Reuse of human excreta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse_of_human_excreta

 

Harvest of capsicum grown with compost made from human excreta at an experimental garden in Haiti

Reuse of human excreta is the safe, beneficial use of treated human excreta after applying suitable treatment steps and risk management approaches that are customized for the intended reuse application. Beneficial uses of the treated excreta may focus on using the plant-available nutrients (mainly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) that are contained in the treated excreta. They may also make use of the organic matter and energy contained in the excreta. To a lesser extent, reuse of the excreta's water content might also take place, although this is better known as water reclamation from municipal wastewater. The intended reuse applications for the nutrient content may include: soil conditioner or fertilizer in agriculture or horticultural activities. Other reuse applications, which focus more on the organic matter content of the excreta, include use as a fuel source or as an energy source in the form of biogas.

There is a large and growing number of treatment options to make excreta safe and manageable for the intended reuse option. Some options include: Urine diversion and dehydration of feces (urine-diverting dry toilets), composting (composting toilets or external composting processes), sewage sludge treatment technologies and a range of fecal sludge treatment processes. They all achieve various degrees of pathogen removal and reduction in water content for easier handling. Pathogens of concern are enteric bacteria, virus, protozoa, and helminth eggs in feces. As the helminth eggs are the pathogens that are the most difficult to destroy with treatment processes, they are commonly used as an indicator organism in reuse schemes. Other health risks and environmental pollution aspects that need to be considered include spreading micropollutants, pharmaceutical residues and nitrate in the environment which could cause groundwater pollution and thus potentially affect drinking water quality.

There are several "human excreta derived fertilizers" which vary in their properties and fertilizing characteristics, for example: urine, dried feces, composted feces, fecal sludge, sewage, sewage sludge.

The nutrients and organic matter which are contained in human excreta or in domestic wastewater (sewage) have been used in agriculture in many countries for centuries. However, this practice is often carried out in an unregulated and unsafe manner in developing countries. World Health Organization Guidelines from 2006 have set up a framework describing how this reuse can be done safely by following a "multiple barrier approach". Such barriers might be selecting a suitable crop, farming methods, methods of applying the fertilizer and education of the farmers.

Terminology

Human excreta, fecal sludge and wastewater are often referred to as wastes (see also human waste). Within the concept of a circular economy in sanitation, an alternative term that is being used is "resource flows". The final outputs from the sanitation treatment systems can be called "reuse products" or "other outputs". These reuse products are general fertilizers, soil conditioners, biomass, water, or energy.

Reuse of human excreta focuses on the nutrient and organic matter content of human excreta unlike reuse of wastewater which focuses on the water content. An alternative term is "use of human excreta" rather than "reuse" as strictly speaking it is the first use of human excreta, not the second time that it is used.

Technologies and approaches

A sewage farm in Hampshire, England

The resources available in wastewater and human excreta include water, plant nutrients, organic matter and energy content. Sanitation systems that are designed for safe and effective recovery of resources can play an important role in a community's overall resource management.

Recovering the resources embedded in excreta and wastewater (like nutrients, water and energy) contributes to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 and other sustainable development goals.

It can be efficient to combine wastewater and human excreta with other organic waste such as manure, and food and crop waste for the purposes of resource recovery.

Treatment options

There is a large and growing number of treatment options to make excreta safe and manageable for the intended reuse option. Various technologies and practices, ranging in scale from a single rural household to a city, can be used to capture potentially valuable resources and make them available for safe, productive uses that support human well-being and broader sustainability. Some treatment options are listed below but there are many more:

• Urine diversion and dehydration of feces (which is done with urine-diverting dry toilets)
• Composting (composting toilets or external composting processes)
• Sewage sludge treatment technologies, which is installed downstream of various wastewater treatment technologies
• Fecal sludge treatment processes, such as sludge drying beds, constructed wetlands.
• Anaerobic digestion with biogas production
• Waste-to-energy process
• Omni Processor

A guide by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences provides a list of treatment technologies for sanitation resource recovery: Vermicomposting and vermifiltration, black soldier fly composting, algae cultivation, microbial fuel cell, nitrification and distillation of urine, struvite precipitation, incineration, carbonization, solar drying, membranes, filters, alkaline dehydration of urine, ammonia sanitization/urea treatment, and lime sanitization.

Reuse options

The most common reuse of excreta is as fertilizer and soil conditioner in agriculture. This is also called a "closing the loop" approach for sanitation with agriculture. It is a central aspect of the ecological sanitation approach.

Reuse options depend on the form of the excreta that is being reused: it can be either excreta on its own or mixed with some water (fecal sludge) or mixed with much water (domestic wastewater or sewage).

The most common types of excreta reuse include:

• Fertilizer and irrigation water in agriculture, and horticulture: for example using recovered and treated water for irrigation; using composted excreta (and other organic waste) or appropriately treated biosolids as fertilizer and soil conditioner; using treated source-separated urine as fertilizer.
• Energy: for example digesting feces and other organic waste to produce biogas; or producing combustible fuels.
• Other: other emerging excreta reuse options include producing protein feeds for livestock using black soldier fly larvae, recovering organic matter for use as building materials or in paper production.

Resource recovery from fecal sludge can take many forms, including as a fuel, soil amendment, building material, protein, animal fodder, and water for irrigation.

Reuse products that can be recovered from sanitation systems include: Stored urine, concentrated urine, sanitized blackwater, digestate, nutrient solutions, dry urine, struvite, dried feces, pit humus, dewatered sludge, compost, ash from sludge, biochar, nutrient-enriched filter material, algae, macrophytes, black soldier fly larvae, worms, irrigation water, aquaculture, and biogas.

As fertilizer

Comparison of spinach field with (left) and without (right) compost, experiments at the SOIL farm in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

 

Application of urine on a field near Bonn, Germany, by means of flexible hose close to the soil

 

Basil plants: The plants on the right are not fertilized, while the plants on the left are fertilized with urine - in a nutrient-poor soil

 

Application of urine on eggplants during a comprehensive urine application field testing study at Xavier University, Philippines

Comparison to other fertilizers

Further information: Fertilizer and Organic fertilizer

There is an untapped fertilizer resource in human excreta. In Africa, for example, the theoretical quantities of nutrients that can be recovered from human excreta are comparable with all current fertilizer use on the continent. Therefore, reuse can support increased food production and also provide an alternative to chemical fertilizers, which is often unaffordable to small-holder farmers. However, nutritional value of human excreta largely depends on dietary input.

Mineral fertilizers are made from mining activities and can contain heavy metals. Phosphate ores contain heavy metals such as cadmium and uranium, which can reach the food chain via mineral phosphate fertilizer. This does not apply to excreta-based fertilizers (unless the human's food was contaminated beyond safe limits to start with), which is an advantage.

Fertilizing elements of organic fertilizers are mostly bound in carbonaceous reduced compounds. If these are already partially oxidized as in the compost, the fertilizing minerals are adsorbed on the degradation products (humic acids) etc. Thus, they exhibit a slow-release effect and are usually less rapidly leached compared to mineral fertilizers.

Urine

Urine contains large quantities of nitrogen (mostly as urea), as well as reasonable quantities of dissolved potassium. The nutrient concentrations in urine vary with diet. In particular, the nitrogen content in urine is related to quantity of protein in the diet: A high protein diet results in high urea levels in urine. The nitrogen content in urine is proportional to the total food protein in the person's diet, and the phosphorus content is proportional to the sum of total food protein and vegetal food protein. Urine's eight main ionic species (> 0.1 meq L−1) are cations Na, K, NH₄, Ca, and the anions, Cl, SO₄, PO₄, and HCO₃. Urine typically contains 70% of the nitrogen and more than half the potassium found in sewage, while making up less than 1% of the overall volume. The amount of urine produced by an adult is around 0.8 to 1.5 L per day.

Applying urine as fertilizer has been called "closing the cycle of agricultural nutrient flows" or ecological sanitation or ecosan. Urine fertilizer is usually applied diluted with water because undiluted urine can chemically burn the leaves or roots of some plants, causing plant injury, particularly if the soil moisture content is low. The dilution also helps to reduce odor development following application. When diluted with water (at a 1:5 ratio for container-grown annual crops with fresh growing medium each season or a 1:8 ratio for more general use), it can be applied directly to soil as a fertilizer. The fertilization effect of urine has been found to be comparable to that of commercial nitrogen fertilizers. Urine may contain pharmaceutical residues (environmental persistent pharmaceutical pollutants). Concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium, commonly found in sewage sludge, are much lower in urine.

Typical design values for nutrients excreted with urine are: 4 kg nitrogen per person per year, 0.36 kg phosphorus per person per year and 1.0 kg potassium per person per year. Based on the quantity of 1.5 L urine per day (or 550 L per year), the concentration values of macronutrients as follows: 7.3 g/L N; .67 g/L P; 1.8 g/L K. These are design values but the actual values vary with diet. Urine's nutrient content, when expressed with the international fertilizer convention of N:P₂O₅:K₂O, is approximately 7:1.5:2.2. Since urine is rather diluted as a fertilizer compared to dry manufactured nitrogen fertilizers such as diammonium phosphate, the relative transport costs for urine are high as a lot of water needs to be transported.

The general limitations to using urine as fertilizer depend mainly on the potential for buildup of excess nitrogen (due to the high ratio of that macronutrient), and inorganic salts such as sodium chloride, which are also part of the wastes excreted by the renal system. Over-fertilization with urine or other nitrogen fertilizers can result in too much ammonia for plants to absorb, acidic conditions, or other phytotoxicity. Important parameters to consider while fertilizing with urine include salinity tolerance of the plant, soil composition, addition of other fertilizing compounds, and quantity of rainfall or other irrigation. It was reported in 1995 that urine nitrogen gaseous losses were relatively high and plant uptake lower than with labelled ammonium nitrate. In contrast, phosphorus was utilized at a higher rate than soluble phosphate. Urine can also be used safely as a source of nitrogen in carbon-rich compost.

Human urine can be collected with sanitation systems that utilize urinals or urine diversion toilets. If urine is to be separated and collected for use as a fertilizer in agriculture, then this can be done with sanitation systems that utilize waterless urinals, urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) or urine diversion flush toilets. During storage, the urea in urine is rapidly hydrolyzed by urease, creating ammonia. Further treatment can be done with collected urine to stabilize the nitrogen and concentrate the fertilizer. One low-tech solution to odor is to add citric acid or vinegar to the urine collection container, so that the urease is inactivated and any ammonia that do form are less volatile. Besides concentration, simple chemical processes can be used to extract pure substances: nitrogen as nitrates (similar to medieval nitre beds) and phosphorus as struvite.

The health risks of using urine as a source of fertilizer are generally regarded as negligible, especially when dispersed in soil rather than on the part of a plant that is consumed. Urine can be distributed via perforated hoses buried ~10 cm under the surface of the soil among crop plants, thus minimizing risk of odors, loss of nutrients due to votalization, or transmission of pathogens. There are potentially more environmental problems (such as eutrophication resulting from the influx of nutrient rich effluent into aquatic or marine ecosystems) and a higher energy consumption when urine is treated as part of sewage in sewage treatment plants compared with when it is used directly as a fertilizer resource.

In developing countries, the use of raw sewage or fecal sludge has been common throughout history, yet the application of pure urine to crops is still quite rare in 2021. This is despite many publications that advocate the use of urine as a fertilizer since at least 2001. Since about 2011, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing funding for research involving sanitation systems that recover the nutrients in urine.

Feces

According to the 2004 "proposed Swedish default values", an average Swedish adult excretes 0.55 kg nitrogen, 0.18 kg phosphorus, and 0.36 kg potassium as feces per year. The yearly mass is 51 kg wet and 11 kg dried, so that wet feces would have a NPK% value of 1.1:0.8:0.9.

Dried feces

Reuse of dried feces (feces) from urine-diverting dry toilets after post-treatment can result in increased crop production through fertilizing effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and improved soil fertility through organic carbon.

Composted feces

Main article: Uses of compost

 

Cabbage grown in excreta-based compost (left) and without soil amendments (right), SOIL in Haiti

Compost derived from composting toilets (where organic kitchen waste is in some cases also added to the composting toilet) has, in principle, the same uses as compost derived from other organic waste products, such as sewage sludge or municipal organic waste. One limiting factor may be legal restrictions due to the possibility that pathogens remain in the compost. In any case, the use of compost from composting toilets in one's own garden can be regarded as safe and is the main method of use for compost from composting toilets. Hygienic measures for handling of the compost must be applied by all those people who are exposed to it, e.g. wearing gloves and boots.

Some of the urine will be part of the compost although some urine will be lost via leachate and evaporation. Urine can contain up to 90 percent of the nitrogen, up to 50 percent of the phosphorus, and up to 70 percent of the potassium present in human excreta.

The nutrients in compost from a composting toilet have a higher plant availability than dried feces from a typical urine-diverting dry toilet. The two processes are not mutually exclusive, however: some composting toilets do divert urine (to avoid over-saturation of water and nitrogen) and dried feces can still be composted.

Fecal sludge

Further information: Fecal sludge management

Fecal sludge is defined as "coming from onsite sanitation technologies, and has not been transported through a sewer." Examples of onsite technologies include pit latrines, unsewered public ablution blocks, septic tanks and dry toilets. Fecal sludge can be treated by a variety of methods to render it suitable for reuse in agriculture. These include (usually carried out in combination) dewatering, thickening, drying (in sludge drying beds), composting, pelletization, and anaerobic digestion.

Municipal wastewater

Further information: Reclaimed water and Sewage treatment § Reuse

Reclaimed water can be reused for irrigation, industrial uses, replenishing natural water courses, water bodies, aquifers, and other potable and non-potable uses. These applications, however, focus usually on the water aspect, not on the nutrients and organic matter reuse aspect, which is the focus of "reuse of excreta".

When wastewater is reused in agriculture, its nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) content may be useful for additional fertilizer application. Work by the International Water Management Institute and others has led to guidelines on how reuse of municipal wastewater in agriculture for irrigation and fertilizer application can be safely implemented in low income countries.

Sewage sludge

Main articles: Sewage sludge and Biosolids

The use of treated sewage sludge (after treatment also called "biosolids") as a soil conditioner or fertilizer is possible but is a controversial topic in some countries (such as USA, some countries in Europe) due to the chemical pollutants it may contain, such as heavy metals and environmental persistent pharmaceutical pollutants.

Northumbrian Water in the United Kingdom uses two biogas plants to produce what the company calls "poo power" - using sewage sludge to produce energy to generate income. Biogas production has reduced its pre 1996 electricity expenditure of 20 million GBP by about 20%. Severn Trent and Wessex Water also have similar projects.

Sludge treatment liquids

Further information: Sewage sludge treatment

Sludge treatment liquids (after anaerobic digestion) can be used as an input source for a process to recover phosphorus in the form of struvite for use as fertilizer. For example, the Canadian company Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies is marketing a process based on controlled chemical precipitation of phosphorus in a fluidized bed reactor that recovers struvite in the form of crystalline pellets from sludge dewatering streams. The resulting crystalline product is sold to the agriculture, turf, and ornamental plants sectors as fertilizer under the registered trade name "Crystal Green".

Peak phosphorus

Further information: Peak phosphorus

In the case of phosphorus in particular, reuse of excreta is one known method to recover phosphorus to mitigate the looming shortage (also known as "peak phosphorus") of economical mined phosphorus. Mined phosphorus is a limited resource that is being used up for fertilizer production at an ever-increasing rate, which is threatening worldwide food security. Therefore, phosphorus from excreta-based fertilizers is an interesting alternative to fertilizers containing mined phosphate ore.

Health and environmental aspects of agricultural use

Pathogens

Multiple barrier concept for safe use in agriculture

Research into how to make reuse of urine and feces safe in agriculture has been carried out in Sweden since the 1990s. In 2006 the World Health Organization (WHO) provided guidelines on safe reuse of wastewater, excreta, and greywater. The multiple barrier concept to reuse, which is the key cornerstone of this publication, has led to a clear understanding of how excreta reuse can be done safely. The concept is also used in water supply and food production, and is generally understood as a series of treatment steps and other safety precautions to prevent the spread of pathogens.

The degree of treatment required for excreta-based fertilizers before they can safely be used in agriculture depends on a number of factors. It mainly depends on which other barriers will be put in place according to the multiple barrier concept. Such barriers might be selecting a suitable crop, farming methods, methods of applying the fertilizer, education of the farmers, and so forth.

For example, in the case of urine-diverting dry toilets secondary treatment of dried feces can be performed at community level rather than at household level and can include thermophilic composting where fecal material is composted at over 50 °C, prolonged storage with the duration of 1.5 to two years, chemical treatment with ammonia from urine to inactivate the pathogens, solar sanitation for further drying or heat treatment to eliminate pathogens.

Gardeners of Fada N'Gourma in Burkina Faso apply dry excreta after mixing with other organic fertilizer (donkey manure, cow manure) and pure fertile soil, and after maturing for another 2 to 4 months

Exposure of farm workers to untreated excreta constitutes a significant health risk due to its pathogen content. There can be a large amount of enteric bacteria, virus, protozoa, and helminth eggs in feces. This risk also extends to consumers of crops fertilized with untreated excreta. Therefore, excreta needs to be appropriately treated before reuse, and health aspects need to be managed for all reuse applications as the excreta can contain pathogens even after treatment.

Treatment of excreta for pathogen removal

Temperature is a treatment parameter with an established relation to pathogen inactivation for all pathogen groups: Temperatures above 50 °C have the potential to inactivate most pathogens. Therefore, thermal sanitization is utilized in several technologies, such as thermophilic composting and thermophilic anaerobic digestion and potentially in sun drying. Alkaline conditions (pH value above 10) can also deactivate pathogens. This can be achieved with ammonia sanitization or lime treatment.

The treatment of excreta and wastewater for pathogen removal can take place:

• at the toilet itself (for example, urine collected from urine-diverting dry toilets is often treated by simple storage at the household level); or
• at a semi-centralized level (for example, by composting); or
• at a fully centralized level at sewage treatment plants and sewage sludge treatment plants.

Indicator organisms

As an indicator organism in reuse schemes, helminth eggs are commonly used as these organisms are the most difficult to destroy in most treatment processes. The multiple barrier approach is recommended where e.g. lower levels of treatment may be acceptable when combined with other post-treatment barriers along the sanitation chain.

Pharmaceutical residues

Excreta from humans contains hormones and pharmaceutical drug residues which could in theory enter the food chain via fertilized crops but are currently not fully removed by conventional wastewater treatment plants anyway and can enter drinking water sources via household wastewater (sewage). In fact, the pharmaceutical residues in the excreta are degraded better in terrestrial systems (soil) than in aquatic systems.

Nitrate pollution

Only a fraction of the nitrogen-based fertilizers is converted to produce plant matter. The remainder accumulates in the soil or is lost as run-off. This also applies to excreta-based fertilizer since it also contains nitrogen. Excessive nitrogen which is not taken up by plants is transformed into nitrate which is easily leached. High application rates combined with the high water-solubility of nitrate leads to increased runoff into surface water as well as leaching into groundwater. Nitrate levels above 10 mg/L (10 ppm) in groundwater can cause 'blue baby syndrome' (acquired methemoglobinemia). The nutrients, especially nitrates, in fertilizers can cause problems for ecosystems and for human health if they are washed off into surface water or leached through the soil into groundwater.

Other uses

Apart from use in agriculture, there are other possible uses of excreta. For example, in the case of fecal sludge, it can be treated and then serve as protein (black soldier fly process), fodder, fish food, building materials, and biofuels (biogas from anaerobic digestion, incineration or co-combustion of dried sludge, pyrolysis of fecal sludge, and biodiesel from fecal sludge).

Fuel

Solid fuel, heat, electricity

Pilot scale research in Uganda and Senegal has shown that it is viable to use dry feces as for combustion in industry, provided it has been dried to a minimum of 28% dry solids.

Dried sewage sludge can be burned in sludge incineration plants and generate heat and electricity (the waste-to-energy process is one example).

Resource recovery of fecal sludge as a solid fuel has been found to have high market potential in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Hydrogen fuel

Further information: Hydrogen fuel

Urine has also been investigated as a potential source of hydrogen fuel. Urine was found to be a suitable wastewater for high rate hydrogen production in a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC).

Biogas

Further information: Biogas

Small-scale biogas plants are being utilized in many countries, including Ghana, Vietnam and many others. Larger centralized systems are being planned that mix animal and human feces to produce biogas. Biogas is also produced during sewage sludge treatment processes with anaerobic digestion. Here, it can be used for heating the digesters and for generating electricity.

Biogas is an important waste-to-energy resource which plays a huge role in reducing environmental pollution and most importantly in reducing greenhouse gases effect caused by the waste. Utilization of raw material such as human waste for biogas generation is considered beneficial because it does not require additional starters such as microorganism seeds for methane production, and a supply of microorganisms occurs continuously during the feeding of raw materials.

Food source for livestock

See also: Pig latrine

Combination outhouses/feeding troughs were used in several countries since ancient times. They are generally being phased out.

Food source to produce protein for animal feed

Pilot facilities are being developed for feeding Black Soldier Fly larvae with feces. The mature flies would then be a source of protein to be included in the production of feed for chickens in South Africa.

Black soldier fly (BSF) bio-waste processing is a relatively new treatment technology that has received increasing attention over the last decades. Larvae grown on bio-waste can be a necessary raw material for animal feed production, and can therefore provide revenues for financially applicable waste management systems. In addition, when produced on bio-waste, insect-based feeds can be more sustainable than conventional feeds.

Building materials

It is known that additions of fecal matter up to 20% by dried weight in clay bricks does not make a significant functional difference to bricks.

Precious metals recovery

A Japanese sewage treatment facility extracts precious metals from sewage sludge, "high percentage of gold found at the Suwa facility was probably due to the large number of precision equipment manufacturers in the vicinity that use [gold]. The facility recently recorded finding 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash from incinerated sludge. That is a far higher gold content than Japan’s Hishikari Mine, one of the world’s top gold mines, [..] which contains 20-40 grammes of the precious metal per tonne of ore." This idea was also tested by the US Geological Survey (USGS) which found that the yearly sewage sludge generated by 1 million people contained 13 million dollars worth of precious metals.

Other materials

With pyrolysis, urine is turned into a pre-doped, highly porous, carbon material termed "urine carbon" (URC). URC is cheaper than current fuel cell catalysts while performing better.

History

Further information: History of water supply and sanitation and Ecological sanitation § History

The reuse of excreta as a fertilizer for growing crops has been practiced in many countries for a long time.

Society and culture

Economics

Debate is ongoing about whether reuse of excreta is cost effective. The terms "sanitation economy" and "toilet resources" have been introduced to describe the potential for selling products made from human feces or urine.

Sale of compost

The NGO SOIL in Haiti began building urine-diverting dry toilets and composting the waste produced for agricultural use in 2006. SOIL's two composting waste treatment facilities currently transform over 20,000 gallons (75,708 liters) of human excreta into organic, agricultural-grade compost every month. The compost produced at these facilities is sold to farmers, organizations, businesses, and institutions around the country to help finance SOIL's waste treatment operations. Crops grown with this soil amendment include spinach, peppers, sorghum, maize, and more. Each batch of compost produced is tested for the indicator organism E. coli to ensure that complete pathogen kill has taken place during the thermophilic composting process.

Policies

There is still a lack of examples of implemented policy where the reuse aspect is fully integrated in policy and advocacy. When considering drivers for policy change in this respect, the following lessons learned should be taken into consideration: Revising legislation does not necessarily lead to functioning reuse systems; it is important to describe the “institutional landscape” and involve all actors; parallel processes should be initiated at all levels of government (i.e. national, regional and local level); country specific strategies and approaches are needed; and strategies supporting newly developed policies need to be developed).

Regulatory considerations

Regulations such as Global Good Agricultural Practices may hinder export and import of agricultural products that have been grown with the application of human excreta-derived fertilisers.

Urine use in organic farming in Europe

The European Union allows the use of source separated urine only in conventional farming within the EU, but not yet in organic farming. This is a situation that many agricultural experts, especially in Sweden, would like to see changed. This ban may also reduce the options to use urine as a fertilizer in other countries if they wish to export their products to the EU.

Dried feces from urine-diverting dry toilets in the U.S.

In the United States, the EPA regulation governs the management of sewage sludge but has no jurisdiction over the byproducts of a urine-diverting dry toilet. Oversight of these materials falls to the states.

Country examples

China

Treatment disposal of human excreta can be categorized into three types: fertilizer use, discharge and biogas use. Discharge is the disposal of human excreta to soil, septic tank or water body. In China, with the impact of the long tradition, human excreta is often used as fertilizer for crops. The main application methods are direct usage for crops and fruits as basal or top application after fermentation in a ditch for a certain period, compost with crop stalk for basal application and direct usage as feed for fish in ponds. On the other hand, as much as many people rely on human waste as an agricultural fertilizer, if the waste is not properly treated, the use of night soil may promote the spread of infectious diseases.

India

Main article: Jeevamrutha

Urine is used as organic manure in India. It is also used for making an alcohol-based bio-pesticide: the ammonia within breaks down lignin, allowing plant materials like straw to be more easily fermented into alcohol.

Kenya

In Mukuru, Kenya, the slum dwellers are worst hit by the sanitation challenge due to a high population density and a lack of supporting infrastructure. Makeshift pit latrines, illegal toilet connections to the main sewer systems and lack of running water to support the flushable toilets present a sanitation nightmare in all Kenyan slums. The NGO Sanergy seeks to provide decent toilet facilities to Mukuru residents and uses the feces and urine from the toilets to provide fertilizer and energy for the market.

Uganda

Reuse of wastewater in agriculture is a common practice in the developing world. In a study in Kampala, although famers were not using fecal sludge, 8% of farmers were using wastewater sludge as a soil amendment. Compost from animal manure and composted household waste are applied by many farmers as soil conditioners. On the other hand, farmers are already mixing their own feed because of limited trust in the feed industry and the quality of products.

Electricity demand is significantly more than the electricity generation and only a small margin of the population nationally has access to electricity. The pellets produced from fecal sludge are being used in gasification for electricity production. Converting fecal sludge for energy could contribute toward meeting present and future energy needs.

In Tororo District in eastern Uganda - a region with severe land degradation problems - smallholder farmers appreciated urine fertilization as a low-cost, low-risk practice. They found that it could contribute to significant yield increases. The importance of social norms and cultural perceptions needs to be recognized but these are not absolute barriers to adoption of the practice.

Ghana

In Ghana, the only wide scale implementation is small scale rural digesters, with about 200 biogas plants using human excreta and animal dung as feedstock. Linking up of public toilets with biogas digesters as a way of improving communal hygiene and combating hygiene-related communicable diseases including cholera and dysentery is also a notable solution within Ghana.

Industry funding of academic research

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_funding_of_academic_research 

Industry funding of academic research in the United States is one of the two major sources of research funding in academia along with government support. Currently, private funding of research accounts for the majority of all research and development funding in the United States as of 2007 overall. Overall, Federal and Industrial sources contribute similar amounts to research, while industry funds the vast majority of development work.

While the majority of industry research is performed in-house, a major portion of this private research funding is directed to research in non-profit academic centers. As of 1999, industrial sources accounted for an estimated $2.2 billion of academic research funding in the US. However, there is little governmental oversight or tracking of industry funding on academic science and figures of the scale of industry research are often estimated by self-reporting and surveys which can be somewhat unreliable.

Much of this industry funding of academic research is directed toward applied research. However, by some accounts, industry may even fund up to 40% of basic research in the United States, with Federal funding of basic research falling below 50%, although this figure does not consider where this research is conducted. The role for funding of academic research from industrial sources has received much attention both in a historical and contemporary perspective. The practice has received both extensive political praise and scholarly criticism.

History

Research in the US prior to World War II, heavily relied on funding from private sources without major organized federal research programs or either the scientists’ or associates’ personal funds. During WWII, governmental investment in research was widely regarded as a major contributor to military success and support for research was politically favorable. Following WW2, federal research funding in both Europe and the US increased in terms of relative percent of funding for research and absolute amount. Overall, the growth of industrial research funding has greatly outpaced public research funding growth, with US governmental research funding increasing by an average of 3.4% annually, while industrial research funding increased by an average of 5.4% annually from 1950 to 2004.

Since WW2, industry funding of science has consistently represented the second largest source of funding for academic science. Industry funding of academic science did expand during the 1980s and 1990s following the passing of the Bayh–Dole Act and a variety of both State and Federal proposals to increase funding for joint industry academic partnerships. In the 2000s there has been a small retraction of industry funding for academic science while overall industry R&D funding has expanded.). However, industry funding may be broadening its scope as industry funding of basic science increasing dramatically over that same period, but much of this funding remains in-house.

Culturally, attitudes towards the industrial funding of academic research have changed over time. Within universities, commercial activities and industry funding were often spurned in the 19th century. More recently, commercializing scientific activity is viewed more favorably with extensive political and university support of translating scientific discovery into economic output. However, within the research community and the public, industrial funding of research remains controversial. The universality of this tangled industry, academic, and governmental exchange of funding and research adventures has led researchers to term this model of R&D the Triple Helix.

Types of industrially funded academic research

University-industry partnerships can take on a variety of forms. On the smallest scale, individual research labs or researchers can partner with industry sources for funding. The details of such partnerships can differ substantially with any number of motives ranging from the academic lab testing of previously developed products, to performing early stage basic research related to industry research objectives, or even to individual researchers supporting their salary by consulting on related research problems in industry. While many such partnerships exist, due to their informal nature and resulting lack of record, it is difficult to track how extensive and impactful such relationships are, with most relying on surveys and other self-reporting measures. By closest approximation, according to the Research Value Mapping Survey, 17% of academics at major US research universities report receive grants from industry sources supporting their research.

Far more extensively, in many fields and countries, a narrow majority of academic scientists report having some soft industry relationships, primarily through consulting. Such informal industry academic relationships have a long-standing tradition as they served as a major source of funding for individual labs prior to WW2. In many cases, it was expected that researchers would pursue such relationships as this was expected to be a major source of funding for researcher’s salaries. Despite greatly expanded post-WW2 federal support for research, so called soft money salary support from industry remains a large and growing aspect of academic research salaries.

University Industry Research Centers (UIRCs)

On a larger scale, there have been numerous attempts to create collaborative University-Industry Research Centers (UIRCs) to jointly host academic and industry researchers to address industry problems with direct, large scale collaborative centers. Early forms of UIRCS started in the 1950s and 1960s with the formation of research parks with industry sponsors. In the 1970s, there were multiple proposals at the federal level in the US to help fund and expand early UIRCs. However, funding fell through at multiple points.

The first UIRCs experienced difficulties in bridging the differences between academic and industrial culture. One such attempt occurred at Cal Tech where Cal Tech researchers partnered with Xerox and IBM through the Silicon Structures Project. Both industry and academic partners were concerned about the cultures of the other and found the structure ineffective. With such frustrations, it was difficult to secure partners to continue expanding UIRCs.

In the late 1970s, RPI created two three new UIRCs: 1) the Center for Integrated Computer Graphics, which received both NSF and industry support 2) the Center for Manufacturing Productivity and Technology Transfer, which was funded entirely by industry support and 3) the Center for Integrated Electronics, which received unprecedented industry support. These centers were generally regarded as highly successful and made expansion of governmental support for joint industry and academic ventures more favorable. In the early 1980s, states began contributing funding to UIRCs and other industry-academic partnerships to encourage local economic growth from innovation. By the mid-1980s, the federal government expanded financial support for UIRCs.

With mixed governmental and industry support, the UIRCs were more likely to be successful. Over time successful governmentally funded UIRCs could become independent from government support once having demonstrable successes that could continue to incentivize industry to contribute funding more aggressively. UIRCs, coupled to early seeding from both state and federal government, continued to greatly expand during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually receiving nearly 70% of industry funding of academic research and incentivizing a tripling of industry funding of academic research during the 1980s.

Contract Research Organizations (CROs)

Contract research has also drawn increasing industry funding, particularly to Contract Research Organizations (CROs) from Biotech and Pharmaceutical corporations. Contract research is a popular form of outsourcing research in industry as industry has more influence over how the study is conducted than in either UIRCs or traditional academic grants. CROs, which are specifically designed for this function have drawn substantial industry clinical research funding away from academia and are growing rapidly.

Influence and criticisms

Further information: conflict of interest

Much discussion has been placed on the effects of industrial research funding on the behavior of academic research scientists. Concerns center on whether researchers can remain impartial when they are being funded by a for-profit and potentially motivated industrial source, if this funding gives private sources an oversized impact on which research directions are pursued, and the potential negative effects of industrial funding on the openness of science.

A multitude of studies have found that pharmaceutical studies funded by industry organizations are significantly more likely to publish results in favor of the product being supported. This could, in part, be due to the fact that usually when an academic accepts industry funding, particularly when working on an existing product, researchers have to sign non-disclosure agreements which often prevent the publication of negative results and inhibit the openness of science. This could serve to significantly bias scientific results and diminish public trust of science.

There are additionally many scholars who have considered advantages of industrially funded academic research. Generally, increased industry funding may increase academic and industry interaction, prompting greater efficiency in translating and commercializing of science research. This increased commercialization activity from academics could serve as an economic and societal boost as the economy could be bolstered by new products hitting the market, while society could benefit directly from having increased access to the fruits of scientific production. Supporting this, academic science funded by industry sources does result in more patents per dollar, increased licensing of these patents, and even more citations per published paper than research supported by other sources, including federal at the University of California Berkeley.

In Germany, it also appears that applied research funded by industry sources results in a significant increase in patent citations, which could correspond to a serious increase in translation of applied research. Such increase in commercialization and translation of research could provide social and economic benefits. However, it is difficult to determine whether this increase in apparent impact is due to the industry funding itself or is just a read out that industry funds target work that tends to produce more citations per publication as well as more patents.

Binary economics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_economics 

Binary economics, also known as two-factor economics, is a theory of economics that endorses both private property and a free market but proposes significant reforms to the banking system.

Louis Kelso theorized that widespread use of central bank-issued, interest-free loans to fund employee-owned firms could simultaneously finance economic growth and widen stock ownership in a way which binary economists believe would be non-inflationary.

The term "binary" derived from its heterodox treatment of labor and capital (but not in the sense of binary opposition). Kelso claimed that in a truly free market wages would tend to fall over time, with all the benefits of technological progress accruing to capital owners.

Overview

Binary economics rejects the claim that neoclassical economics alone promotes a 'free market' which is free, fair and efficient. (e.g., as an interpretation of the classical First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics). Binary economists believe freedom is only truly achieved if all individuals are able to acquire an independent economic base from capital holdings, and that the distribution of ownership rights can "deepen democracy".

Binary economics argues financial savings prior to investment are not required on the basis that the present money supply is mostly created credit anyway. It argues that newly minted money invested on behalf of those without access to existing cash savings or collateral can be adequately repaid through the returns on those investments, which need not be inflationary if the economy is operating below capacity. The theory asserts that what matters is whether the newly created money is interest-free, whether it can be repaid, whether there is effective collateral and whether it goes towards the development and spreading of various forms of productive (and the associated consuming) capacity.

Another contrast is that, in evidence-based economics, interest (as distinct from administration cost) is practically always necessary; in Binary Economics theory it isn't (not in relation to the development and spreading of productive capacity). Conventional economics accounts for the observed time value of money, whereas binary economics does not.

Background

The theory behind Binary Economics was proposed by American lawyer Louis Kelso and philosopher Mortimer Adler in their book The Capitalist Manifesto (1958). The book's title could be seen as a Cold War reference in opposition to communism.

Kelso and Adler elaborated on their proposals in The New Capitalists in 1961. Then Kelso worked with political scientist Patricia Hetter Kelso to further explain how capital instruments provide an increasing percentage of the wealth and why capital is narrowly owned in the modern industrial economy. Their analysis predicted that widely distributed capital ownership will create a more balanced economy. Kelso and Hetter proposed new "binary" share holdings which would pay out full net earnings as dividends (with exceptions for research, maintenance and depreciation). These could be obtained on credit by those not possessing savings, with a government-backed insurance scheme to protect the shareholder in the event of loss.

Kelso's writings were not well received by academic economists. Milton Friedman said of The Capitalist Manifesto "the book's economics was bad ... the interpretation of history, ludicrous; and the policy recommended, dangerous" and recalls a debate where even the moderator Clark Kerr "lost his cool as a moderator and attacked [Kelso's arguments] vigorously". Paul Samuelson, another Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner, told the U.S. Congress that Kelso's theories were a "cranky fad" not accepted by mainstream economists, but Kelso's ideas on promoting wider capital ownership nevertheless significantly influenced the passing of legislation promoting employee ownership.

Aims and programme

The aim of binary economics is to ensure that all individuals receive income from their own independent capital estate, using interest-free loans issued by a central bank to promote the spread of employee-owned firms. These loans are intended to: halve infrastructure improvement costs, reduce business startup costs, and widen stock ownership.

Binary economics is not mainstream and does not fit easy into the left–right spectrum. It has variously been characterized as an extreme right-wing ideology and as extremely left-wing by its critics. The 'binary' (in 'binary economics') means 'composed of two' because it suffices to view the physical factors of production as being but two (labour and capital (which includes land). It recognises only two ways of genuinely earning a living − by labour and by productive capital ownership. In its theory humans own their labour, but also productive capital.

Binary economics is partly based on belief that society has an absolute duty to ensure that all humans have good health, housing, education and an independent income, as well as a responsibility to protect the environment for its own sake. The interest-free loans proposed by binary economics are compatible with the traditional opposition of the Abrahamic religions to usury.

Proponents of binary economics claim that their system contains no expropriation of wealth, and much less redistribution will be necessary. They argue that it cannot cause inflation and is of particular importance as more of the physical contribution to production is automated. and that the Binary economics paradigm is particularly helpful in addressing the issue of why developing countries languish. Advocates contend that implementing their system will lessen national debt and encourage national unity. They believe binary economics could create a stable economy.

Productiveness vs. productivity

Binary productiveness is distinctly different from the conventional economic concept of productivity. Binary productiveness attempts to quantify the proportion of output contributed by total labor input and total capital input respectively, Adding capital inputs to a production process increases labor productivity, but binary economic theory argues that it decreases labor productiveness (i.e. the proportion of the total output with the support of both labor and capital that the labor inputs could have produced alone). For example, if the invention of a shovel allows a laborer to dig a hole in quarter of the time it would take him without the spade, binary economists would consider 75% of the "productiveness" to come from the shovel and only 25% from the laborer.

Roth criticised the shovel example on the basis that the shovel is not a factor of production independent of human capital because somebody invented it, and the shovel cannot act independently: the physical productiveness of the shovel before labour is added to it is zero.

Kelso used the concept of productiveness to support his theory of distributive justice, arguing that as capital increasingly substitutes for labor: "workers can legitimately claim from their aggregate labor only a decreasing percentage of total output", implying they would need to acquire capital holdings to maintain their level of income. In The Capitalist Manifesto, Kelso boldly asserted:

"It is, if anything an underestimation rather than an exaggeration to say that the aggregate physical contribution to the production of the wealth of the workers in the United States today accounts for less than 10 percent of the wealth produced, and that the contribution by the owners of capital instruments, through their physical instruments, accounts in physical terms for more than 90 percent of the wealth produced" 

Whilst the increased importance of capital as a factor of production following the Industrial Revolution has long been accepted even by those believing economic value derives from labour such as Marx, Kelso's figures suggesting that value was created almost entirely by capital were dismissed by academic economists like Paul Samuelson. Samuelson asserted that Kelso's had not used any econometric analysis to arrive at his figures, which completely contradicted economists' empirical findings on the contribution of labour. The Capitalist Manifesto did not provide detailed calculations to support Kelso's claim, although a footnote suggested that it was based on a simple comparison with 1850s labour productivity figures.

Employee stock ownership plan (ESOPs) and other plans

Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are compatible with some of the principles of binary economics. These stem originally from Louis Kelso & Patricia Hetter Kelso (1967)Two-Factor Theory: The Economics of Reality; the founding of Kelso & Company in 1970; and then from conversations in the early 1970s between Louis Kelso, Norman Kurland (Center for Economic and Social Justice), Senator Russell Long of Louisiana (Chairman, USA Senate Finance Committee, 1966–81) and Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska. There are about 11,500 ESOPs in the USA today covering 11 million employees in closely held companies.

Uses of central bank-issued interest-free loans

Binary economics proposes that central bank-issued interest-free loans should be administered by the banking system for the development and spreading of productive (and the associated consuming) capacity, particularly new capacity, as well as for environmental and public capital. While no interest would be charged, there would be an administrative cost as well as collateralization or capital credit insurance.

Proponents of binary economics are dissatisfied with fractional-reserve banking, arguing that it "creates new money out of nothing". The supply of interest-free loans would place in circumstances of a move (over time) towards banks maintaining reserves equal to 100% of their deposits; in practice, the large-scale interest-free lending desired by binary economics is compatible with the widespread reduction in money supply that would be caused by increased reserve requirements only if the government takes over the banks' role in credit creation.

Investments eligible for interest-free loans

Binary economics suggests that ownership of productive (and the associated consuming) capacity, particularly new capacity, could be spread by the use of central bank-issued interest-free loans. Interest-free loans should be allowed for private capital investment IF such investment creates new owners of capital and is part of national policy to enable all individuals, over time, on market principles, to become owners of substantial amounts of productive, income-producing capital. By using central bank-issued interest-free loans, a large corporation would get cheap money as long as new binary shareholders are created.

Green industrial policy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_industrial_policy

Green Industrial Policy
Green industrial policy seeks to address market failures and protect the environment.

Green industrial policy (GIP) is strategic government policy that attempts to accelerate the development and growth of green industries to transition towards a low-carbon economy. Green industrial policy is necessary because green industries such as renewable energy and low-carbon public transportation infrastructure face high costs and many risks in terms of the market economy. Therefore, they need support from the public sector in the form of industrial policy until they become commercially viable. Natural scientists warn that immediate action must occur to lower greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. Social scientists argue that the mitigation of climate change requires state intervention and governance reform. Thus, governments use GIP to address the economic, political, and environmental issues of climate change. GIP is conducive to sustainable economic, institutional, and technological transformation. It goes beyond the free market economic structure to address market failures and commitment problems that hinder sustainable investment. Effective GIP builds political support for carbon regulation, which is necessary to transition towards a low-carbon economy. Several governments use different types of GIP that lead to various outcomes.

GIP and industrial policy are similar, although GIP has unique challenges and goals. GIP faces the particular challenge of reconciling economic and environmental issues. It deals with a high degree of uncertainty about green investment profitability. Furthermore, it addresses the reluctance of industry to invest in green development, and it helps current governments influence future climate policy.

GIP offers opportunities for energy transition to renewables and a low-carbon economy. A large challenge for climate policy is a lack of industry and public support, but GIP creates benefits that attract support for sustainability. It can create strategic niche management and generate a "green spiral," or a process of feedback that combines industrial interests with climate policy. GIP can protect employees in emerging and declining industries, which increases political support for other climate policy. Carbon pricing, sustainable energy transitions, and decreases in greenhouse gas emissions have higher chances of success as political support increases. GID is closely associated with the green recovery, a set of policy directives to address the economic effects of COVID-19 and the environmental effects of climate change by encouraging renewable energy expansion and green job growth. However, GIP faces many risks. Some risks include poor government choices about which industries to support; political capture of economic policy; wasted resources; ineffective action to combat climate change; poor policy design that lacks policy objectives and exit strategies; trade disputes; and coordination failure. Strategic steps can be taken to manage the risks of GIP. Some include public and private sector communication, transparency, and accountability; policy with clear objectives, evaluation techniques, and exit strategies; policy learning and policy experimentation; green rent management; strong institutions; and a free press.

Governments in various countries, states, provinces, territories, and cities use different types of green industrial policy. Distinct policy instruments lead to several outcomes. Examples include sunrise and sunset policies, subsidies, research and development, local content requirements, feed-in tariffs, tax credits, export restrictions, consumer mandates, green public procurement rules, and renewable portfolio standards.

Versus industrial policy

GIP and industrial policy (IP) have similarities. Both seek to promote the development of industries and the creation of new technology. Each approach also involves government intervention in the economy to address economic issues and market failures. Both use similar policy approaches, like research and development subsidies and tax credits. Further, they face comparable risks, such as implementation failure that occurs when the government fails to monitor the policy adequately. Additionally, the two are related because policymakers can use information from past IP when they design and implement GIP. Policymakers can apply policy learning and lesson drawing from the failures and successes of IP to GIP to lower its risks. For example, an important lesson from IP is that what works for one region will not necessarily work for another, so policymakers cannot directly adopt policy from a different region because it must address an area's local context to ensure success. Overall, the two approaches have many things in common.

However, GIP differs significantly from IP because it addresses environmental concerns, whereas IP does not. The current economy focuses on private benefits, such as immediate profitability, rather than social benefits, like reducing pollution. Since green investment has less private benefits than social benefits, GIP deals with the unique commitment problem that green investment profitability is highly uncertain, so firms are reluctant to invest. As a result, governments use GIP to promote green investments. Future environmental policy success, like carbon taxation policy, hinges on the future availability of renewable energy. Current investment is the only way to ensure future availability, and GIP addresses this fact. Efficient and accessible green technology will also make it politically easier to adopt future low-carbon policies. Thus, a transition towards a low-carbon economy depends on current investment, and as such, it depends on GIP.

Energy transitions

The persistence of a carbon-based economy has led to environmentally destructive path dependency, and energy transitions are vital to divert from the reliance. Strategic niche management (SNM) offers an opportunity for energy transitions. New, sustainable technologies cannot immediately compete on the market with existing, unsustainable technologies due to path dependency. Green innovations that are not immediately profitable are vital for inducing sustainable development and achieving societal goals of mitigating climate change. Thus, governments must create technological niches and use forms of GIP to subsidize and nurture technological niches to ensure that green innovations develop. Technical niches provide protected space for innovative sustainable development that co-evolves with user practices, regulatory structures, and technology. Co-evolutionary dynamics are necessary for successful niche innovation -- multiple actors from multiple layers must work together for sustainable transitions. Social networks are essential for this niche development because numerous stakeholders lead to many points of view, more commitment and resources, and more innovation.

Sustainable urbanization models in cities are examples of SNM. In these instances, municipal governments and social networks help create small-scale testing spaces that allow for technological and social innovation, such as developing electric car technology and encouraging car-sharing. Overall, electric cars have not become a norm in the automobile industry. However, if a technological niche successfully emerges in the market, it can transform into a market niche and solidify its place in the industry and the socio-technical regime. In turn, the regime, or industry, influences the landscape, which can change the economic climate and induce sustainable energy transitions. Therefore, SNM and GIP can break path dependency and solidify the place of green technologies in markets and society.

Green industrial policy can induce a green spiral and can also break path dependency. Economists view carbon pricing as the most compelling approach to the mitigation of climate change, but their opinion ignores the political cost of the radical adoption of carbon pricing and its lack of political feasibility. Consequently, the immediate adoption of carbon pricing often fails, and carbon pricing schemes often adapt to the demands of the polluters, which makes them ineffective. GIP addresses the issue of a lack of political feasibility through green spiral.

Green spiral means that GIP and carbon pricing approaches are most effective when policymakers produce them in a sequence to increase climate policy support over time and encourage positive feedback. GIP encourages increases in policy support as it contributes to the growth of a political landscape of coalitions and interests, such as renewable energy firms and investors, that benefit from energy transformation. Those alliances and interests generate political support for GIP, even when unsustainable industries may oppose it. They also become political allies during the development of stricter climate policy that negatively affects polluters. Thus, GIP creates positive feedback. Early GIP helps green industries expand, and the more they expand, the more support increases for decarbonized energy systems, and the easier it becomes to apply stricter climate policy. A green spiral makes sustainability feasible, attractive, and profitable for industries, which encourages the adoption of sustainable business techniques. For example, feed-in tariffs create direct incentives for the growth of green industry groups and can push sustainable shifts in investment and revenues. These shifts then create support for policy and technology experimentation, and they induce progress towards system-wide transformation. A green spiral can create energy transitions to renewables and lower the political costs of transitions.

Environmental benefits

GIP does not immediately create a radical transformation to a green economy, but it represents practical steps towards it, and energy transitions are one of its primary goals. Without government intervention in the economy, it is unlikely that the current market will transition towards a low-carbon economy. GIP also increases political support for further climate policy. Therefore, GIP has the potential for environmental benefits. Green technologies emit fewer greenhouse gases (GHG) and use fewer resources or economize on renewable resources. A majority of natural scientists agree that an enormous reduction in GHGs is essential to mitigate the effects of climate change, such as a rise in global temperatures, droughts, floods, extreme weather events, diseases, food shortages, and species extinction. Since GIP can reduce GHG emissions, it can protect the environment, and in turn, it can preserve the health, safety, and security of humans and other species. Not all green industrial policies are successful in achieving a reduction in emissions, but some form of failure is inevitable within the policy and economic realms, and governments learn from failures to improve future policy. Immediate action is necessary to address climate change and protect the environment, and GIP offers the tools to do so.

Worker benefits

GIP creates sunrise policies and sunset policies that produce benefits for employees. Sunrise policies aim to set up and develop new technologies or grow green sectors, and they create new employment opportunities in green industries. For instance, GIP investment in research and development helped develop the renewable energy sector in Germany. GIP led to a booming German renewable energy industry that employs over 371,000 people, which is double the number of jobs that were available in 2004. Investment in innovation can also increase economic growth, which can create further benefits, such as job availability, job stability, and increased salaries. In contrast, sunset policies support declining industries to allow for a smooth economic transition away from energy-intensive industries towards sustainable ones. Sunset policies are expensive, but they are often a requirement for the political acceptability of energy transitions. Examples include retraining schemes for workers in declining industries, funding to adjust production technologies to make them more sustainable, and social safety nets, including unemployment insurance. To conclude, GIP is beneficial for both the environment and workers, which creates political support for climate policy and makes energy transitions just and feasible.

Risks

Proponents and skeptics of GIP acknowledge that it involves numerous risks. Arguments against GIP state that governments cannot make practical choices about which firms or industries to support, and subsequently, they will make mistakes and waste valuable resources. Additionally, GIP raises concerns about rent-seeking and regulatory capture. Government intervention in markets can create rent-seeking behaviour - or the manipulation of policy to increase profits - so GIP may become driven by political concerns rather than economic ones. Subsidies are particularly prone to rent-seeking as special interests may lobby intensely to maintain subsidies, even when they are no longer needed, while taxpayers who may want to abolish subsidies have fewer resources for lobbying. Political capture of economic policy leads to a reluctance to abandon a failing or expensive policy, and if rent-seeking occurs, a policy is bound to be ineffective, which will waste resources.

Inadequate policy design can also lead to the failure of GIP. Failure is likely if GIP does not have clear objectives, benchmarks to measure success, close monitoring, and exit strategies. For instance, the U.S. government partially funded Solyndra, an energy efficiency firm in California, United States. The funding came from poorly planned policy, and it experienced political capture, which led to its failure.

GIP is also not an immediate solution, so skeptics argue that it constitutes ineffective action to address climate change.

Trade disputes are another risk because GIP created a new strand of trade and environment conflicts within the World Trade Organization (WTO). For example, policies with local content requirements have induced several trade disputes.

Finally, coordination failure is a significant risk, as green innovation requires inter-agency, inter-sectoral, and public-private coordination, which can be difficult to produce, and requires strong institutions. Thus, there are several potential issues of GIP, but there are several approaches to address the risks.

Addressing risks

While proponents of GIP discuss several ways to mitigate risks, it is important to note that some instances of targeting the wrong firms or industries are inevitable because some degree of failure is inherent in GIP effort. Profit cannot measure success, but rather, success occurs with the creation of environmental and technological externalities. Governments can take several steps to lower risks and ensure success. For example, they can make sufficient choices about which industries or companies to support to avoid failure. Governments can also avoid using the wrong policy instruments if they experiment in select parts of the country before applying policy country-wide. Policy learning and lesson drawing from industrial policy and GIP can also foster the adoption of correct policy instruments. Further, rent-seeking can be an issue, but the creation of rent attracts investors into risky green technology fields. Rent management can avoid the problem by dictating the correct amount of profit, appropriately offering profit incentives, and withdrawing them when markets can function on their own. Governments must also work with the private sector, and the two should have a mutual interest and understanding of the issues each seeks to address, although governments must avoid capture by the private sector. Independent monitoring of policy progress, strong institutions, consumer protection agencies, and a free press can deal with the risk of political capture. Furthermore, clear objectives, consistent monitoring, evaluation techniques, and exit strategies can strengthen policies. Policies can avoid trade disputes through the process of policy learning and by adhering to WTO rules. Policymakers can also evade ineffective GIP through the creation of a transparent and accountable political coalition of actors, which includes public-private partnerships, business alliances, and civil society. A strong coalition also addresses coordination failures. The extra risks of GIP options could avoid future costs by increasing progress toward more ambitious cuts in emissions. As a result, GIP that is politically optimal may be economically optimal in the long-run, even if it experiences immediate inefficiencies.

Examples

The following section includes examples of GIP.

Subsidies

Subsidies help offset the private costs of green investments. Subsidies for a targeted sector are the most common form of GIP. The WTO defines three types of government subsidies. The first is governments transfers or private transfers mandated by the government that create budgetary outlays. The second is programs that provide goods or services below cost, and the third is regulatory policies that create transfers from one person or group to another. The International Energy Agency predicts that subsidies for green energy will expand to almost $250 billion in 2035, compared to $39 billion in 2007. Subsidies directly contributed to the growth of renewable energy industries, and the positive benefits spread globally as the cost of renewables steadily declined. The WTO has rules that constrain subsidies to avoid rent-seeking.

Research and development

Research and development (R&D) is an essential GIP instrument because it generates green technologies. An example of green R&D is the scientific agency United States Geological Survey (USGS), which is a part of the United States government. It receives government funding for the USGS Climate R&D Program, which seeks to mitigate the complex issues of climate change. Another example is the Program of Energy Research and Development, which is run by the Canadian federal government. It provides R&D funding for federal departments and agencies, such as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Transport Canada. The federal government encourages the departments and agencies to collaborate with the private sector, international organizations, universities, and provincial and municipal governments. Similar to the American program, the objective of the Canadian program is to create a sustainable energy future.

Local content requirements

Local content requirements (LCRs) mean that in the production process, producers must obtain a certain minimum percentage of goods, labour, or services from local sources. Ontario, Canada passed legislation with local content requirements in 2009 called the Green Energy and Green Economy Act. Its objectives were to expand renewable energy production and use, promote the conservation of energy, and create new green employment. The Act required Ontario-made content in renewable electricity generators, such as wind and solar farms, for the generators to be eligible for government subsidies. It created many jobs, lowered GHG emissions, and vastly expanded the renewable energy industry in Ontario. Japan and the European Union disputed the requirements, and the WTO ruled that Ontario must remove LCRs from the Act. The trade dispute and its WTO decision had adverse effects in Ontario, as support for green innovation declined, and worldwide, as many countries that used LCRs in successful GIP learned that LCRs violate WTO regulations.

Feed-in tariffs

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) are a series of policies that create long-term financial encouragement for renewable energy generation. There are different versions of FITs. One version provides a fixed price for renewables, and the price is usually higher than the market rate for non-renewable energy. The fixed price guarantee counteracts the increased costs that renewable energy producers experience, and the elimination of a cost disadvantage encourages investment and innovation. Germany's FIT approach has received worldwide acclaim as it transformed Germany into a renewable energy leader.

Tax credits and incentives

There are several green tax credits available for individuals and businesses to create financial incentives for eco-conscious actions. Several countries have tax credits for electric vehicles, including Canada, the United States, Australia, and countries in Europe. In the United States, Internal Revenue Code Section 30D provides a tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles, and the total amount of credit available is $7,500. In Belgium, the registration fee for vehicles does not apply to electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Additionally, corporations with zero-emissions automobiles have a deductibility rate of 120 percent. Several other European countries have exemptions from car-related taxes, including Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Export restrictions

Export restrictions involve inhibiting exports of a resource with the objective of increasing competitiveness of a domestic industry that relies on the resource. The limits use taxes or quotas, or a combination of them. China restricted the export of minerals and rare earth elements and argued that restrictions constrain production, which decreases environmental harm. The limitations are for China's economic benefit, but extracting and refining the resources indeed causes environmental damage, so the policy does protect the environment. However, export restrictions can distort the trade market and negatively affect foreign consumers, which can lead to WTO challenges.

Mandates

Renewable energy mandates require that companies or consumers produce or sell a certain amount of energy from renewables. Australia's Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme is an incentive for individual citizens and small-scale businesses to install renewable energy systems, such as rooftop solar systems. Its Large-scale Renewable Energy Target requires an increase in annual renewable electricity generation. Of the power that electricity retailers provide, 12.75 percent of it must be renewable to be eligible for subsidies. Australian electricity consumers pay for the subsidies that support the scheme.

Green public procurement

Green public procurement (GPP) occurs when governments obtain goods, works, and services that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. Rules encourage the public sector to purchase green products and supplies, such as energy efficient computers, recycled paper, green cleaning services, electric vehicles, and renewable energy. These rules can drive green innovation and produce financial savings. Also, GPP can create economic growth and increase the sales of eco-industries. An example of GPP is A Plan for Public Procurement: food and catering in the United Kingdom, which encourages sustainable food procurement for the public sector and its suppliers, and it sets out a vision for specific targets and outcomes. The policy addresses issues such as energy use, water and waste, seasonality, animal welfare, and fair trade.

Renewable portfolio standards

Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are regulatory mandates that support increased production of renewables. Standards set a minimum amount for annual production of renewable energy. In Michigan, the United States, the 2016 Clean, Renewable and Efficient Energy Act requires that electric providers increase their supply of renewables from 10 percent in 2015 to 15 percent in 2021, with an interim requirement of 12.5 percent in 2019 and 2020. In the United States, state-level RPS have driven the development of renewable energy. RPS-motivated development accounted for 60 percent of American new renewable development in 2012.