CLIMATE SOLUTIONS LIVING LAB ALASKA TEAM II May 2018 Michelle Chang, Misbath Daouda, Ava Liu,Hannah Nesser, Nerali Patel 1 This Report and Implementation Plan are student work product completed to fulfill requirements of the Climate Solutions Living Lab, a 12-week course offered at Harvard Law School. This report and plan were researched and written under tight time constraints to answer specific questions posed to the students in their course assignment. Any opinions expressed in the report are those of the students and not of Harvard University or Harvard Law School. If you would like to learn more about Harvard Law School’s Climate Solutions Living Lab, please contact Professor Wendy Jacobs at [email protected]. CONTENTS I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7 II. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN 8 III. FEASIBILITY STUDY 56 IV. SCREENING EXERCISE 90 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Professor Wendy Jacobs and logistics of our busy course. Lastly we thank the other teaching fellow Debra Stump for their help and guid- teaching fellows—Drew, Seung, Julio, and Taylor— ance during the 2018 edition of the Climate Change and many other extremely dedicated students in our Solutions Lab. class for their helpful comments and feedback. We are indebted to the patience and knowledge of This has been a fantastic learning experience and we staff at the Rural Alaska Community Action Program, remain so grateful to each other for the experience we in particular Carla Burkhead and Shelby Clem, who we had together. met with in Anchorage in February 2018. In addition, we would also like to thank the many other dedicat- ed actors we connected with in Anchorage, such as Cady Lister and Rebecca Garrett at the Alaska Energy Authority, and Tom Marsik, Dustin Madden, and Bruno Grunau at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. Acknowledgments also go out to Tim, Soren, Scott, Mimi, Michael, and others at the Alaska Housing Fi- nance Corporation. We are also appreciative of Bruce Wright for his gra- cious hospitality and Sally Cox for her assistance. We also thank Jayne Bennett at the Bristol Bay Native As- sociation, Danny Consenstein, and the Alaska Seeds of Change project for their help with the food security piece of this project. We are also very grateful to Jackie Calahong for coor- dinating our trip to Alaska and for managing the tricky 4 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Many Alaska Native peoples live in rural communities in insecurity. Our project thus focuses on (1) increasing Western and interior Alaska. Over half of these commu- energy efficiency to lower energy bills by weatherizing nities are very small with populations less than 500 res- residential homes and (2) creating a hydroponics proj- idents. They also face some of the highest incidences ect at the local school to make fresh produce more of poverty in the United States and some of the highest available in rural Alaskan villages and reduce the cost of costs for food and fuel in the world. Most communities transporting foods. are situated off the road and accessible only by water or air, while most households lack access to running The project will cost approximately $2 million (mm), of water. which the client will fund 50%, or $1mm, with the re- mainder funded via grants. The project will create ben- Climate change exacerbates ongoing economic and efits of approximately $6mm over the course of a 15- public health challenges faced by rural Alaskan com- year modeled life. All outside capital is incurred in the munities, who lack access to cash-based economies first 2 years for the initial hydroponics and weatheriza- due to their traditional subsistence-based lifestyles. tion interventions and is self-sustaining thereafter. The Communities who face poverty are particularly vulner- overall emissions reductions total to 1,563 metric tons able to climate change because they have fewer eco- of CO2, at a cost to the client of $630/ton of avoided nomic resources to respond to adversity, evacuation CO2. or emergency response. It is an unfortunate reality that climate change disproportionately impacts marginalized This project takes a holistic approach to produce an peoples. integrated weatherization project with a hydroponics component. In our cost-benefit analysis, this project To reduce climate change emissions and produce emphasizes the strong social benefits of our inter- social benefits in these communities, we propose a vention. Our mandates are to reduce costs for home weatherization project that encompasses energy re- energy and food expenses, improve public health duction and food security while reducing greenhouse outcomes, and develop education, training, and em- gas emissions that an unregulated entity—our hypo- ployment skills. Furthermore, this project aims to be a thetical client—could use to offset its own emissions. scalable intervention that can demonstrate its replica- One particular challenge for Alaska Native communi- bility for Alaska Native villages in the Alaskan rural land- ties has been high and fluctuating costs of heating and scape. energy. A second problem has been increasing food 6 7 IMPLEMENTATION PLAN 8 9 Project Goals Feasibility Analysis Summary Our goal is to design a culturally sensitive project that We have identified the following list of criteria for our The selection of this project for the implementation Assessment indicated that, by different measures of a community can use to serve their needs. We have project: plan came through the feasibility analysis stage of our outcomes, the envisioned home improvements and defined this sensitivity under our criteria of cultural sus- project. The two projects that were carried through the stove replacement would yield more public health ben- tainability, which is based on emphasizing local stake- feasibility analysis were: (1) a utility-scale intervention efits to the chosen community. The same was true holder input and processes of participatory develop- designed to optimize diesel efficiency and recover po- for social benefits given the strong focus on capacity ment throughout the implementation process. It is not tential waste heat, and (2) a community-scale interven- building and local employment promotion. However, our desire to impose external technocratic solutions on Carbon Reductions tion intended to reduce energy loss through residential the involvement of multiple stakeholders and actors as marginalized communities, but to instead conduct re- weatherization. well as the different legal considerations for contracting Quantifiable search that can be properly mobilized to serve their community members resulted in a set of significant, but Additional purposes. Our goal is to facilitate long-lasting solutions The analysis of the diesel efficiency project included two not insurmountable, challenges. The goal of this imple- designed for community ownership. Feasibility alternatives: replacing the community’s old generators mentation plan will be to highlight, caution, and advise or installing retrofits on the existing generating system our client about these issues. Because the demographics and socio-economic char- Cultural to yield higher efficiency. This made the project both acteristics of Native communities are so distinct from Financial feasible and scalable because the exact layout of the While the principal goal of these projects is to reduce those of non-Native communities, we recognize that Legality chosen community’s utility would not have been a barri- GHG emissions, the prevalence and ongoing rise of indigenous communities in rural Alaska have diverse Scalability er to implementation. Further, the choice of the client as food access challenges in the communities under con- characteristics and needs, and we worked to design the utility and the availability of different grants made for sideration -as previously described- could not remain Socio-Economic a project that could be easily adapted to address local a straightforward project structure. However, the high unaddressed. Thus, all along, the team considered circumstances. We also recognize the legacy of colo- Public Health up-front cost of the project brought about a very high ways to incorporate a food security element to either nialism in Alaska and in the United States more broadly, Food Security cost-per-avoided-ton of CO2. This finding along with project. The recent adaptation of hydroponics technol- and, as a result, the importance of historical context Local Employment the implied reliance of the community on diesel as a ogies to cold climate environments rendered it a viable in evaluating the social implications and public health Educational Opportunities fuel source for the next decades, and the compara- and sustainable solution. dimensions of our work. Community Capacity Building tively low public health benefits, led us to choose the weatherization project. Given the large number of poorly insulated and low-en- ergy efficiency homes in rural Alaska, the weatheriza- tion project provided a way to significantly reduce CO2 emissions at a much lower cost than the utility-scale intervention. Furthermore, the preliminary Health Impact 10 11 Federal Census Area Kusilvak Municipal Government City of Alakanuk Community Profile Status of Municipality Second-class city Federally Recognized Tribe Village of Alakanuk This project is designed for rural Native communities tion is under the age of 184. Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA) Lower Yukon School District in Alaska, in particular in Western and Interior Alaska. Alaska Native communities share a common demo- Alakanuk is a community that stands to benefit from Alaska Native Regional Corporation Calista Corporation graphic profile: many have small populations between weatherization but also has the capacity to support a 200-800, above 90% of the population is Indigenous, hydroponics project, which would require a source of and 30% - 40% percent of the community lives below running water. In Alakanuk, approximately 90% of the the federal poverty line1. In many communities, a high homes are connected to a system that has a water child poverty rate (45%+) and most parents have 3 or and piped sewer system, and a central watering point.