pound,” said Jim Anderson, a fisherman who serves as the unofficial liaison for crab fishermen docked out of Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.

For the second time in one day, over 100 fishermen met at the harbor on Wednesday afternoon to talk about the price negotiations — and agreed that they should hold their ground.

Fishermen in Bodega Bay, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Moss Landing are doing the same, said Anderson.

Fuel, crab pots and rope have all increased in price, yet the cost of crab per pound has not supported that rise, said Steve Fitz, captain of the Mr. Morgan fishing boat docked out of Pillar Point Harbor.

Earlier Wednesday, fishermen were waiting to see the results of the quality testing of crabs from Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay and San Francisco. The acceptable range for quality crabs are those with 23 to 25 percent of body weight composed of meat, according to Half Moon Bay fisherman Duncan MacLean.

By mid-afternoon, test results from Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay and San Francisco all came in within the quality range, MacLean said. While crabs picked from Bodega Bay came in at 24.1 percent, those from Half Moon Bay and San Francisco came in at 24.9 percent.

But despite the positive test results, large-scale buyers in the Bay Area weren’t budging beyond $2 a pound as of Wednesday afternoon, MacLean and Anderson said.

“It’s a matter of price, not quality,” MacLean said.

Large-scale Bay Area seafood buyers, including Caito Fisheries, could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.

With the commercial crabbing season delayed from Mendocino County north due to early body composition reports not within acceptable standards, the Central Coast fishermen feel they’re in a good position to hold their ground.

“We have no pressure on us to go out crabbing now, since we can’t head north [to crab] once we’ve set up our gear here,” said Pillar Point fisherman Ben Platt, referring to restrictions on making a landing in more than one port within 30 days.

The delay of the northern coast season from its original date of Dec. 1 means that without crab from the Central Coast, there will not be any crab on the market at least until mid-December, said MacLean.

And with so many families relying on crab as a staple — or main dish — in their Thanksgiving dinner, the holiday market is what’s likely to put the pressure on the large buyers, Platt said.

“The smaller buyers are willing to pay us $2.50 a pound,” said MacLean, who referred to Morningstar Fisheries at Pillar Point Harbor as an example.

But until the larger buyers are willing to take on that price, the fishermen say they will continue to refrain from heading out to sea.

Penny Webb, the wife of Cricket boat fisherman Bill Webb, says the waiting is difficult — especially with a full list of customers who have already placed orders to pick up the first crabs of the season.

She spent Wednesday afternoon sitting in the Pillar Point Harbor parking lot surrounded by crab pots stacked 15 feet high, her dog Rufus sitting at her side.

“We’re losing a lot of money right now,” she said. “Almost all of our business comes out of the crab and salmon season — it’s what we live on,” she said.

Throughout these last two days, she said, her phone has been ringing repeatedly with customers anxious about when the crabs will come in.

“People are upset,” she said, “but they understand the position we’re in.”

Crab Fishermen Get Green Light to Start Season

Story and photos by Kristine A Wong

This story was the first to break the news that after a prolonged wait, Central Coast fishermen were allowed start the Fall 2010 Dungeness crab season, after body composition tests met market requirements. It was published (with accompanying photos) as breaking news on Half Moon Bay Patch on Nov. 15, 2010.

A message written outside the Harbormaster’s office at Pillar Point Harbor today said it all. “Commercial Crab Season Opens November X??,” it read, with traces of the number “15” erased and a large X crossed out over the erased number.

But shortly before 5 pm, Duncan McLean, president of the Half Moon Bay Fisherman’s Association, said that the fishermen docked in Pillar Point Harbor would leave tomorrow at 6 am to start the season.

Though the start of the Dungeness Crab commercial fishing season legally and officially opened earlier today at midnight, local commercial fishermen at Pillar Point had been spending the day standing out on the pier instead of doing what they had originally planned to be doing at this time: crabbing.

The reason for the standoff was because local fishermen wanted to test the local crabs’ percentage of meat as part of its overall body composition to ensure that their catch would bring in stable market orders before the fleet could head out and drop their crab pots into the ocean.

“The rumors were that the crabs were not very good at all, so we wanted to get the price solidified to ensure good quality to the public and make sure the price is stable,” said Duncan McLean, president of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Association.

“Usually a 22 percent portion of meat as part of the crab’s overall weight is what is needed to be marketable,” said John Draper, Assistant Harbormaster at Pillar Point Harbor.

Draper said that this morning, the crabs were sent out to be tested at North Coast Fisheries in Santa Rosa from Bodega Bay, San Francisco, and the waters outside Pillar Point Harbor.

Duncan McLean, president of the Half Moon Bay Fisherman’s Association, said earlier at 4:45 pm today that he was still waiting for the test results to come in from the crabs from Bodega Bay and San Francisco, and that a 6 am start tomorrow for the fishermen was a “definite maybe.”

Later, at 4:50 pm, after calling to confirm test results, McLean said that based on a  average of 26.84 percent in body composition tests from Bodega Bay, San Francisco, and outside Pillar Point Harbor, the fishermen were “good to go.”

Shortly after 3:30 pm this afternoon, McLean cited the test results from just the Pillar Point Harbor area when he was waiting for test results from all locations to come in. “The crabs [from outside the Pillar Point area] were good, a little over 27.4 percent,” McLean had said.

Bill Webb, who fishes off his boat Cricket (along with his dog that is named after his boat) which is based in a berth in Pillar Point Harbor, said earlier today that the fishermen were waiting to hear the official word from McLean that the fishermen had a market order based on the results of the crabs’ body composition tests.

Webb had heard the rumor that the fishermen weren’t going to be able to go out until tomorrow at 6 am. Mentions of the “6 am start” were overheard in several passing conversations around the harbor in the late afternoon.

“I’ve already got six pages of orders,” Webb said, sitting in his boat while he encouraged his dog Cricket to shake his hand with her paw. Webb sells some crab off his boat, and sells some to wholesalers.

“It’s tough,” Webb said about the state of this year’s fishing season. “Some of these guys have no salmon season…that used to be more than half my season,” he said. “So you put in more [crab] pots which cost more money…the pots come to about $200 each,” he said.

“It puts more pressure on the crab season than it can handle,” he said.