the university of washington (uw) offered a screening of “these sacred hills” on nov. 6, 2025, sponsored by the burke museum, the nature conservancy washington state, uw center for nature and health, uw department of history, and uw school of environmental and forestry sciences.

the documentary featured elected member of the yakama nation council jeremy takala, rock creek band elder elaine howtapat, rock creek band chief bronsco jim jr., and rock creek band activist and uw alumnus elaine harvey. the film was directed by jacob bailey and christopher ward, and is centered around the implications of the northwest’s largest proposed pumped storage facility.

according to the documentary, the energy storage project would be located in goldendale, washington, and would destroy five indigenous archaeological sites, as well as three cultural ones.

“these sacred hills,” which alternated scenes of indigenous cultural practices, public hearings, and interviews with tribal members, followed the broader trend of the “green rush,” or influx of clean energy development, in washington.

there has been increasing pressure for emitters in washington state to decarbonize, especially following the climate commitment act (cca), passed in 2021.

the cca, according to indigenous affairs reporter b. ‘toastie’ oaster at high country news, contained a provision prior to its passing that granted tribes the right to consent to development on sacred lands. on the day of the bill’s passing, after the cca had been approved by the governor’s office, state legislators, and a coalition of 19 tribes, governor jay inslee vetoed all tribal civil rights provisions. 

“there’s nothing out there protecting indigenous rights,” oaster said.

the treaty of 1855 granted tribes the right to hunt, fish, and gather on public lands. the privatization of land, compounded with resource depletion, have increasingly threatened indigenous ways of life.

yakama nation peoples have been overlooked and displaced numerous times throughout history, as outlined in the documentary.

in 1941, after the attack on pearl harbor, tribes residing in the pine creek canyon were forced to relocate so that the area could be used for war plane target training. in 1971, subsequent to the completion of the john day dam, the army corps of engineers informed the rock creek band that they must relocate so that the area could be flooded.

protection of indigenous sacred lands, despite being a united nations standard, is absent in state and federal law in the united states.

the united states geological survey began assessing the columbia river for hydroelectric storage in 1967. klickitat county began working on the goldendale energy storage project in 2008, with the initial goal of completing it through their public utilities district. it wasn’t until several years into the process that the yakama nation was even notified of the proposal, giving them less than 60 days to conduct surveys on the site and give comment.

renewable energy in washington is usually developed on “low value” or low biodiversity land. but these lands often contain critical resources for tribes. according to the documentary, the goldendale energy storage project would be incredibly detrimental to the local shrub steppe habitat.

the goldendale energy storage project is just one of nearly 50 proposed renewable energy projects in the state, many of which overlap with yakama or colville reservations in eastern washington.

this history and sense of urgency was conveyed throughout “these sacred hills;” nearly every scene spanning the natural area of the yakama nation contained imagery of wind turbines.

rye development, the company leading the goldendale energy storage project, brought oaster to tour the project site. though they stressed the importance of indigenous rights, according to oaster, they also spoke of displacement almost as if it were inevitable, “us[ing] the rhetoric of manifest destiny.”

tribes are not against renewable energy, harvey emphasized. they are in favor of “responsible decarbonization,” which should respect tribal sovereignty.

while filming “these sacred hills,” tribal members had to share personal parts of their culture in order to encourage respect and understanding for tribal sovereignty.

the documentary was made with the intention to spread awareness, according to harvey. it’s been screened to the washington department of ecology, and will be screened to legislators in the future.

“we hope that this deepens the conversation about green energy,” bailey said.

as of november 2024, rye development plans to break ground on the goldendale energy storage project in 2026. according to the documentary, the federal energy regulatory commission has never directly consulted the yakama nation on the project.

a few miles downstream of the united states’ largest semiconductor fabrication plant project in history, researchers are using paper waste to power a device to detect pfas in wastewater.

the shovels have already hit the ground on the semiconductor facility, marking the start of a nearly 20-year-long construction project for micron technologies’ megafab facility in clay, new york. the four semiconductor “fab” facilities will be responsible for outputting more than 30 million gallons of wastewater everyday to be treated by oak orchard wastewater treatment plant. 

“pfas” are a group of long-lasting chemicals used in many industrial processes and are vital to etching and coating the intricacies of micron’s small, integrated circuits. pfas can cause harm to reproductive health, adolescent development, and cancer. there are over 15,000 different types of pfas, some of which are what experts call “short-chain” or “long-chain” forms. recent legislation has focused more attention on the long-chain types rather than the more common short-chain ones. 

researchers at the leem lab in upstate new york are working to develop improved detection methods for “harder-to-detect” forms of pfas. the detection device uses lignin, a waste product from paper manufacturing processes, which the researchers say has the potential to be used by micron technologies.

the series brings together gw faculty from across disciplines who are leading the charge on sustainability. each episode dives deep into the urgent challenges shaping our future and the innovative research driving real-world solutions.

in this premiere episode, margaret gonglewski, ph.d., draws on her research into germany’s long standing climate activism movement. she offers insights into how germany is making the transition to clean energy, and the challenges they’re confronting. as the u.s. faces its own climate challenges, gonglewski invites viewers to consider what they can learn from germany’s successes, struggles, and strategies.

after president donald trump’s administration froze ira funds intended for green banks through the greenhouse gas reduction fund, climate united, a national investment fund supporting clean energy projects, challenged the freeze in court. green banks are organizations using public and private capital to fund clean energy projects such as those including solar.

the lawsuit involves the plaintiffs the environmental protection agency and citibank, the financial intermediary for the funds, and addresses the justification and structure of ira funding for green energy initiatives. 

read the interview with yoo below.

the interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

maggie rhoads: walk me through how the opportunity to write the amicus brief came up. how did you get involved? 

paul yoo, ph.d.: it came up through an organization called the coalition for green capital — in short, cgc. my co-authors and i were trying to answer a research question about whether or not these entities called green banks were trying to allocate capital into projects that are more green, more responsible, more sustainable.

so we were trying to answer those questions, and we wanted some sort of data, and these green banks’ data, if there is any, would have been stored by this organization called coalition for green capital. so we reached out to them. they told me the data wasn’t really there, but happy to kind of coordinate whatever becomes available. 

mr: how long ago was that connection?

py: it was, like, a year and a half or two years ago, i cannot recall. so they knew about my research interest in this area.

mr: and how did that lead to the amicus brief?

py: the coalition was heavily involved with applying to get this funding from the inflation reduction act, or ira. there is a part of the ira that is the greenhouse gas reduction fund, or ggrf, and they’re trying to apply for a portion of that fund as a group of green banks, and they got it. but now, after mr. trump got appointed as president, that fund is now frozen. and because of that, they went into the court for arbitration, and for that they reached out to me to see if i could serve as an expert contributor to the amicus brief. 

mr: what courts are these for?

py: to the best of my knowledge, they went to the appeals court. they recently lost by the panel of three judges by two to one, and then they are recommended to go through this special court called the court of federal claims.

they’re now going in that direction, which i think is asking all the juries in d.c. [for] their opinions, and if that doesn’t go well, or doesn’t go in favor of the plaintiffs, what i understand is they will then go to the supreme court for the final arbitration. so i would expect myself to be involved throughout that whole process until the end.

mr: how specifically are you involved besides writing the brief? what kind of expert advice do you give?

py: one of the biggest points that these lawyers are trying to make to the judges is that the ira money and how that money is dispersed to the grant recipients of these green banks, the format of how this money will flow, is a little different from the traditional grants from the department of energy or the epa. it actually has a different form. this ira money that goes to the green banks will not be a grant that is reimbursement-based. 

mr: can you explain the difference in simple terms?

py: a lot of grants that are given by the federal government say, “go ahead and spend this amount, but after you spend that amount, come back to me and get reimbursed.” so that money doesn’t sit with the account of the grant recipient until they get this thing reimbursed.

ira money, the ggrf money that cgc and climate united received, [was] taking a different form. even before they actually spend [the money], it will come to their account balances, like, as a personal account balance.

so now the lawyers are trying to argue that this kind of different form of capital flow that is giving more freedom and authority to these plaintiffs is justifiable, or that it has economic sense, because of the fact that there [is] very well-established research showing the scope of what you can do to use those funds efficiently for different projects when you actually have those assets in your balance sheet. you have full authority to allocate such funds to which[ever] projects, which gives more efficiency, and more likelihood of effectively unlocking private capital.

american farmers have long relied on china’s massive demand for soybean meal, a high-protein animal feed. now, as china turns to brazil and argentina to meet its soybean needs, u.s. farmers are left scrambling to sell their crops. 

“let’s be clear, this is a man-made disaster caused by donald trump and his administration,” soybean farmer john bartman said at a press call hosted by the democratic national committee in october. “why? because there’s nearly 1 billion bushels of soybeans that don’t have a home right now.” 

the scale of the disaster

u.s. farmers will lose roughly $100 per acre this year, according to the university of illinois urbana-champaign. for adam phelon, who planted over 1,000 acres of soybeans on his family farm in melvern, kan., that could mean a $100,000 loss in gross income. 

“it’s been 40 years of market development that’s taken place to get it to where we are, and so having that just eroded away, we can’t just replace that overnight,” phelon said in an interview. “we’re going to see lasting effects for years to come.”

grain market economist ed usset said he’s concerned about the long-term implications of losing china’s business, specifically if china learns it no longer needs the united states to fulfill its soybean needs. 

minnesota gov. tim walz expressed similar sentiments, calling on trump to end the “ridiculous trade war” and recognize the long-lasting damage china’s boycott will have on rural america. 

“the thing we need to keep in mind is it took decades to establish these markets,” walz said during the press call. “china didn’t just sign one-year contracts with argentina. they signed some of them up to a decade long, and it’s going to take us years to get these markets back.” 

in september, argentina temporarily suspended its 26% soybean export tax in an attempt to boost sales. china then purchased 7 million metric tons of argentine soybeans, to the dismay of american farmers. phelon was further angered to see president trump finalize a $20 billion bailout to stimulate argentina’s economy, calling the move “a kick in the pants to farmers.”

soybean oil as a solution

as the united states searches for other export markets for american soybeans, the expanding biofuels market offers a promising opportunity to drive domestic demand — specifically, for soybean oil. 

historically, soybean meal has contributed much more to driving the value of a bushel, according to scott irwin, an agricultural marketing professor at the university of illinois urbana-champaign.

“a rule of thumb was that around two-thirds of the value of a bushel of soybeans could be traced to soybean meal,” irwin said. “that has dropped to 50–55% with the boom in biodiesel and renewable diesel production, particularly the latter.” 

soybean oil can be processed into renewable diesel, a sustainable fuel made from plants or animal fats that is chemically identical to petroleum, but much better for the environment because, like all plants, soybeans absorb carbon dioxide as they grow rather than raising greenhouse gas emissions. 

in june, the environmental protection agency proposed raising minimum volume mandates for the use of different biofuels under the renewable fuel standard (rfs) for 2026 and 2027. the proposal would increase the amount of renewable fuel required to be blended into u.s. transportation fuel, like the diesel fuel truckers use to fill their tanks. 

if the epa proposal becomes a final regulation, it will mandate the highest renewable fuel blending standards in american history. the development would heavily benefit soybean farmers by driving the demand for soybean oil to fulfill the epa’s regulations, irwin said. 

greenhouse gases produced by advanced biofuels stay in the atmosphere for half as long as gases generated from petroleum, irwin said. 

“on that front, surprisingly, the trump administration is encouraging something that’s positive from a greenhouse gas climate perspective,” irwin said.

renewable diesel is considered a “drop-in” substitute for petroleum diesel, said scott gerlt, the chief economist of the american soybean association. from an engineering perspective, that means renewable diesel can be used as a replacement for petroleum diesel without worrying about changing infrastructure or blending levels.

soybean oil’s potential doesn’t stop at the fuel pump. researchers eric cochran and chris williams from iowa state university are taking soybean oil to the roads: their soybean-based asphalt polymer can replace petroleum additives, making pavement both longer lasting and more sustainable. 

the traditional polymer additive used in asphalt is sps, a purely petroleum-based polymer that is rarely manufactured domestically nowadays. a key component of sps called butadiene can also be hazardous to handle, cochran said. soybean oil, on the other hand, reduces reliance on petroleum products while supporting the domestic soybean market.

“making your pavements last longer means less raw material, less energy, less fuel needed for all that construction, and then the materials that are going into the pavements become increasingly u.s. agriculturally sourced,” cochran said.

cochran said the product is currently being manufactured across the united states and sold to county engineers, contractors, asphalt terminals, and oil refineries. over the next year, homeowners can look out for do-it-yourself products for roofing and driveway maintenance.

in the meantime, the trump administration is expected to announce a relief plan of at least $10 billion for farmers hurt by tariffs. still, farmers have said the temporary fix doesn’t provide what they actually want, and what soybean oil might give them a chance to do: to compete fairly in the global marketplace. 

“this is our livelihood. we need to make sure that we have a place to go with our soybeans,” phelon said. “that’s the number one goal. we want to feed and fuel the world, and without trade around the world, we’re not able to do that.”

steelwork smoke in the air, young faces on their way to school, and the familiar silhouette of industry in the distance. this is teesside — a region tucked away in the northeastern corner of the british isles, long burdened by a legacy of petrochemical production and laborious toil. 

in the early 2000’s, tees valley thrived as the steel-making capital of the world, shipping raw materials to even the most remote edges of the globe. however, in 2015, the collapse of the region’s iron and steel industry saw a shadow cast over the manufacturing heartland, tarnishing the pride and grit of the “smoggies,” a community now marked by economic deprivation and environmental pressure. 

today, teesside has become one of several dumping grounds for the nation’s waste, hosting multiple incineration and landfill sites. and with the construction of a new waste-incineration facility looming in the future, local families, councillors, and grassroots campaign groups are expressing concerns over regional air quality and economic hardship.

what’s on the table? 

the tees valley energy recovery facility (tverf) is a waste-incineration site proposed for the area of grangetown, a historically deprived district of the uk where average healthy life expectancy falls well below the national average. this large-scale, £2.4 billion (approximately $3.2 billion) infrastructure project is a publicly led initiative, organized by a partnership of seven different councils across the north east. with the promise of 50 permanent jobs, and enough electricity to power 60,000 homes, the facility frames itself as a sustainable alternative to landfill for managing residual waste — material that cannot be recycled. 

however, alarm bells have begun ringing over these sustainability claims and some community members allege that the operator of the site, viridor, has not had a promising environmental track record. a 2025 uk governmental report by the environment agency outlines 916 breaches of pollution limits at a station in southern england, which the company attributed to human error in calibrating monitoring software. 

tristan learoyd, an unaffiliated independent councillor from teesside said that the proposed site holds “massive effects for the environment locally and for the planet internationally.”

“it’s a cumulative effect of one incinerator after the other,” learoyd said. “the tverf will produce more carbon than the whole of redcar and cleveland,” he said, referencing one of the councils involved in the proposal. this issue, he adds, makes a “mockery of anyone” who installs a heat pump, lowers their carbon footprint, or drives an electric vehicle.

however, according to a statement provided on behalf of the project partners, the tverf will be “future-proofed,” designed not only to generate electricity but also to export heat and capture carbon emissions if the opportunity to develop supporting infrastructure arises.

meanwhile, learoyd highlights that projects of similar waste-composition globally have shown levels of pollution that could cause severe damage to lung health, lead to heart problems, and accelerate brain issues such as dementia. these concerns are particularly significant at a time when air pollution already claims the lives of more than 30,000 individuals in the uk per year. 

“the tverf is regressive. it’s not needed,” said fiona dyer, a volunteer and campaigner for the north east climate justice coalition, and stop incineration north east. “people are thinking about their kids, and their kids’ futures.”

a costly proposal 

as of 2023, the north east region’s capacity for processing residual waste is on target to exceed municipal needs based on volume of solid and residual waste. and, with the introduction of government recycling schemes such as the circular economy package, the amount of waste available for incineration in districts like teesside becomes increasingly scarce. 

according to advocates like dyer, there is a broad suspicion that, as fuel supplies drop, more waste will be shipped in from elsewhere as councils potentially buy up refuse to avoid penalties for missing incineration targets.  

learoyd expands on this, arguing that councils importing waste, alongside paying gate fees for incineration, covering carbon taxes on emissions, and funding the initial contract with operator viridor, will result in a “15% increase in council tax for every single payer in the north east of england for 30 years.” this concept, he adds, is an “economic disaster and politicians need to wake up.” 

in contrast, the tverf project partners maintain that this technology is the only “safe, reliable, sustainable, and affordable” solution for disposing of the region’s residual waste. they further claim the facility will create “hundreds of employment and training opportunities,” while injecting “nearly £30 million [$40 million] over the contract term” into the local economy and its communities.

critics argue that despite assurances, these financial complications could not only negatively affect individuals in teesside already facing cycles of entrenched poverty, but also threaten environmental targets.

“what i anticipate councils will do is they’ll deliberately reduce the amount of recycling they do, so they’ve got more to burn in the incinerator,” learoyd said.

forward-thinking 

nonprofit organizations such as the north east climate justice coalition have urged regional councils to accelerate investment into highly innovative forms of waste management that present a promising alternative to incineration for teesside.  

particular focus has been placed on a facility within the english midlands, known as sherbourne recycling. this publicly organized program, managed by eight local authorities, uses industry-leading ai sorting and machine technology to process residential curbside waste more efficiently. 

serving a population of 1.5 million people, roughly the same population the proposed tverf aims to cover, this model shows potential for adoption in teesside. nevertheless, observers argue that for an initiative like this to succeed, an amendment of local government direction and re-allocation of funds may be necessary.

grassroots charitable group, stop incineration north east (sine), are a collective who have advanced suggestions for alternatives to the tverf. from compiling in-depth reports on anaerobic digesters for food waste management to debating modern u.s. landfill practices — aimed at reducing methane emissions through secured containment — sine’s grassroots level work is focused on spreading awareness for these alternatives.

dyer, a spokesperson for sine says, “we are very keen to get people, more young people in the area to actually join the campaign or support it.” 

with the tverf set to begin construction in 2026, and operations anticipated to commence in late 2029, a verdict on the facility’s sustainability remains unclear. a transparent review of the project and potential alternative technologies could therefore help address community concerns and steer teesside toward a cleaner, more sustainable future.

shon hiatt might just have the answer.

hiatt is an associate professor of business administration at the university of southern california (usc), as well as the director of the zage business of energy initiative. the project serves as a talent incubator for students at usc who will go on to leadership roles in energy and business. by bringing together experts, faculty, and students, the program aims for participants to gain experience in balancing energy security, safety, affordability, reliability, and cleanliness.

a usc faculty member since 2014, hiatt’s research focuses on strategy, entrepreneurship, and the ever-evolving world of energy. prior to joining usc, hiatt was a faculty member at harvard business school.

in this interview, hiatt discusses the importance of energy education, the increasing need for energy leadership, and his advice for students wanting to make a difference in the energy space.

this interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

maximilian garibay-deasy: last school year, i was studying in milan, italy when the iberian peninsula blackout occurred (affecting portugal and spain) and had friends that were affected by it. this was a massive blackout that last 10 hours and devastated basic services. what happened?

shon hiatt: essentially one solar farm went out. but the problem is when that went out, it shouldn’t have take a whole system out. but the thing to understand with wind and solar is that they don’t actually create what’s called ‘inertia.’ and we also call this ‘momentum.’ the physics of momentum is just mass times velocity. inertia is this aspect of rotating momentum. we use rotating momentum to create hertz and alternating electricity. and wind and solar on their own – because there are no moving parts – don’t produce any inertia.

the iberian peninsula had very little inertia. they had a little bit of hydro running, but it wasn’t sufficient enough. and that’s why the whole system went down because there are important circuit breakers that go off if you can’t maintain a particular hertz. if not, you will damage electronics. and so that led them to have to do what’s called a ‘black start.’

a black start is when you have to start an energy system from scratch. and guess what? to do that, you need energy. like starting a car engine again, right? you need energy. they had to get a bunch of diesel generators to basically start with some dams to open the valves and to get those spinning again to generate this inertia.

and once they had some inertia and frequency running, they were able to bring the wind and solar assets back on. so, yeah, all this stuff, it’s super interesting if you understand these energy systems.

that’s what my class goes over. we’ve got to understand these trade-offs. and for every one of these energy factors there’s a trade-off to it. some provide the low-cost option. some provide great reliability and energy security, right? some address the cleanliness issue, right to varying degrees. everything has varying degrees. and then we also understand how the returns are made and the business investments of why they’d invest in one versus the other, considering all these five factors.

mgd: tell us more about the zage business of energy initiative. what role does it play in educating the next generation of energy leaders?

sh: so the zage business of energy initiative was founded just a little over two and a half years ago to do two things. one is to produce cutting-edge research that informs business practices as well as policy. the initiative also educates the next generation of leaders in energy companies, giving the skills and knowledge that are necessary for them to take jobs in energy companies or also in financial firms that service the industry.

and so that’s basically the mission. so if we want to focus on the education aspect, we’ve launched an elective called the business of energy in the 21st century. it’s oversubscribed. it’s a great class because it gives a foundational knowledge of energy. the course starts almost chronologically, from coal to petroleum refinery pipelines to metals and mining, all this extraction. and then we move to electric markets and all the different types of power generation, and in all these, right, understanding like, well, how do you get a return when you make this investment? and of course, what are all the different trade-offs associated with every energy source?

mgd: what has been the industry’s response to the zage business of energy initiative?

sh: i mean, we’re getting just tremendous amount of support from the ceos that are coming here. they love it. they absolutely love it because it’s focused on the business of energy. and in fact, there are a few universities out there, but they don’t do what we do. they’re not focused on the business of energy.

so i’d have to say that we’re the premier business of energy initiative focusing on this. and you can see the ceos that are willing to come to discuss different themes. this year we had a phenomenal panel on mining and metals, finance, minerals, and there was also an energy storage one. i particularly was really excited about our advanced nuclear panel. so we got three leaders from their companies that are doing the new, you know, micro and small modular reactors.

mgd: climate and sustainability is not something you would expect to be discussed at a business school. yet your work does exactly that. what role does sustainability have in business education?

sh: well, right now, in the united states, we’ve had basically flat energy demand. but now due to the ai arms race, these data centers that are being built require massive amounts of power. and i’m talking massive amounts. so 500 megawatts, 800 megawatts, 300 megawatts. i mean, just to give you an idea, we’ve always had data centers, but these new data centers use up to eight to 10 times more energy than the cpu and gpu data centers, and that’s due to ai. so this has now led to a renewed interest in energy.

this is where consulting companies and finance companies are now saying, “we need to hire people who have knowledge about energy.” because this is where all the capital is going.

what was once a topic that wasn’t very exciting is now becoming very exciting. and the companies themselves are requesting trained students in this area.

mgd: and vice-versa, what role does higher education play in business sustainability? why is it so important to prepare the next generation of energy leaders in the way that you do? 

sh: i just did a q&a on this, too, because we did an analysis of the top 50 universities with the national center for energy analytics. and they wanted to know about these energy classes (at universities). are they providing a good foundation of understanding of the economics and the basic understanding of technology, how do these energy systems work?

these financial companies and consulting companies, they’re essentially going to stop recruiting at schools that don’t provide this education. and they’re going to go to universities that do, because that’s where they’re going to get the talent that they need. because there’s a difference between sustainability knowledge and energy knowledge. there’s a big difference. even though there’s an overlap, there are externalities that affect sustainability.

but that’s exactly what this study was about. we were looking at how many of these classes that said they were “energy classes” were actually energy classes, versus some sort of sustainability class. and the bulk of them were just sustainability or climate change classes that did not provide the type of knowledge that these financial firms are looking for. because they need somebody to come in there and say, “okay, do the levelized cost of energy of this product right now. and then figure out what i need to charge for these electrons over a 20-year period. what’s my power purchase agreement?”

mgd: what is one thing you hope to see in the energy sector here in the united states over the next five years? 

sh: i’d like to see greater focus on both the affordability and the reliability aspect. and right now, this is our problem, especially with these ai data centers coming in. we’re going to consume so much energy and we don’t have enough for them. what this means is that the electric reserve margins – which is how many surplus electrons we have on the grid – these reserve margins are shrinking. and it’s getting so low that there’s a real possibility of blackouts coming to this country in the next two years. definitely by 2030, but literally it could start happening within the next two years.

now we’ve got a problem because there’s a massive demand for power and energy and we’re not ready for it. and these data centers can pay 50% to even double of what anyone else can pay.

what does that mean? that means prices are going to continue to go up because you’ve got someone out there who’s willing to pay more. we haven’t even seen the impact of the data centers yet. that’s one of our research projects and we’ve identified that just over the next two and a half years there’s going to be another 54 gigawatts of drawn power from these data centers.

and this is where we’re going to be seeing continued pressure on electric rates. even if they bring the power, right, is that going to be sufficient? this is the question. a lot of states are saying, “you have to bring your own power, we don’t have enough.” oh, yeah, they bring it, but is it going to be enough is the question. if they bring their own? i don’t know. again, this all has to be part of the discussion.

“i’m glad i was able to participate in the training of solar entrepreneur as part of the community solar program from my village. my work is recognized in the village and people look up to me with respect when they know of my work. but i can’t ignore my household responsibilities and take up this work as a full-time occupation. even since my husband fell ill, i have had to leave the work of a solar entrepreneur and focus on my household and our agricultural work.”

these were the words of one of the interviewees of my field study in jharkhand, india, regarding the impact of the community solar program on beneficiary households. her comments represent the hidden cost of solar energy implementation in rural communities that are geographically remote, not connected to the grid, politically neglected, and economically marginalized.

in 2024, i spent a month in the dumardih panchayat of gumla block in gumla district of jharkhand, india, conducting an ethnographic field study on the distributional impacts of one such community solar program implemented by bindi international. 

the village population of dumardih panchayat consists of indigenous (tribal) households and non-tribal households that have historically depended on agriculture for their livelihood. however, non-tribal households are relatively well off compared to tribal households; furthermore, tribal communities rely on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood and reside in more remote locations away from the main village. as such, there are ethnic divisions between these two groups.

the beneficiary households are spread across tribal and non-tribal ethnicities. the geographical remoteness of tribal households further exacerbates their challenge to access, electricity, education and healthcare services compared to other households who are economically relatively well-off, have access to resources, and have higher power in decision making in community matters.

solar for rural communities in india

the dominant story of solar in rural india often emphasizes numbers: how many households have been electrified, how many watts of solar are installed, how many hours of additional study children get at night, and how much indoor air quality improves. the beneficiary households see reduced indoor air pollution, additional light hours, increased safety, and better sense of well-being. 

solar energy was first introduced in gumla district in 2015 by a non-governmental organization called mlindia with financial support from the indian renewable energy development authority (ireda) (kumar, m., 2022). the first program was a solar mini-grid (20 kw – 40 kw) installed for 44 villages for a total combined capacity of one megawatt (kumar, m., 2022). gumla district has been one of the aspirational districts in the country out of the 112. the categorization is based on literacy rate, health, nutrition, basic infrastructure, and poverty level in the district (green and kapoor, 2023). this has been the driving factor for setting up solar power base programs to reduce the challenges with last mile connectivity in the district and provide opportunities to set up rural enterprises, and boost livelihood (kumar, m., 2022). 

one such organization is bindi international association. the organization was established in 2015, with the aim of empowering rural women across india and contributing to the achievement of the united nations’ sustainable development goals. this focus informs their approach to providing financial independence to rural women: bindi international provides training in digital literacy, marketing, and banking to enable women in remote areas to participate in the rapidly evolving digital world. 

their community solar program model provides electricity access to non-electrified and under electrified households. the program also provides skill training on solar technology to rural women and has established women as key players in delivering renewable energy solutions to remote communities. bindi international identified mahila vikas mandal (mvm), a grassroots non-governmental organization that creates and supports women-led self-help groups as the ground partner for implementation. the organization selected beneficiaries based on a survey of households able to pay an up-front, one-time payment of inr 1000. the households were also required to pay inr 150 per month as a deposit towards a corpus fund created to finance the operation phase of the program. this fund is managed by a village energy and electrification committee (veec), composed of beneficiary household members. the home lighting system consisted of a 40-watt system (a battery pack, four bulbs or two bulbs and a ceiling fan).

the bindi international team designed the program based on consultations with the village community, including a committee representing the beneficiary households. this committee oversees several aspects of the program, including paying the trained women for repair services, replacing parts, and appropriating funds to scale up the system. the program introduced a new culture of ownership, management, and use of solar energy for lighting and cooking that was not present earlier.

however, data from the study showed that women who were trained in the installation, repair, service, market, and sale of new solar products bear the burden of responsibility of solar intervention falling on women, exacerbating existing inequalities in the gendered division of labor within these communities. this is the hidden cost of solar technology based intervention in rural communities. in the rush to adopt a clean energy society, we are overlooking the unequal burden of labour across gender created by such community renewable energy programs.

an uneven burden

my ethnographic study revealed an amnesia in energy scholarship and policy: nobody wants to talk about how the burdens of transition fall unevenly, often along lines of gender. gendered expectations of labour, cultural norms regarding decision-making, and marginalization based on income and ethnicity disproportionately impact marginalized women.providing clean energy through solar home systems gives rural households the power to control their energy supply. but although it represents progress in some ways, the transition from kerosene to solar energy does not automatically dismantle the social, and economic inequalities that shape women’s everyday lives. limited access to resources, limited role in decision making makes its way into design, implementation and operation of community energy programs. 

a woman could be trained in solar technology, confident in marketing and maintaining a system, and yet be bound by the rules of culture and tradition. her entrepreneurial work is not a replacement for household duties but an addition to them. she provides food, tends to children and elderly, and ensures household provisions are in adequate supply while also taking on the new responsibility of promoting renewable energy.

my study of this program in gumla district of jharkhand showed that community renewable energy projects cannot be based on an additive framework of renewable energy plus gender equity and social justice. it is an integrated framework, where existing gender divisions of labor and social inequality across ethnicity shape the access and use of resources across households, which in turn determines the extent of benefits derived from a beneficiary household in a community solar program. energy is political, cultural, and deeply personal. the solar entrepreneurs of jharkhand show that even well-intentioned energy projects can risk reinscribing existing inequalities in rural communities.

in burundi, more than 90% of the population depends on firewood and charcoal for cooking, according to the african energy commission. the country of just 27,830 square kilometers (approximately 11,000 square miles) is bordered by democratic republic of congo, rwanda, and tanzania in east-central africa. because there has been no other option for fuel, communities cut swaths of trees daily. this incremental deforestation then leads to environmental issues such as land degradation.

delphin kaze, who in 2017 was a first-year student in environmental sciences at the polytechnic university of gitega, in burundi, was passionate about protecting nature. during a school field trip, he found out the stark reality of widespread deforestation, as trees were disappearing daily just to keep families fed. 

“initially, i got an idea of transforming waste into charcoal because i knew that on all the hills of the country trees were being cut down to obtain charcoal or firewood,” he said. “i understood that an alternative was needed to remedy this problem.”

from agricultural waste to clean energy 

kaze began to research and experiment with turning agricultural waste into briquettes. he tried different materials, looking for a way to produce a cleaner and sustainable charcoal. for a long time, the results were frustrating. but one day, he turned to something familiar, corn cobs. 

“i recalled how in my neighborhood, people sometimes used the corn cobs to cook, despite that they burn by blowing out smoke. that gave me an idea of a good prototype,” he said. “i wondered: what if i could transform these corn cobs into efficient, low-smoke charcoal?”

kaze started working on his idea from home with almost nothing. no dedicated workspace; no funding. only a few hours in the evenings after class, back at home. but he had support from his father, from close friends, and from his own belief that the idea mattered. step by step, he improved the process. and little by little, what started as a series of home experiments began to look like a real product.

people doubted him. many called the idea unrealistic. but kaze kept going for he was committed to finding a solution to deforestation. he talked about his project to anyone who would listen, adjusted his time and expenses, and kept refining his work. he started applying for different opportunities and participating in different innovation competitions, with the main goal of promoting his innovation. eventually, the results spoke for themselves. 

by 2019, he had officially registered his venture as kaze green economy, or kage. while still studying, he turned his small venture into a functioning initiative. in 2020, the united nations development programme (undp) offered support, helping him expand from a manual setup to semi-industrial production. later that year, additional support from undp and burundi’s ministry of energy helped him reach full industrial capacity.

green growth with social impact

today, kaze’s factory recycles different agricultural waste materials — namely corn cobs, rice husks, and coffee husks — and turns them into clean, energy-efficient briquettes called “kabiof” as an alternative to firewood and traditional charcoal for cooking. now kage produces up to 20 tons of that eco-charcoal every day. 

kaze’s initiative has so far created 40 full-time jobs, which makes him proud of the social impact also driven by his initiative. 

“thanks to the idea i developed from scratch, our model not only helps preserve burundi’s forests but also supports dozens of families who supply the raw materials (agricultural wastes),” he said. “around 60 daily workers, many of whom are youth and women, are working in the factory and go back home with an amount of money to meet their family’s needs.”

through this journey, kaze has not only built a business, but also shaped a vision. he believes that young people in burundi have the power to solve real problems when they are supported and encouraged. the passion to protect the environment and to combat deforestation by producing eco-friendly charcoal is proof that environmental change doesn’t have to start with big institutions. it can begin with one person, one idea, and the courage to try. 

now, kaze’s story doesn’t stop at charcoal. as his kage venture grew, he began thinking even bigger. he saw that many rural areas still lacked electricity. so, he planned to expand his focus to rural electrification, using his platform to bring energy, and hope, to communities long left behind.

“what i would urge young people with passion about environment protection is to be committed, to persevere, and especially to focus on what is essential and contribute to finding solutions to community’s challenges,” kaze said. “and i believe that if we really want to see change, we must believe in and support young innovators. the future depends on it.”

editor’s note: the views and information presented herein are those of melchisedeck boshirwa and do not represent the mandela washington fellowship, the u.s. department of state, or irex.

the story was originally published in yale climate connections on may 19, 2025.

the environment has always figured prominently in the nonfiction work of alan weisman. in the best-known and bestselling of his five previous books, “the world without us” (2007), the planet, devoid of humans, became the lone protagonist. 

in his new book, “hope dies last,” the independent international journalist, laureate professor of international journalism at the university of arizona, and producer of radio documentaries profiles the lives and ingenuities of visionaries passionately working to keep humans in earth’s future.

in countries around the world, often on opposite sides of the globe, weisman finds people meeting the same critical challenges posed by a changing climate: rising sea levels, new threats to food production and the threats posed by unsustainable production, the degradation of ecosystems and the loss of wildlife habitat, the livability and viability of cities, the lingering impacts of fossil fuel pollution, and the ever-rising demands for energy. in their eyes-wide-open efforts against imposing odds, weisman finds new reasons for hope.

the following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

yale climate connections: thank you, alan, for taking the time to speak with yale climate connections. i want first to connect briefly with one of your previous books, “the world without us.” in that book, you showed us that the planet per se was not in danger. it would quickly reestablish its equilibria without us. is your new book an attempt to show that we can still create a future with us?

alan weisman: well, that’s certainly my hope. you know, i didn’t write “the world without us” because i want a world without us. my hope was that people would see how beautifully the earth could heal and restore much of what has been trampled by the excessive behavior of our species. and if readers saw that, then they might think, “wow, is there some way that we can add ourselves back into that picture, without such a destructive relationship with the rest of nature?”

there are now 8 billion of us on this planet, and they’ll probably be 10 billion of us by the middle of the century. how can we be here without overwhelming the rest of the planet? so i was fascinated by the work of so many different kinds of people that i met who are trying to find us a future.

ycc: early in the book, you say that hope is a somewhat ambiguous and slippery word. what do you mean by that? 

weisman: the title of the book, “hope dies last,” is an intentional double entendre. we always hope that things will get better. and at the same time, we know that often the odds are stacked against us. so we hope against hope. but we don’t give up hoping. 

ycc: shortly after making that clarification, you say there are four things, each big enough to shake the entire planet, that we need to address. what are they?

weisman: we’re facing some questions in this century that are existential in their nature. one is, have we inadvertently pushed so many other fellow species off this planet, species that we coevolved with, that we depend upon for our food and for all kinds of other things that they do, filtering the air, filtering the water? have we pushed so many of them off that we have started a cascade that is ultimately leading to a sixth major extinction that’s going to include ourselves? 

second, the climate. we have lived in balance through most of the history of our species with this very thin layer of air that surrounds the planet. but then we jet-propelled our society because we discovered how to tap the energy that nature didn’t need for its own cycle, the excess carbon it had buried away. we’ve dug it all up, and we’ve burned it, and we’ve created these marvels, including the internet that you and i are speaking to each other with right now. in the process, however, we packed the atmosphere with some invisible gases that [hold heat]. we’re basically baking ourselves right now because we have created the equivalent of a greenhouse overhead. are we going to be able to stop that process in time? we’re exceeding limits that scientists have warned us we should learn to live within. 

the third and fourth are almost inextricably linked. 

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modern medicine cut infant mortality and extended our lives. that was combined with enormous accomplishments in agriculture. we learned how to pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere to create fertilizer for our crops. we can now slather it, almost inexhaustibly, on our soil chemically. but the process for creating this synthetic fertilizer, using [methane], is a huge contributor of greenhouse gases.

and then, when fertilizer breaks down in our fields, it feeds soil microbes that give off nitrous oxide, which, after methane, is the third most potent greenhouse gas. close to 40% of the nitrogen just wafts into the atmosphere. much of the rest gets into the water, runs downstream, and creates large dead zones in the great river deltas of the world. 

extending our lives and being able to grow more food are wonderful things, but there are unintended consequences. 

ycc: so the last factors, three and four, would be the impacts of agriculture and population?

weisman: yes, food and population. they’ve created this huge abundance of a species, our own. we and our livestock now outweigh all other mammals. we are 96% of the mass.

ycc: that’s an astonishing statistic! but i think if most people looked at this list of four earth-shaping factors, they wouldn’t turn next to the marshes of iraq. yet you do. why do you start and end your book in the marshes of iraq?

weisman: well, there is huge symbolic and historic importance to this area. this is known as the cradle of civilization. it’s also an area that many archaeologists presume was the biblical garden of eden. so i found this intense capsule of symbolism that tells us so much about ourselves and who we are and so many of things we believe in. 

but the marshes of iraq are also the site of a dramatic environmental story. after the first gulf war, when the united states had weakened saddam hussein severely, there was an uprising in iraq that tried to topple him. but the republican guard that fled from the u.s. forces got back together to massacre a lot of their own people. one of the things they did was to divert the waters of the tigris and euphrates to drain this swamp to expose the shiite rebels. later, when saddam was finally deposed, this incredible marshland, which was the biggest wetland in all of the middle east, looked like a desert. 

then two engineers, jassim al-asadi and azzam alwash, who grew up along the marshes, wanted to see if it was possible to resuscitate them by adding water back. biologists said, no, no, no, the roots are all dead now. they said, how do you know unless you try?

for years, they tried to get international aid to come in and help do this, to get the americans to come in — no success. they finally decided, why don’t we just do it ourselves? so they rented an excavator, and they punched holes through the dike. water rushed in. for a couple of months, it just looked and smelled horrible. but then, slowly, green shoots started to appear along the edge. and today, when you go in there, it’s this lush marshland. for less than $100, they restored one of the most important ecosystems on earth. what a wonderful story!

ycc: so you have these four factors you need to address over the course of the book. you have some historical notes you want to strike. what was the process of selecting the other places you incorporated into this huge story?

weisman: oh, i was kind of hoping you wouldn’t ask me that question, because i don’t ever know what my process really is. i think of these huge global issues and then i start reading everything i can to understand them. and i ask, what are the attempts to try to do something about them?

then i let my subconscious take over, and it focuses on different things. i will jump from the marshes of iraq to a place that is frankly very alien to me, the plasma physics lab at mit. i don’t have a real technological mind, but when i talked to the physicists at this lab, i discovered they were extremely concerned about what we are doing to the climate. they’re also concerned about the demands for energy. 

so they’re looking at a potentially limitless source of clean energy: fusion energy. it’s the stuff that makes the stars shine. it’s totally elegant, but it’s been very hard to achieve on earth. 

the scientists at mit have had a fusion program, with a tokamak reactor, going for years, but it wasn’t successful. finally, the department of energy decided to pull the plug. that put the head of the plasma physics lab up against a wall. he was nearing 50, he had dedicated his career to this thing, and now federal funding was going. he needed a breakthrough. so he challenged his students, a class in fusion reactor design that he taught every year, to come up with a solution.

they have now successfully spun off that class into a startup, one of the most successful in terms of fundraising anywhere in the united states. billions of dollars are being invested by venture capitalists; they know the world is going to need this kind of energy source. if it works, we would be able to cleanly power the great tech revolution we’re having right now.

ycc: several of your chapters are about energy, but there are also large stretches of your book that are about food. we’ve already talked about nitrates. can you tell us about one of the alternatives to fertilizer that you cover? 

weisman: as i mentioned earlier, agriculture, because of its use of artificial fertilizer, is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases. we just can’t keep doing it this way. we’re not going to win the climate battle, and we’re going to be doing terrible damage downstream. 

so i looked at one company that is trying to coat the seeds for all the grains we grow with a microbial brew they concocted that would basically imitate what legumes do: capture nitrogen.

i went to a farm up north of utica, new york, that was trying this out. the test strips where they were applying the product were noticeably greener, and this was during a dry time. and the silage, which was being tested scientifically, had both a higher nutritional percentage and was more digestible for cows as well. (the reason why i mentioned cows is that this was a dairy farm; they grow a lot of corn and other silage to feed to these cows.) 

this product saves farmers money because fertilizer is a huge expense for them. it also saves a lot of wear and tear on their land and equipment. farmers who are using this stuff don’t have to go over their fields with tractors to spray fertilizer on the rows again and again. this was very encouraging to me.   

ycc: right. my favorite story is the one you tell about chef Ángel león and eelgrass rice. this guy is an avid experimenter with all kinds of foods. and your encounter with him leads to a 15-course dinner.

weisman: yeah, unfortunately for research purposes, i was forced to eat a three-star michelin meal. journalism’s hard work, what can i tell you? 

ycc: i want to get to that, but i have a prior question. while i was reading your book, i came across a new yorker essay about john mcphee, best known for his roadside geologies, by elizabeth kolbert, the author of popular books on climate change. she recounted mcphee’s advice to authors, which was that authors should stay out of their stories. you seem to follow that advice throughout your book. you’re clearly in the scenes. people are clearly interacting with you. but at the same time, you’re invisible. and with this dinner, i really wanted your taste buds in the story. i’m curious about your choice.

weisman: well, thank you very much! you’ve asked a really important question. when a journalist like myself goes to so many places – i’ve been to over 60 countries – i’ve got stories i could tell about what happened to me. but the importance of the work or the situations that i am describing, that’s where the spotlight should go.

in this story, you don’t hear what i tasted, what i thought about the meal, but you do hear the reactions of the people i was eating that meal with, two scientists who have been working for years with an indigenous tribe in mexico, the seri indians, who harvested eelgrass. 

Ángel león, the immensely creative chef in southern spain who had already earned michelin stars by using all the parts of fish, along with plankton and sea worms, to keep in balance with the sea around him, read a paper about how the seri had harvested this eelgrass for its grain. he contacted the two american scientists who wrote the paper to arrange a cultural interchange. he wanted to see if eelgrass could be domesticated. it turns out that’s really hard to do, but they are still trying. he has put over half a million euros of the profits from his three restaurants into this venture. 

it’s a wonderful human story. but whether we can domesticate a grain from the seas and turn it into a flour we could have in abundance, we still don’t know. this is just one of the many experiments being done to see if we can live sustainably on this planet. 

every so often in your book, one encounters the united states agency for international development. in your estimation, how much hope has been lost by the destruction of usaid by trump and musk?

weisman: usaid has provided so much help throughout the world. there were years back when i used to criticize it because it was basically a propaganda arm for the government. but when i was researching my book “countdown,” about population, i saw all the good usaid has done, the family planning programs that it has funded throughout the world, including in countries that hated the united states. these programs empowered women. they allowed women to make choices, and they allowed girls to stay in school. that will be lost until usaid is reinstated. 

the united states is now pretending it can exist in isolation. it’s the ostrich with its head in the sand pretending that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. pretending that the climate is not crashing down on us because we are burning fossil fuels for energy rather than tapping clean energy in the many other ways we know we could.

but in a way, the trump administration, while terrifying, is also clarifying. we can now see the two sides really, really well. there’s a clear choice. the many people i portray in this book, from so many walks of life, have led me to believe that there’s still hope that we will make the right choice. although i was looking at very sobering problems, i was so uplifted when i finished writing this book. these people have refilled me with hope.