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Transgrid might be able to claw back some of the more than $1 billion in cost blowouts it has incurred on Project EnergyConnect, but probably not through a re-do of its revenue determination, says AER.

The post Regulator “not satisfied” with Transgrid’s plan to recover transmission cost blowouts, but doesn’t rule it out appeared first on Renew Economy.

A groundbreaking compressed air energy storage project that promises to provide up to eight hours of storage for the blackout prone Broken Hill grid has the green light from the market operator.

The post “Complex and innovative:” Compressed air energy storage project cleared to support blackout-prone grid appeared first on Renew Economy.

Keep It In The Ground August Report Tamarack Sulfide Copper Mine Meeting – Blaine, MN (August 14, 2026) A public meeting on the proposed Tamarack sulfide copper mine was held in Blaine, Minnesota. Upon entering, attendees were greeted by eight tables staffed by mining company representatives, positioned next to a tray of lemon-and-cucumber water, cookies, […]

The high-profile murders in July by ICE agents of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo (52 years old) in Texas and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero (25 years old) in Maine six days later have added to the growing list of shootings by immigration officials. There have been 41 shootings by ICE and CBP officials since the start of Trump’s second term, in which 11 people have been killed.

This is a direct result of Trump’s terrifying escalation of his mass deportation agenda.

In the face of growing scrutiny, the Trump administration had signaled that it would pause ICE traffic stops. But it quickly reversed that and gave the green light to murder with impunity. Instead of being held accountable for its lethal actions, ICE, a brutal and racist agency, has been rewarded with billions of dollars in federal funding.

The removal of TPS status, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June, has now put thousands of Haitians in peril.

Trump will not relent: his attack on migrant workers is the centerpiece of his authoritarian project. It’s the way he divides and conquers the multiracial, multinational working class.

He aims to keep us fighting among ourselves while he cuts taxes for the rich, guts social programs for workers and jacks up funding for imperialist wars. Only working-class resistance can stop this reign of terror.

The current violence is integral to the very nature of the border regime and police. The ruling class divides the working class globally to pit workers against each other. And they maintain migrant workers as a cheap labor force without democratic and union rights.

In the midst of deep social crises, the attacks are only getting worse. ICE continues to escalate its assault on immigrants. Both capitalist parties—the Democrats and Republicans—created ICE and have used it to ramp up arrests, detentions, and deportations.

They also bankrolled the massive expansion and militarization of police forces across the country and have used them against workers and disproportionately against people of color, especially Black people, with impunity. And as the murder of Corey Ruiz last month, an unhoused 38-year-old Black man from Madison, WI, brutally shows, the police continue to kill Black people at nearly three times the rate of white people.

The police are part of the same regime of class rule. They break strikes. They repress protests. They target radical movements of workers and the oppressed. They serve and protect the ruling class. ICE and the police collaborate in enforcing the existing class and racial order.

The Democrats have long been just as guilty as the Republicans, not only paving the way for the right wing but actively increasing border militarization, deportations and funding for the police.

Now Trump has escalated the attack beyond anything we have seen so far. Behind his agenda is an extreme form of authoritarian nationalism driven by his clique of oligarchs. Their agenda is class war at home, imperialist aggression against Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Greenland and China, and a new form of autocratic rule.

ICE and the police are key to this project. Increased funding means that ICE  would rank as the fourteenth largest military budget in the world.

Democratic mayors in city after city have not resisted these developments but collaborated with them. Their police forces have worked hand in glove with ICE.

The resistance has been led not by the political establishment but rather by migrant organizers. They knew all this was coming and they prepared across the country, setting up emergency response networks, joining with working class organizations, and deepening community outreach and defense.

With this foundation in place, when Trump escalated his assault on migrants, our multiracial, multinational working class was prepared to respond with mass self-defense. Protests have erupted in city after city from LA to Chicago to Minneapolis to Houston, and throughout the state of Maine.

The workers and oppressed of Minneapolis gave Trump his biggest defeat. Despite the high risks of organizing and the stakes of the struggle, they continued to stand up against ICE, CBP and the police, looking to the model of the George Floyd rebellion and building on deep bonds of solidarity and traditions of organizing. So, when Trump deployed ICE and murdered Renée Good and Alex Pretti, among so many others, the people of Minneapolis shut the city down.

Trump reacted, firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and demoting Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino. But he did not relent. He brought in Tom Homan, who before serving in both Trump administrations was appointed by President Obama to lead the deportation branch of ICE. He was assigned to his latest role by Trump to achieve the same ends with different tactics of deploying agents in a less public-facing manner.

The mass resistance forced the Democrats to be seen as doing something different. They held up funding for ICE. But their only demands were more training, removing masks, and, of course, body cameras. We know that none of these “reforms” stop cops everywhere from brutalizing and killing people. This is not resistance, but collaboration.

Given the continuing escalation of attacks on immigrant workers— the ever-growing numbers of detentions, deportations, and killings on the streets and in custody—it is an urgent priority to build working class solidarity against Trump’s assaults. Political clarity in this moment is a life and death matter, and we cannot afford to have illusions in the two-party system.

Obviously the Republicans are our enemies. But we cannot trust the Democrats either. We can only rely on ourselves. This means that regardless of what we do at the ballot box, we have to build the kind of struggle that can provide a counterweight to politicians’ default mode of capitulation to the system.

This is a dangerous moment. Trump is a wounded beast who is becoming more authoritarian and erratic. He lost in Minneapolis. He is losing the war in Iran. He’s plummeting in polls. And in response, he is threatening our right to free and fair elections.

Steve Bannon, who remains a Trump confidant, is even clamoring for ICE to be deployed at the polls to suppress the votes of Black and Brown people and rig the elections in favor of the GOP. Democracy hangs in the balance.

We must organize to defend what is left of our electoral rights after the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. But we also know that elections will not stop state violence because both parties are part of the problem. Lesser evilism enables the greater evil. Only mass working-class action can pose an alternative. We are not yet ready, but we can direct all our energies to becoming more organized so that we can rise to the challenge of the moment.

Depending on locations, we can fight to create or strengthen Fair and Impartial Policing Policies (FIPPS) that prevent collusion between ICE and the police, we can demand discipline and accountability for criminal violence by agents, we can build and expand defense networks so that whenever ICE comes for someone, they are met with organized resistance.

And above all, we must build the fight to defund the police and abolish ICE, and to fund the pillars of working-class communities: jobs, education, affordable housing, healthcare, public transportation, and environmental measures that can mitigate the climate crisis.

If we are to succeed in these greater goals, we need mass community protests that are bigger, more working-class, and more rooted in unions than those we have seen so far. Only such mass actions can stop the right or pressure the Democrats.

These are necessary objectives to confront the immediate crisis. They are also part of the long-term work of advancing solidarity across divisions of nationality and community toward the goal of liberation for the working class, which can only be achieved in a post-capitalist society through the abolition of borders, the police, and prisons.

There has been a lull in struggle in the run-up to the midterm elections. But once this ends, we have no choice but to ramp up protests in the streets and in the workplace. This is the only way we can prevent more devastating murders by bloodthirsty agents of the state.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Chad Davis; modified by Tempest.

The post How do we stop the bloodshed? appeared first on Tempest.

Wendell Berry, a farmer, writer, and advocate whose work challenged industrial agriculture and defended the ties between land, food, and community, died at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky, according to the New York Times (NYT). He was 92.

A poet, novelist, essayist, teacher, conservationist, activist, and farmer, Berry resisted easy categorization. “Berry has refused to specialize,” Charles Hudson wrote in the Georgia Review.

Throughout his five-decade career, Berry argued that agriculture was inseparable from the health of the land and the communities that depend on it. He questioned the consolidation and industrialization of farming while championing small farms, local economies, and responsible stewardship.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1934, Berry grew up in Henry County, where his family had farmed for generations. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from the University of Kentucky before joining Stanford University’s creative writing program as a Wallace Stegner Fellow.

He later traveled to Europe and taught in New York, but felt increasingly drawn back to his roots. Berry returned to Port Royal in the 1960s. He and his wife, Tanya, settled on a 125-acre farm, where they raised sheep and crops. He spent the rest of his life there writing and farming.

Living in his native landscape kept him accountable to the place and people he described, Berry told the NYT in a phone interview in 2018 for his obituary.

From his home, Berry analyzed the consequences of an agricultural system increasingly defined by consolidation, mechanization, chemicals, and soil degradation. He examined the disappearance of small farms and rural communities, and how their absence threatened individual liberty, local autonomy, and economic independence.

Those concerns became the foundation of his body of writing. Berry published more than 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, all written by hand during daylight hours. His farmhouse had electricity, but he refused to use electric lights because, he said, the power was supplied by strip-mined coal.

His 1977 book The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture argues that agriculture is the foundation of America’s culture. The book questioned U.S. policies promoting practices that he argued lead to overproduction, pollution, and soil erosion.

Berry examined these ideas further in The Gift of Good Land and Home Economics, collections that examining organic farming. He argued that the values driving industrial agriculture were eroding family farms and weakening what he regarded as a foundation of American society.

In a New Perspectives Quarterly interview Berry commented that large-scale agriculture is morally as well as environmentally unacceptable: “We must support what supports local life, which means community, family, household life—the moral capital our larger institutions have to come to rest upon. If the larger institutions undermine the local life, they destroy that moral capital just exactly as the industrial economy has destroyed the natural capital of localities—soil fertility and so on. Essential wisdom accumulates in the community much as fertility builds in the soil.”

The issues that animated Berry’s essays also shaped his fiction. Through novels and short stories set largely in the fictional Kentucky town of Port William, he chronicled generations of farmers, families, and neighbors confronting the economic and technological changes reshaping rural life.

Berry also carried his convictions beyond the page. He joined protests against the Vietnam War, nuclear power, mountaintop-removal coal mining, coal-fired power plants, and the death penalty.

In 1979, Berry was arrested for trespassing while protesting the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant in Madison, Indiana. Recalling the episode in 2010, he said, “People asked if I wanted to be arrested and I said, ‘Hell No’ but I was willing to be.”

The National Endowment for the Humanities described him in 2012 as “cheerful in dissent” and a person who “writes to document and defend what is being lost to the forces of modernization.”

His writing and advocacy earned more than 30 honors. President Barack Obama awarded Berry the National Humanities Medal for his achievements as a poet, novelist, farmer, and conservationist, and the National Book Critics Circle honored him with its Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

He also earned honors including the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award, the John Hay Award and the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, according to the Poetry Foundation.

His ideas continue through The Berry Center, established in 2011 to put Berry’s “writings to work” by supporting farmers, land-conserving communities, and healthy regional economies.

Food Tank Co-founder and President Danielle Nierenberg had the privilege of both meeting and hearing Berry speak over the last two decades. She says that he inspired so many of us as food and agriculture system advocates not only with his poems and books, but his love of the land and farmers.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Berry is survived by his son, Pryor, who goes by Den, two sisters, Mary Jo Berry and Martha Baxter, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

“There’s not enough I could say about him to do him justice,” his daughter, Mary Berry, told the Associated Press.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

The post Honoring Wendell Berry appeared first on Food Tank.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recently announced two WaterSMART programs funding stream restoration projects, with multiple rounds of funding through 2028. The Enhancing Water Resources Projects...

It is once again time to vote for MEIC’s board members. Only MEIC members can vote in the MEIC board election. MEIC members are those who have contributed financially or with volunteerism within the last year. If you have questions or concerns about your ballot or the process of voting, contact Denise at drothbarberatmeic.org. Please …

The post 2026 Board of Directors Election appeared first on Montana Environmental Information Center - MEIC.

This is a re-post from By the Numbers by Hannah Ritchie

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about why the UK needs to get its act together and build some new reservoirs. It hasn’t built one in my lifetime — despite adding 10 million people — and the mismatch between winter and summer rain is probably going to get worse.

Someone asked a very reasonable question: why don’t we just build some desalination plants instead? Reservoirs are pretty big infrastructure projects. They constantly get blocked by local communities. They clearly disrupt the ecosystems and environments where they’re built.

Now, a lot of you will immediately think this is an insane idea. Do you realise how much energy desalination uses?!

I admit, it does seem a bit mad. Rather than just collecting freshwater in a big hole before it goes into the ocean, we’ll let it run in there, get all salty, then use a bunch of energy to pull the salt back out again.

For a long time, I had also held the “desalination consumes so much energy” tightly. It was a mantra I’d been taught a long time ago, and never updated. That is, until a few years ago, when I dug into the latest numbers. Supplying drinking and household water through desalination is really quite cheap, and uses far less energy than I’d have guessed.

How would these numbers work out for the UK? By that, we’re really talking about England, because that is where most of the water demand will be.

The Environment Agency estimates that by 2050, England will need to fill a deficit of 5 billion litres per day.1 Reverse osmosis from seawater consumes around 4 kWh per cubic metre (m3).2 Or 4 Wh per litre. That means we’d need 7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity to meet all of England’s additional demand from desalination.3

The UK consumes around 290 TWh of electricity a year, so this would add a little over 2% to our annual demand.4 That’s not that much.

The UK’s electricity demand is already set to roughly double by 2050 to meet growing demand from the shift to electrified transport, heating, and industry. An extra 1% or 2% to have adequate water supplies doesn’t seem like a huge deal.

Producing that extra electricity has some (but small) environmental impact, whether it’s the materials or the land use. They also have the problem of managing brine — the plant’s output that they need to discharge somewhere. But reservoirs have environmental costs, too. How do they compare on other measures?

Why wouldn’t we go for desalination?

England already has a desalination plant — Beckton in London — which gives us some insights into how this goes.

How long does it take to build them?

I first thought this would be a win for desalination. Historical experience is actually quite positive. The Beckton plant took six years to build; the first planning application was submitted in 2004, and it was completed in 2010. Compare that to the Abingdon reservoir, which has been a saga going on for more than 15 years.

The prospects for desalination plants looked good until I found out that two plants — Bacton and Mablethorpe — in the early feasibility stages are not expected until at least 2040. That’s no better than a reservoir. It seems that Beckton was built under a far simpler regulatory regime that no longer exists. Desalination projects will be stuck in the long planning and approval queues that almost every infrastructure project now faces.

How many would we need?

If they were the same size as the Beckton one, we’d need around 50.5 The desalination plant the UK has built is small. We could dramatically reduce that by building much larger plants. The Sorek plant in Israel, for example, has a capacity five or six times larger. With these designs, we’d need around 8.

Would they be expensive?

Building desalination plants would be more expensive than many alternatives. The government plans to fill a lot of the water deficit, not through supply solutions like desalination or reservoirs, but by fixing leakages in the water system (which are pretty large) and improving efficiency. Those solutions obviously make sense and are far cheaper than building large infrastructure projects (although there are diminishing returns: the first leaks are very cheap to fix, but there is a tail where things get increasingly expensive).

But for the remaining gap that needs to be filled with new supplies, is it cheaper to desalinate or to build a reservoir?

There are two ways to compare these: the upfront cost to build, and how expensive water is over the lifetime of the project.

Reservoirs are not automatically cheaper than desalination plants. Costed over their lifetime (which can be more than 80 years), they often are. But in the near- to medium-term, I don’t think they clearly win on economics. Reservoirs do come with high upfront costs, even if they’re then cheaper to run. Recent figures from Severn Trent put the average capital cost at £8.12 million per Ml per day for reservoirs, compared with £9.77 million per Ml per day for desalination.6 Desalination is around 20% more expensive to build. But these projected costs have a habit of ballooning, so I could quite plausibly believe that the inverse becomes true.

Desalination plants in the UK are expensive by international standards. In the UK, it costs somewhere between $1.50 and $12 per m3. That range is so large because it depends on how often the desalination plant is running (we’ll come on to this later). That compares to around $0.50 in the Middle East, $1 in Australia, and $2 to $3 in the US.

There are a couple of reasons why it’s more expensive. The UK doesn’t have much experience building desalination plants, so it misses out on some of the learning that drives down costs. Its current plant and proposed ones are small, so we miss out on economies of scale. The UK has strict planning regulations that extend timelines and are costly, even before construction begins. Finally, its plants would be used intermittently — probably only in the summer, and not even every summer. That redundancy drives up costs compared to a plant that runs continuously, as in countries like Australia or the Middle East.

The real problem with desalination plants in the UK is how rarely they’d run

The places where desalination works well have one thing in common: they’re running almost all the time. They don’t just get turned on in a drought. They’re there to provide basic water services year-round.

That’s not how the UK’s current desalination plant works. It’s not how its future ones would work either.

This affects the economics: the unit price is lower for plants running 24/7. But it also affects their reliability.

The Beckton plant was completed more than 15 years ago, and it has only been switched on 5 times. When the UK was facing severe droughts in 2022, it was ordered to come online. Despite assurances that it was ready to go online, it was not. The plant did not run and provided no help whatsoever during the crisis period that it was specifically built for.

This year was a repeat of that. Most of England was in drought this summer. The Beckton plant was “unusable” because it needed “essential operational upgrades”.

The problem is that the infrastructure that is almost never used does not go through the same continual operational testing as stuff that runs continuously.

Here’s an excerpt of a government examination with the CEO of Thames Water:

Chris Weston: The first thing I would say is we have a team at the desalination plant that is working very hard to try to make it work.

Chair: Has it ever worked properly?

Chris Weston: It has worked in the past.

Chair: It is not going to work this year though?

Chris Weston: No, and I share your concerns. The desalination plant is a big problem for us. I wonder why it was built in the first place.

Chair: Two hundred and fifty million pounds.

Chris Weston: Yes, I accept that. It is not a good story, it was not a good investment, and there are no excuses about it. I would point out one thing with the desalination plant: at the moment, it relies on a very complicated and expensive process. Within it, it has certain treatment membranes. Those treatment membranes are at the end of their life.

This is nothing specific to the UK. We see it in Australia, too. Desalination plants have worked well in Perth because they are used as a key source of drinking water, and these plants run almost continuously.

Elsewhere, the story is similar to Beckton’s. Melbourne’s plant was completed in 2012, but mothballed until 2017, when it started delivering water for the first time. The government had agreed contracts to pay for this every year, despite receiving no water in return. In Adelaide, the plant sits idle for most of the wetter months. But Sydney has gone in the other direction: in 2023, the government stopped regarding it as an on-off backup, and it now runs close to a full-time operation. Maybe that’s something Britain can learn from.

For me, this is the crux of it.

I am not worried about the energy demands of desalination for the UK. I think adding 1% to 2% to our electricity demand is not unmanageable. I’d be happy with that trade-off if it reduced the environmental impact of reservoirs and unsustainable extraction from existing aquifers.

The problem is that reserving desalination for emergency situations does not seem to work well. It hurts the economics. It means they sit idle for years, and then are not ready to go when a crisis hits. Desalination plants work far better when you need continuous freshwater supplies. For Britain, that means they’d be far better suited to relieving pressure on existing aquifers (which is less stop-start) than to being kept on reserve for drought management.

If we build them, we should make sure we actually use them.

1 This is partly due to population growth, partly due to climate change, but actually the biggest driver is more water resources to reduce pressure on existing aquifers in environmentally-sensitive areas.

2 This is on the higher end of the estimates, but I'm trying to be conservative/harsh here.

3 5 billion * 365 * 4 = 7.3x10 12 Wh. That's 7 billion kWh (or 7 TWh). One point to note is that electricity generation also uses water (how much depends on the electricity source). But even if this extra demand was being supplied by gas (which uses the most water), it would be far less than 1% of the water deficit: millions rather than billions of m3.

4 7 / 290 * 100 = 2.4%

5 Thames Water previously scoped the plant to have a capacity for around 150 million litres per day. But has since said that its more realistic capacity is around 100 million litres.

6 This report cites a range of £1000 to £9000 per ML. I've converted that to cubic metres, and dollars. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/157464/html/

(Photo credit: Bold Nebraska)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 1, 2026

Airplane Banner Over Osborn-Ricketts Senate Debate Reads: “Billionaire Ricketts Supports Data Centers”
Plane flyover sponsored by local group Bold Nebraska

Grand Island, NE – Attendees of the Nebraska State Fair and scheduled U.S. Senate debate this evening between independent candidate Dan Osborn and incumbent Republican Pete Ricketts will be greeted overhead by a plane flying a banner that reads: “Billionaire Ricketts Supports Data Centers.”

While Ricketts, whose billionaire parents have subsidized his entire political career, has called data centers “a matter of national security” citing Chinese communist bogeymen, Dan Osborn signed onto a candidate “AI Pact” which calls for advocating for mandatory safety reviews for AI models, supporting policies that would create an AI dividend for workers, and ensuring that consumers and companies can sue over harms caused by models – by networking with AI safety groups and other political organizations working on AI legislation.

“Pete Ricketts doesn’t care about our communities and is willing to sell us out to Big Tech,” said Bold Nebraska founder and director Jane Kleeb. “Ricketts uses the bogeyman of China and yet, before Trump’s trade wars, they were a country we sold massive amounts of corn and soybeans to. Rather than creating a bogeyman as an excuse to run roughshod over communities, Ricketts should be proposing laws that have teeth, accountability and guardrails. Policies like ending eminent domain for private gain, closed loop systems, community benefits agreements and funding for first responders. These are all common sense solutions the Senate can act on but instead Ricketts kicks the can.”

Photos and b-roll video downloadable for use by media:

(Photo credit: Bold Nebraska)

B-roll video 1: download

B-r0ll video 2: download

About Bold:
Bold is a network of “small and mighty” groups in rural states working to protect land and water. We fight fossil fuel projects, protect landowners against eminent domain abuse, and work for clean energy solutions while building an engaged base of citizens who care about the land, water, and climate change. (https://boldalliance.org) (https://boldnebraska.org)

# # #

Shell is making another significant move in the United States — this time not in deepwater oil, LNG or shale gas, but in petrol stations, convenience stores and coffee.

On 1 September 2026, Shell announced that its U.S. downstream subsidiary, Equilon Enterprises LLC, trading as Shell Oil Products US, had agreed to increase its ownership of Nashville-based Tri Star Energy from 33% to 100%.

The transaction will give Shell full ownership of an additional 320 fuel and convenience retail sites in Tennessee and surrounding states, together with fuel-supply agreements covering another 552 dealer-owned locations.

Financial terms have not been disclosed.

The deal is expected to complete before the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

From minority shareholder to outright owner

Shell is not arriving at Tri Star as a stranger.

Its published annual reports show that Shell already held a 33% interest in Tri Star Energy by 2021, and that holding remained at 33% in subsequent reporting.

The new agreement therefore represents the conversion of a longstanding minority position into full corporate control.

The remaining interest is being acquired from The Parman Corporation, Kimbro Oil Company and related subsidiaries.

Tri Star itself is considerably more than a collection of Shell-branded filling stations.

Founded in 2000, it operates convenience-store brands including Twice Daily, Sudden Service and Little General, distributes fuel through wholesale channels across 23 states, and also owns the White Bison Coffee business.

That gives Shell exposure not merely to fuel margins, but also to the increasingly important non-fuel side of forecourt retailing: food, beverages, coffee and convenience shopping.

More than doubling Shell’s directly owned U.S. retail network

The scale of the deal becomes clearer when compared with Shell’s existing company-owned network.

When Shell completed its acquisition of 45 Brewer Oil retail sites in New Mexico in 2024, it said it then owned and operated nearly 200 convenience-retail sites in the United States.

Adding 320 Tri Star sites therefore more than doubles that directly controlled footprint.

That distinction is important.

Shell already has one of the largest branded fuel networks in America, with approximately 12,000 Shell-branded fuel and convenience locations across 49 states, but the great majority are owned by wholesalers or dealers rather than by Shell itself.

Tri Star materially increases the portion of that network over which Shell has direct operational and commercial control.

Shell’s explanation: concentrate capital where it has an advantage

Shell Downstream, Renewables and Energy Solutions President Machteld de Haan said the acquisition was aligned with the company’s strategy of concentrating capital in businesses where Shell believes it has distinctive advantages and can generate long-term shareholder value.

That language is worth noting because it closely resembles the terminology Shell has been using while disposing of assets elsewhere.

The company is currently engaged in an extensive reshaping of its portfolio.

In July 2026 Shell agreed to sell the Sprng Energy renewable-power business in India to Aditya Birla Renewables for $1.8 billion, describing the move as part of its continuing effort to high-grade the power portfolio and recycle capital.

In August it agreed to sell its European onshore renewables business to TotalEnergies, including approximately 500 MW of operational or development-stage generating capacity and a much larger future project pipeline.

Shell again described the transaction in terms of capital recycling and concentrating investment where it has differentiated capabilities.

Meanwhile, in June Shell agreed to dispose of its 50% non-operated interest in the Na Kika platform and associated Gulf of America assets for consideration of approximately $1.7 billion, subject to adjustments and contingent payments.

So although Shell is selling assets, it certainly is not retreating from investment.

It is reallocating.

Sell renewables, buy convenience stores?

That inevitably produces an interesting contrast.

Shell spent much of the previous decade emphasising the growth of its power, renewables and energy-transition businesses.

The present strategy appears considerably more selective.

European renewable-generation projects can be sold.

Indian renewables can be sold.

Older upstream interests can be sold.

Yet hundreds of American convenience stores can be acquired.

That does not necessarily mean Shell believes filling stations have a greater future than renewable electricity.

It does mean Shell believes that certain retail and mobility businesses can produce returns attractive enough to justify additional capital, particularly where Shell already possesses distribution infrastructure, fuel-supply capability, brand recognition and large customer volumes.

Convenience retail also offers something increasingly important to oil companies: revenue that does not depend entirely on the litres of petrol or diesel passing through the pumps.

Food, coffee, groceries, loyalty programmes and other non-fuel products can materially increase margins at retail locations.

Another piece of Shell’s American expansion

The Tri Star acquisition also sits alongside a broader expansion of Shell’s U.S. retail holdings.

In June 2022 Shell completed the acquisition of a large group of Landmark fuel and convenience sites, arguing that direct ownership would strengthen its position in one of the world’s largest retail-fuels markets and provide opportunities for both conventional and lower-carbon transport products.

The 2024 Brewer Oil acquisition then added another 45 sites in New Mexico.

Tri Star is considerably larger.

Once completed, the transaction will add 320 company-controlled sites in a single move, plus supply relationships with another 552 dealer locations.

That is a substantial downstream acquisition by any measure.

The price remains the obvious unanswered question

One conspicuous detail is missing from Shell’s announcement.

How much is Shell paying?

Neither Shell nor the sellers have disclosed the purchase price. Reuters, Dow Jones and industry coverage all confirm that the financial terms remain confidential.

Without that figure it is impossible for outsiders to determine the acquisition multiple, expected return on invested capital or the valuation Shell has placed on Tri Star’s store network, wholesale contracts and associated brands.

Given Shell’s repeated emphasis on capital discipline and shareholder returns, that will be an important figure if it eventually becomes public.

What the transaction tells us about today’s Shell

The Tri Star purchase is useful because it illustrates the increasingly pragmatic character of Shell’s present strategy.

The company is not simply expanding or contracting.

It is continuously rearranging the portfolio.

Businesses judged insufficiently competitive or strategically peripheral are sold.

Businesses regarded as capable of producing stronger returns are expanded.

And sometimes that produces combinations which would have looked surprising during the height of the corporate energy-transition rhetoric: a major oil company disposing of renewable-power portfolios while spending undisclosed sums to acquire hundreds of American convenience stores.

From Shell’s perspective there is no contradiction.

It calls the process high-grading.

The simpler description is that Shell is following the money.

For the moment, the Tri Star transaction leaves one very large question unanswered:

How much money?

That figure — together with any later disclosure about integration, store branding, employment effects and capital expenditure — will be worth watching as the transaction moves towards its expected completion before the end of 2026.

Shell Goes Shopping in America: Tri Star Deal More Than Doubles Its Company-Owned U.S. Convenience-Store Footprint was first posted on September 1, 2026 at 9:28 pm.
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Audubon Texas is excited to announce the 2026 Texas Women in Conservation Honorees: Pamela Reese, Lydia Saldaña, and Shelly Plante. These remarkable leaders are recognized for their outstanding...

Controversial decision undercuts New York law that sought $75 billion from the largest historical emitters to fund climate resilience, rather than taxpayers footing the bill for extreme weather impacts

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite a controversial ruling out of New York State, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) vowed to continue efforts to make polluters, not taxpayers, pay for mounting climate damages.  A federal circuit court judge ruled Monday that New York could not enforce its Climate Change Superfund Act. This ruling, which will likely be appealed, was based on a controversial decision made by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and does not amount to a national rejection of climate superfund laws.

New York’s Superfund law, enacted in 2024, would have required the world’s largest fossil fuel companies responsible for significant historical greenhouse gas emissions to contribute to a $75 billion fund supporting climate resilience and adaptation in the Empire State. The fund was designed to help frontline communities address the escalating financial burdens of flooding, extreme heat, infrastructure damage, and other climate change-related impacts. 

“Communities should not be forced to shoulder the enormous costs of a climate crisis they did not create,” said Quentin Scott, Federal Policy Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “For decades, fossil fuel companies have profited from selling products that drive climate change, while families are left paying for flooded homes, damaged infrastructure, extreme heat, and rising costs. The industry’s preferred outcome is that the public pays all the costs of their pollution. We cannot accept a system where polluters keep the profits and taxpayers are left with the bill.”

As communities across the country face mounting costs from climate-driven disasters and extreme weather, climate superfund laws are an effort to establish a simple principle we all learn as children: those who helped make the mess should help clean up the mess. 

This is NOT the final word on state superfund bills. The result is a reflection of one judge’s interpretation of a controversial precedent from a fundamentally different case. That controversial precedent is not binding across most of the rest of the country, and states should not be discouraged from pursuing innovative approaches to climate accountability. CCAN will continue to pursue Superfund policies in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC and beyond.

The post New York Climate Superfund Court Ruling Not the Final Word on State Superfund Laws appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

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The post 2-PART TRAINING: People’s Assemblies and The Revolutionary Potential of Grassroots Power appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 1 SEPTEMBER 2026 SLF-2007-044 The Sakhalin Papers XXXIV: The Second Japanese Lifeline — NEXI and the Extra $1.4 Billion That Took Project Finance to $6.7 Billion In February 2008 Sakhalin Energy abandoned its proposed British export-credit backing. By June, Japan’s JBIC and commercial banks had supplied a $5.3 billion replacement financing package. Then, in October 2009, another $1.4 billion arrived — this time from commercial banks protected by Japanese government export-credit insurance. Shell no longer controlled Sakhalin Energy, but the documentary record shows that it remained a shareholder, technical participant and one of the sponsors standing behind the financing until project completion.

Archive reference: SLF-2007-044
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal financing record: Mitsubishi Corporation/Sakhalin Energy announcement, 7 October 2009
Authenticated Shell record: Royal Dutch Shell plc Annual Report and Form 20-F 2009; Shell corporate reporting archive
Contemporaneous reporting: Reuters, 1 October 2009; Offshore, 7 October 2009; LNG Journal, October 2009
Public-finance record: Nippon Export and Investment Insurance — NEXI — resource and untied-loan insurance framework
Environmental record: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel material from 2009
Court record: Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), used here to establish the termination of the earlier British financing route
Evidence standard: Financing agreements, shareholdings and company statements are distinguished from lender or corporate assessments of the project’s creditworthiness. Environmental-group allegations are identified as such. No inference is made that NEXI financing constituted a judicial or regulatory determination that every environmental controversy surrounding Sakhalin II had been resolved.

Introduction

The previous Shell Leaks File followed Sakhalin II’s financing east.

Britain’s Export Credits Guarantee Department had spent years considering approximately $650 million of support.

Environmental organisations had challenged the process.

Government documents had gone through information litigation.

A separate judicial review was approaching hearing.

Then Sakhalin Energy withdrew its British application on 29 February 2008.

The High Court subsequently recorded the decisive fact: no final ECGD decision had been made, and after the withdrawal none ever would be. (vLex)

Japan then supplied the alternative.

In June 2008, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and commercial banks signed a $5.3 billion project-finance package.

That might reasonably have looked like the end of the financing story.

It was not.

On 1 October 2009, Reuters reported that Sakhalin Energy had secured another $1.4 billion.

Six days later, a shareholder announcement set out the formal structure.

The commercial banks would lend the money.

Japan’s government export-credit insurer would protect the lending.

And the shareholders — including Royal Dutch Shell — would provide a sponsor guarantee until completion.

Total Phase 2 project debt:

$6.7 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

That second Japanese-backed tranche deserves examination in its own right.

1. Reuters Reported the Money Before the Formal Announcement

The first contemporaneous signal appears on 1 October 2009.

Reuters reported from Moscow that Sakhalin Energy had secured $1.4 billion of new funding for Sakhalin II.

The report cited Interfax quoting Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig.

Reuters placed the new money directly on top of the earlier $5.3 billion package provided by JBIC and international commercial banks.

Craig said the new funds would be paid in shortly. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

The Reuters report is preserved in the contemporary RoyalDutchShellPlc.com archive, complete with its original date, Moscow dateline, reporter Vladimir Soldatkin and Reuters attribution. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

Six days later, the transaction received a more detailed documentary description.

2. 7 October 2009: The Structure Becomes Clear

A Mitsubishi Corporation announcement dated 7 October 2009 stated that Sakhalin Energy had concluded an additional financing agreement of $1.4 billion with a consortium of international commercial banks.

The Japanese government export-credit agency Nippon Export and Investment Insurance — NEXI — would insure the loan.

The document described the cover as Overseas Untied Loan Insurance for natural-resources and energy financing. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

The arithmetic was explicit:

Existing financing: $5.3 billion

Additional financing: $1.4 billion

Total project debt: $6.7 billion

The additional funds were intended to finance completion of the full Phase 2 scope, including the continuing drilling programme needed to achieve full oil and gas production capacity. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

3. NEXI Did Not Lend the $1.4 Billion

This distinction matters.

The $3.7 billion JBIC component of the 2008 package involved a Japanese public-sector lender actually advancing money.

The 2009 structure was different.

Commercial banks supplied the $1.4 billion.

NEXI insured their exposure. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

That distinction is central to understanding export-credit finance.

Loan insurance can make commercial-bank participation possible — or substantially more attractive — because an export-credit agency absorbs specified risks that the lender would otherwise bear.

NEXI’s own description of its resource-finance insurance explains the general mechanism: the cover protects qualifying lenders against losses arising from long-term overseas resource-development lending, including defined political and commercial risks such as restrictions on transfers, force majeure and borrower default. (Nexi)

The exact contractual terms of the 2009 Sakhalin policy are not reproduced in the public material examined for this file.

The safe conclusion is therefore narrower:

private banks supplied the money; Japanese public credit insurance stood behind the lending.

4. Japan Had Now Backed Both Layers of the Financing

By October 2009, Japanese public finance occupied two distinct positions in Sakhalin II.

JBIC had provided direct project lending as part of the first $5.3 billion package.

NEXI now insured the additional $1.4 billion commercial-bank tranche.

In each case the ultimate policy logic was closely connected with natural resources and Japanese energy security.

NEXI continues to describe its natural-resource loan insurance as a mechanism intended to support overseas resource projects from the perspective of securing stable resource supplies for Japan. (Nexi)

The Sakhalin financing fitted that strategic pattern almost perfectly.

Japan had Japanese shareholders in the project.

Japanese utilities had long-term LNG purchase contracts.

Japanese financial institutions were involved in the debt.

And Japan was about to receive a large proportion of Sakhalin II’s output.

5. The LNG Plant Was No Longer a Construction Promise

There was another major difference between 2009 and the years when ECGD, EBRD and other prospective lenders had been examining the project.

Sakhalin II was now operating.

Gazprom formally inaugurated Russia’s first LNG plant at Prigorodnoye on 18 February 2009.

Its two trains were designed for combined annual output of 9.6 million tonnes.

Gazprom said approximately 65 per cent of Sakhalin LNG was contracted to nine Japanese purchasers. (Gazprom)

The first LNG cargo left for Japan in March.

By May, the second train had started operation.

Contemporaneous industry reporting said the plant was being ramped toward full design capacity. (Offshore Magazine)

The financial proposition had therefore changed profoundly.

Lenders were no longer being asked principally to finance an uncertain future LNG business.

The LNG business had begun.

6. Shell’s Own Annual Report Records the Transition

Royal Dutch Shell’s 2009 Annual Report and Form 20-F described Sakhalin II as one of the major projects completed during the year.

Shell stated that, together with its partners, it had completed Russia’s first LNG plant, describing Sakhalin II as one of the world’s largest integrated energy projects. (KU Leuven Bibliotheken)

The report is part of Shell’s official historical annual-report archive, which continues to make the 2009 corporate reporting available. (Shell)

This is useful authenticated corporate evidence because it fixes Shell’s own presentation of Sakhalin II at the moment the additional finance arrived.

The project had crossed the boundary from construction megaproject to producing asset.

7. Shell Was Still There — But No Longer in Control

By October 2009 the ownership structure was:

Gazprom — 50 per cent plus one share

Royal Dutch Shell — 27.5 per cent minus one share

Mitsui — 12.5 per cent

Mitsubishi — 10 per cent (FinanzNachrichten.de)

This distinction has been maintained throughout the Sakhalin Papers because it matters historically.

Shell controlled Sakhalin Energy when many of the controversial Phase 2 decisions were taken.

After the 2007 restructuring, Gazprom controlled it.

But Shell did not disappear.

A 27.5 per cent interest in a project of Sakhalin II’s scale remained economically substantial.

And the 2009 financing documents reveal something more specific about Shell’s continuing role.

8. The Shareholders Signed a Sponsor Guarantee

The Mitsubishi announcement states that Mitsubishi, together with Sakhalin Energy’s other shareholders, signed a sponsor guarantee agreement connected with the additional financing.

That guarantee would remain effective until completion of the project. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

The identified shareholders included Royal Dutch Shell.

Accordingly, the documentary record establishes that Shell was one of the sponsors standing behind this additional financing structure.

What the public announcement does not disclose is equally important.

It does not specify the financial allocation of the guarantee among the four shareholders.

It does not establish that Shell guaranteed 27.5 per cent of the $1.4 billion.

It does not provide the detailed trigger provisions, caps or completion tests.

Those figures should therefore not be invented.

The established fact is:

Shell remained contractually involved as a project sponsor while the additional financing moved toward completion.

9. This Was Project Finance — But With Completion Support

The Mitsubishi statement described the financing as project finance secured principally by the cash flow generated by Sakhalin II.

That is the conventional attraction of large infrastructure project financing: lenders look primarily toward future project revenues rather than simply relying upon the general balance sheets of the shareholders. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

But the simultaneous sponsor guarantee is an important qualification.

Before agreed completion conditions were achieved, the lenders were not relying solely upon future LNG and oil cash flow.

The sponsors were also providing completion-period support.

That is a finance interpretation derived from the structure disclosed in the shareholder announcement — not a quotation from a court or lender.

It reinforces an important point about Shell’s status after losing control.

Shell was no longer the operator-controlling shareholder of the earlier years.

But it remained financially intertwined with the project.

10. Why Was Another $1.4 Billion Needed After Production Had Started?

The answer is in the financing announcement itself.

Starting production did not mean every part of Phase 2 was complete.

The proceeds were intended to complete the full project scope and support the continuing drilling programme necessary for full production capacity. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

This is common in very large energy projects.

First production can occur while:

additional wells are being drilled;

production is ramping up;

commissioning continues;

facilities are being optimised;

and expenditure remains before the asset reaches contractual or technical completion.

Sakhalin II was producing LNG in 2009.

It was not yet at full design capacity.

11. The Two LNG Trains Were Still Ramping Up

LNG Journal reported that the first and second LNG trains each had a design capacity of approximately 4.8 million tonnes per year.

The second train came online on 31 May 2009.

Both were still being ramped toward the combined nameplate capacity of 9.6 million tonnes annually when the additional financing was arranged. (OilCor)

The same report described the infrastructure supporting those exports:

three offshore platforms;

approximately 300 kilometres of offshore pipelines;

about 1,600 kilometres of onshore pipelines;

an onshore processing facility;

the oil export installation;

and the LNG plant. (OilCor)

The $1.4 billion was therefore not financing a marginal addition.

It was helping bring an enormous integrated production system fully to maturity.

12. Most of the LNG Had Already Been Sold

Another factor mattered enormously to lenders.

The product had buyers.

Contemporaneous reporting said virtually all of the plant’s planned annual LNG output had already been committed under long-term sales contracts. (OilCor)

Japanese purchasers included some of the country’s largest power and gas utilities.

The contracts created predictable future revenue streams of precisely the type project-finance lenders value.

Japan’s participation was therefore circular in an economically powerful sense:

Japanese companies owned equity.

Japanese consumers bought the LNG.

Japanese banks helped finance the infrastructure.

Japanese public institutions either lent or insured the financing.

The project’s debt and sales architecture reinforced one another.

13. Shell Was Also Buying Sakhalin LNG

Shell’s commercial relationship with Sakhalin II went beyond its equity interest.

On 8 April 2009, Gazprom and Royal Dutch Shell announced agreements under which Shell Eastern Trading and Gazprom Global LNG would each purchase LNG from Sakhalin Energy.

Deliveries were to begin in 2009 and continue until 2028, reaching approximately one million tonnes per year for each buyer at plateau.

A linked arrangement provided equivalent gas volumes to Shell’s European portfolio. (Gazprom)

This is another reason the proposition that Shell had simply “left” Sakhalin after Gazprom took control is historically wrong.

Shell remained:

a shareholder;

a technical participant;

a project sponsor;

and an LNG buyer.

Its role had changed.

It had not evaporated.

14. The Financing Closed in the Shadow of the Financial Crisis

The timing also deserves attention.

The global banking system had suffered its most severe upheaval in generations during 2008 and 2009.

Credit availability had been severely disrupted.

Ian Craig highlighted the significance of securing the additional debt under the prevailing financial-market conditions.

Sakhalin Energy characterised the combined Phase 2 financing as a record for Russia and evidence of the project’s strategic and commercial importance. (OilCor)

Those are corporate assessments, not independent credit ratings.

They nevertheless document how Sakhalin Energy itself viewed the financing achievement.

Obtaining another $1.4 billion in international bank debt during that period was commercially significant.

15. The $6.7 Billion Figure Had an Earlier History

There is a curious circularity to the total.

Before the ownership restructuring and before the earlier international financing structure disintegrated, Sakhalin II had contemplated project finance of roughly $6.7 billion.

After years of institutional change, lender departures, environmental controversy, the Gazprom takeover and reconstruction of the financing, the ultimate total returned to:

$6.7 billion.

The route was entirely different.

The number was remarkably familiar.

The final structure comprised the 2008 JBIC/commercial package and the 2009 NEXI-insured additional tranche. (Project Finance)

16. Britain Had Disappeared From the Financing — Not From the Documentary History

The contrast with the earlier UK process is stark.

Mr Justice Mitting’s 17 March 2008 High Court judgment records that approximately $650 million of ECGD project-finance support had been sought.

It also records that Sakhalin Energy withdrew that application on 29 February 2008 before a final decision was made. (vLex)

That judgment concerned environmental-information disclosure.

It did not rule upon the legality of the separate 2004 conditional commitment challenged by WWF and The Corner House.

It did not reject Sakhalin Energy’s financing application.

And it said nothing about the later Japanese loans.

Its relevance here is narrower but important:

it provides an independent judicial record confirming when the British financing route ended.

The Japanese-financed route succeeded afterwards.

17. Did Japan Simply Apply Weaker Environmental Standards?

The documentary record does not support such a categorical conclusion.

JBIC had imposed environmental monitoring requirements when it joined the 2008 financing.

NEXI operated its own system for examining environmental and social considerations in insured overseas projects.

Its framework requires categorisation and environmental review for projects carrying significant potential impacts and allows insurance support to be refused where environmental and social consideration is insufficient. (Nexi)

But the existence of formal standards does not establish that critics regarded those standards as adequate.

They plainly did not.

Environmental disputes around Sakhalin II remained active throughout 2009.

18. February 2009: IUCN Criticised Sakhalin Energy’s Cooperation

Before the NEXI-insured tranche was concluded, the independent Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel had raised a serious concern.

On 12 February 2009, IUCN reported that the Panel was dissatisfied with delays in Sakhalin Energy supplying relevant documents and scientific information.

IUCN warned that inadequate collaboration could impair the Panel’s ability to provide conservation advice for the Western Gray Whale population. (IUCN)

This was not an NGO campaigning allegation from outside the scientific process.

It was a statement from the institution convening the independent panel with which Sakhalin Energy itself had agreed to work.

But events shortly afterwards also provide evidence of the system functioning.

19. April 2009: The Scientific Panel Called for a Moratorium

On 24 April 2009, IUCN reported that the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel had recommended postponement of industrial activities capable of adversely affecting the whales.

Its recommendation included Sakhalin Energy’s planned 2009 seismic survey.

The Panel was particularly concerned about observations during 2008 suggesting changes in whale distribution and behaviour. (IUCN)

The recommendation was precautionary.

It did not declare that Sakhalin Energy had killed whales.

It did not establish environmental liability.

It called for activities to be postponed until further monitoring reduced the scientific uncertainty.

What happened next is important.

20. Sakhalin Energy Accepted the Recommendation

Four days later, on 28 April 2009, IUCN announced that Sakhalin Energy had accepted the Panel’s advice and postponed the seismic survey.

IUCN publicly welcomed the decision. (IUCN)

The detailed Panel record confirms the nuance.

Sakhalin Energy maintained that it believed the survey could have proceeded safely with the agreed mitigation and monitoring programme.

Nevertheless, in light of the Panel’s recommendation, it agreed to postpone the work until 2010. (IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group)

That is an instructive piece of the financing story.

By 2009 the project was financed and producing.

Yet independent scientific scrutiny still had enough institutional weight to cause a planned industrial activity to be deferred.

21. Financial Close Had Not Ended Environmental Dispute

This distinction is worth making explicit.

The successful financing did not mean:

all environmental questions answered.

The February and April IUCN records prove otherwise.

Nor did continuing environmental controversy mean:

the project could no longer obtain finance.

The October $1.4 billion agreement proves otherwise.

Those facts are not contradictory.

They describe the model that had emerged by 2009:

finance the project;

attach monitoring and environmental processes;

continue operation;

and address individual scientific or environmental issues while the business proceeds.

Environmental organisations often regarded that model as fundamentally inadequate.

The lenders and sponsors evidently regarded it as workable.

22. Environmental Campaigners Continued to Raise Pipeline Concerns

The controversy also extended far beyond whales.

On 20 October 2009, less than two weeks after the formal additional-financing announcement, Sakhalin Environment Watch publicly alleged continuing problems along the trans-Sakhalin pipeline route.

Its statement described erosion, landslides and river-crossing problems and said Russian environmental authorities had previously identified violations requiring corrective work. (FOE Japan)

These statements must be handled carefully.

They document what the environmental organisation alleged and what it said Russian inspections had found.

They are not substituted here for the underlying Russian regulatory orders or a court judgment.

The important documentary point is simply this:

serious environmental criticism continued after the financing had closed.

23. Sakhalin Energy Presented a Very Different Environmental Record

The company’s own environmental material presented another side.

Sakhalin Energy described extensive impact assessment, biodiversity programmes, river restoration, monitoring of protected species and measures developed with specialists to mitigate impacts on Western Gray Whales.

It pointed particularly to rerouting offshore pipelines away from whale feeding areas and cooperation with the IUCN-convened advisory process. (Gazprom)

These company statements are relevant evidence.

They should not automatically be accepted as independent findings any more than activist claims should.

The documentary method requires both to be labelled by source.

The proper historical record contains the disagreement.

24. What Exactly Did the Additional Finance Prove?

Very little about environmental legality.

Quite a lot about commercial viability.

The banks and NEXI were prepared to support another $1.4 billion of project debt.

Long-term LNG sales were in place.

Production had begun.

The plant was ramping up.

The shareholders provided completion support.

And Japan had a powerful strategic interest in ensuring the project reached full production.

Those facts demonstrate confidence sufficient for a financing transaction.

They do not amount to a finding that every environmental issue had been resolved.

Project finance is not a court judgment.

Credit insurance is not environmental absolution.

25. What Did It Mean for Shell?

For Shell, the October 2009 financing crystallised its transformed position.

It had once held 55 per cent and controlled Sakhalin Energy.

It now held 27.5 per cent under Gazprom control.

But Shell’s continuing commercial exposure can be traced through several authenticated records.

Shell remained an equity investor. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

Its Annual Report celebrated completion of Russia’s first LNG plant with its partners. (KU Leuven Bibliotheken)

It entered long-term arrangements to buy Sakhalin LNG. (Gazprom)

And the financing announcement records that Sakhalin Energy’s shareholders collectively entered the sponsor guarantee associated with the extra $1.4 billion. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

Shell had surrendered control.

It had not surrendered its economic interest in success.

26. The Financing Architecture Was Now Complete

By the end of 2009, Sakhalin II had achieved something that had seemed far less certain only a few years earlier.

It possessed a $6.7 billion external project-finance structure.

It had Japan’s principal public international lender involved.

It had Japanese government credit insurance protecting additional commercial debt.

It had international banks.

It had shareholder completion support.

It had long-term buyers.

And it had begun generating LNG revenues.

The financing problem that had occupied British officials, campaigners, lawyers and prospective lenders for years had not disappeared.

It had been solved somewhere else.

Documentary Findings Established

Sakhalin Energy withdrew its application for British ECGD support on 29 February 2008, before ECGD made a final financing decision. This is recorded in the High Court judgment in Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth. (vLex)

Sakhalin Energy subsequently concluded a $5.3 billion project-finance package involving JBIC and commercial banks in June 2008.

On 1 October 2009, Reuters reported that Sakhalin Energy had secured an additional $1.4 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

On 7 October 2009, Mitsubishi Corporation announced the formal additional-financing agreement.

The $1.4 billion was to be advanced by international commercial banks and insured by NEXI.

The additional tranche took total Phase 2 project debt to $6.7 billion. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

The funds were intended for completion of the Phase 2 scope, including continuing oil and gas drilling required to achieve full production capacity. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

The shareholders at that point were Gazprom, Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

Shell held approximately 27.5 per cent. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

Mitsubishi’s announcement records that the shareholders entered into a sponsor guarantee effective until project completion. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

Shell’s 2009 Annual Report records completion of Russia’s first LNG plant at Sakhalin II with its partners. (KU Leuven Bibliotheken)

Sakhalin II was already exporting LNG while the additional financing was being completed.

The LNG plant consisted of two trains designed for combined annual capacity of approximately 9.6 million tonnes. (Gazprom)

Established Environmental Context

In February 2009, the IUCN-convened Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel expressed concern about Sakhalin Energy’s provision of information necessary to its conservation work. (IUCN)

In April 2009 the Panel recommended postponement of activities that might adversely affect Western Gray Whales, including Sakhalin Energy’s proposed seismic survey. (IUCN)

Sakhalin Energy accepted that recommendation and postponed the survey, while maintaining that it believed the survey could have been undertaken safely with appropriate mitigation. (IUCN)

These facts demonstrate that environmental scrutiny continued after project finance had become available.

They do not establish environmental liability.

Alleged or Contested

Sakhalin Environment Watch continued in October 2009 to allege pipeline, erosion, regulatory and river-crossing deficiencies.

Those allegations are part of the contemporaneous record but are not presented here as judicial findings. (FOE Japan)

Sakhalin Energy’s own environmental materials described extensive mitigation, monitoring and biodiversity measures and presented the company’s record substantially more favourably. (Gazprom)

The conflict between these accounts is preserved rather than artificially resolved.

Not Established

It is not established that NEXI itself lent the additional $1.4 billion. The commercial banks supplied the loan; NEXI insured it.

It is not established from the public announcement how the sponsor-guarantee obligation was divided among Shell, Gazprom, Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

It is not established that Shell guaranteed precisely 27.5 per cent of the additional debt.

It is not established that NEXI’s participation represented a determination that every environmental issue associated with Sakhalin II had been resolved.

It is not established that the British, US or EBRD financing routes failed solely because of environmental concerns.

It is not established that Japanese public finance was arranged merely because British financing disappeared.

And no court decision identified in the records examined for this file held that the NEXI-insured financing was unlawful.

Commentary

The extra $1.4 billion makes the evolution of the Sakhalin financing story unusually clear.

At the beginning, public finance looked like a gate.

Could EBRD approve the project?

Would ECGD provide cover?

Would American export-credit support follow?

Would environmental standards prevent financial close?

By late 2009, the gate had become something else.

Sakhalin II was already through it.

Billions had been invested.

Oil was flowing.

LNG cargoes were sailing.

Long-term customers had signed contracts.

Gazprom controlled the venture.

Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi remained deeply invested.

Japan wanted the energy.

The financing question was no longer whether Sakhalin II would exist.

It was how its remaining costs would be funded and how lenders would manage the risks of an operating megaproject.

Japan provided the answer.

First JBIC lent.

Then NEXI insured.

Private banks supplied capital behind the Japanese public guarantee structure.

The shareholders supplied completion support.

And the total debt reached $6.7 billion.

Yet the environmental record did not become irrelevant.

The same year that the extra financing was arranged, an independent scientific panel criticised Sakhalin Energy’s information-sharing, recommended postponement of a seismic survey, and saw Sakhalin Energy accept that recommendation.

That combination is revealing.

Finance and environmental constraint were no longer mutually exclusive outcomes.

The project could obtain billions of dollars and still be required — through lender-linked and independent scientific mechanisms — to alter individual activities.

Whether those constraints were sufficient remains legitimately debatable.

What the documentary record establishes is the structure that emerged:

Sakhalin II would proceed. Environmental scrutiny would proceed with it.

And Shell, despite no longer controlling the project, remained financially and commercially attached to both.

Source Record

The principal financing source is the 7 October 2009 announcement concerning the additional Sakhalin II project-finance contract, issued in connection with Mitsubishi Corporation’s 10 per cent shareholding. It records the $1.4 billion commercial-bank financing, NEXI insurance, sponsor guarantee, intended use of the proceeds and resulting $6.7 billion total Phase 2 debt. (FinanzNachrichten.de)

Contemporaneous Reuters reporting dated 1 October 2009, preserved in the RoyalDutchShellPlc.com archive, records Ian Craig’s announcement that Sakhalin Energy had obtained the additional $1.4 billion and places it alongside the earlier $5.3 billion financing. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

Contemporaneous industry confirmation is supplied by Offshore, 7 October 2009, which reported the NEXI-insured $1.4 billion financing and stated that the funds would support completion and the drilling programme required for full production capacity. (Offshore Magazine)

LNG Journal subsequently reported the $6.7 billion financing total, the status of the two LNG trains, the long-term customer base and Sakhalin Energy’s assessment of the transaction’s significance under difficult financial-market conditions. (OilCor)

The authenticated Shell corporate record is the Royal Dutch Shell plc Annual Report and Form 20-F 2009, which records Sakhalin II among the major projects completed that year and identifies the LNG plant as Russia’s first. Shell’s official website maintains its historical annual reports archive including 2009. (KU Leuven Bibliotheken)

The contemporaneous Gazprom record includes its 18 February 2009 announcement inaugurating the LNG plant, documenting its 9.6 million-tonne design capacity and the large proportion of LNG contracted to Japanese customers. (Gazprom)

Gazprom’s 8 April 2009 announcement with Royal Dutch Shell records long-term LNG purchase arrangements involving Shell Eastern Trading and confirms Shell’s continuing commercial relationship with Sakhalin output. (Gazprom)

The relevant judicial record remains Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), which establishes that Sakhalin Energy withdrew its UK export-credit application on 29 February 2008 before a substantive ECGD financing decision was made. (vLex)

The independent scientific record is supplied by IUCN and the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel, including the February 2009 criticism concerning information provision, the April recommendation to postpone potentially harmful activity and IUCN’s subsequent confirmation that Sakhalin Energy postponed its planned seismic survey. (IUCN)

Environmental-group material concerning alleged pipeline deficiencies is included only as evidence of contemporaneous criticism and is expressly distinguished from judicial or regulatory findings. (FOE Japan)

Archive disclaimer: Project financing, insurance support and financial close do not themselves determine environmental compliance. Environmental allegations are attributed to their sources. NEXI’s insurance participation is not characterised as a judicial approval of Sakhalin II’s environmental record. Shell’s inclusion among the project shareholders and sponsors is established, but no unsupported allocation of the sponsor-guarantee liability is made.

Site wide disclaimer also applies.

Next Archive File SLF-2007-045 — The Sakhalin Papers XXXV: Stop the Survey — When the Western Gray Whale Panel Told Sakhalin Energy to Stand Down

In February 2009, the independent scientists advising Sakhalin Energy were publicly unhappy.

They said the company had not supplied important information early enough for proper assessment.

Two months later, their concern became more serious.

After troubling observations concerning Western Gray Whale distribution and behaviour during the previous summer, the IUCN-convened panel recommended a moratorium on activities capable of disturbing the animals.

That recommendation included Sakhalin Energy’s planned 2009 seismic survey. (IUCN)

Sakhalin Energy disagreed with the scientists on one important point.

The company believed the survey could be carried out safely under the elaborate mitigation programme already devised.

But it did something significant nonetheless.

It cancelled the 2009 survey. (IUCN)

The episode raises a question central to the entire Sakhalin financing controversy.

Years earlier, environmental campaigners had argued that once the project was built and financed, meaningful lender leverage would disappear.

Yet here was an operating, financed LNG megaproject changing its plans in response to an independent scientific panel.

How independent was the Panel?

What information had Sakhalin Energy failed to provide?

What had happened to the whales in 2008?

What exactly did the scientists recommend?

And did the company’s decision demonstrate that the environmental safeguards demanded during the financing battles still had real force after financial close?

SLF-2007-045 will return from the money to the whales — and examine the moment Sakhalin Energy was told not to proceed.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 1 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 1, 2026 at 7:57 pm.
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En español

Earlier this summer, Xinka People in Guatemala and their allies around the globe gathered online and in person to celebrate something remarkable: nine straight years of standing guard against the Escobal silver mine. Day and night, in rain and heat, community members have taken shifts watching the road, making sure it stays closed to mine related traffic. It is one of the longest-running Indigenous resistance encampments in the world.

But this anniversary wasn’t just about nine years. Speaker after speaker connected their struggle to something much older–500 years of Indigenous women refusing to disappear.

Drawing on a history of resistance

Marisol Guerra, president of the Xinka Parliament Women’s Commission, put it simply: her people have never been known for traditional dress or a widely-spoken language, in fact, the Xinka language nearly vanished under centuries of pressure to erase it. What defines the Xinka people now, she said, is this fight itself. “My people are no longer being rendered invisible thanks to this tireless struggle.”

That struggle has deep roots. Dr. Alfonso Solorzano Contreras reminded the crowd that the Xinka were fierce enough to resist Spanish colonization outright and that Sunday’s celebration, with their banners raised together, was proof that the same unity is still alive today.

Women leading the way

Women have driven this resistance from the start. Daniel Orantes, who keeps watch at the encampment, described how mining company allies have tried to spread rumors specifically targeting the women who show up for shifts, hoping to turn husbands against wives and break the community apart from the inside. It hasn’t worked.

Marisol answered those attacks directly. The encampment, she said, has become a second home. “We women have also played a fundamental role in this struggle.” 

Last year, she traveled to Vancouver with fellow delegate Marta Muñoz to tell Pan American Silver, the Canadian company behind the mine, exactly where the Xinka People stand. Asked whether any deal, even a majority stake in the mine’s profits, could change their minds, Marisol didn’t hesitate: “Even if they offered us 50% or 70% share in the operations, the answer is no… We simply want them to go away.”

Health and environmental impacts from the mine

This isn’t resistance for resistances’ sake. Experts hired by the Xinka People have documented arsenic and heavy metals in local wildlife and water. Wells that once supplied drinking water have dropped by as much as 120 meters. A sacred archaeological site was bulldozed down to a single mound. And the mine’s tailings dam, which is projected to be more than 150 meters tall and hold millions of tons of waste, sits in an earthquake zone prone to landslides.

In May 2025, after nearly seven years of a court-ordered consultation process, the Xinka People delivered their final answer: no consent for the mine to reopen. Pan American Silver has yet to publicly acknowledge that decision.

Remembering the past and determining the future

The Xinka People describe their fight not just as opposition to a mine, but as an act of remembering. Derek Mazariegos, a researcher with the Chiviricuarta Collective, spoke about youth recovering place names, oral histories, and traditional knowledge alongside the fight over water. Telling their own story, he said, is itself a form of power: it “shapes the way it has been represented and strengthens its capacity to determine what kind of future we want as a people.”

Nine years of holding a roadblock is extraordinary on its own. Doing it while also rebuilding language, recording history, and training the next generation of leaders is something else entirely. As Marisol said, closing out the anniversary: “For life and our territory, here we are, here we remain.”

Pan American Silver has still not publicly recognized the Xinka People’s decision to deny consent for the Escobal mine. Subscribe to email updates for opportunities to take action.

The post Here We Remain: Xinka People on Five Hundred Years of Resistance appeared first on Earthworks.

In English

A principios de este verano, el Pueblo Xinka de Guatemala y sus aliados de todo el mundo se reunieron en línea para celebrar algo extraordinario: nueve años consecutivos de vigilancia frente a la mina de plata de Escobal. Día y noche, bajo la lluvia y el calor, miembros de las comunidades se han turnado para vigilar la carretera, asegurándose de que permanezca cerrada al tráfico relacionado con la mina. Se trata de uno de los campamentos de resistencia indígena más longevos del mundo.

Pero este aniversario no se limitó a los nueve años. Un orador tras otro vinculó su lucha a algo mucho más antiguo: 500 años de mujeres indígenas que se niegan a desaparecer.

Inspirándose en una historia de resistencia

Marisol Guerra, presidenta de la Comisión de la Mujer del Parlamento Xinka, lo expresó con sencillez: su pueblo nunca se ha caracterizado por su vestimenta tradicional ni por una lengua de amplia difusión; de hecho, la lengua Xinka estuvo a punto de desaparecer tras siglos de presión para erradicarla. Lo que define ahora al Pueblo Xinka, afirmó, es esta misma lucha. «Mi pueblo ha dejado de ser invisibilizado por esta lucha incansable».

Esa lucha tiene raíces profundas. El Dr. Alfonso Solórzano Contreras recordó a la multitud que el Pueblo Xinka fueron lo suficientemente valientes como para resistirse abiertamente a la colonización española y que la celebración del domingo, 14 de junio, con sus pancartas en alto, era prueba de que esa misma unidad sigue viva hoy en día.

Las mujeres al frente

Las mujeres han impulsado esta resistencia desde el principio. Daniel Orantes, que monta guardia en el campamento, describió cómo los aliados de las empresas mineras han intentado difundir rumores dirigidos específicamente contra las mujeres que acuden a los turnos, con la esperanza de enfrentar a maridos contra esposas y dividir a la comunidad desde dentro. No ha funcionado.

Marisol respondió directamente a esos ataques. El campamento, dijo, se ha convertido en un segundo hogar. «Nosotras, las mujeres, también hemos sido parte fundamental en esta lucha». 

El año pasado, viajó a Vancouver junto con la también delegada Marta Muñoz para comunicar a Pan American Silver, la empresa canadiense responsable de la mina, cuál es exactamente la postura del Pueblo Xinka. Cuando se le preguntó si algún acuerdo, incluso una participación mayoritaria en los beneficios de la mina, podría hacerles cambiar de opinión, Marisol no dudó: «Aunque nos ofrecieran un 50 % o un 70 % de participación en las operaciones, la respuesta es no… Simplemente queremos que se vayan».

Repercusiones de la mina en la salud y el medio ambiente

No se trata de resistencia por el simple hecho de resistirse. Los expertos contratados por el Pueblo Xinka han documentado la presencia de arsénico y metales pesados en la fauna y el agua locales. Los pozos que antes suministraban agua potable han descendido hasta 120 metros. Un yacimiento arqueológico sagrado fue arrasado con excavadoras hasta quedar reducido a un simple montículo. Y la presa de residuos de la mina, que se prevé que tenga más de 150 metros de altura y albergue millones de toneladas de residuos, se encuentra en una zona sísmica propensa a los deslizamientos de tierra.

En mayo de 2025, tras casi siete años de un proceso de consulta ordenado por los tribunales, el Pueblo Xinka dio su respuesta definitiva: no dan su consentimiento para que la mina vuelva a abrir. Pan American Silver aún no ha reconocido públicamente esa decisión.

Recordar el pasado y decidir el futuro

El Pueblo Xinka describe su lucha no solo como una oposición a una mina, sino como un acto de memoria. Derek Mazariegos, un investigador con el Colectivo Chiviricuarta, habló de cómo jóvenes investigadores están recuperando topónimos, historias orales y conocimientos tradicionales, en paralelo a la lucha por el agua. Contar su propia historia, dijo, es en sí mismo una forma de poder: «cuando un pueblo narra su propia historia construye una forma en la que ha sido representado y fortalece sus capacidades sobre qué futuro queremos como población».

Nueve años manteniendo un bloqueo de carretera es algo extraordinario de por sí. Hacerlo al tiempo que se reconstruye la lengua, se registra la historia y se forma a la próxima generación de líderes es algo completamente distinto. Como dijo Marisol al clausurar el aniversario: «Por la vida y nuestro territorio, aquí estamos, aquí seguimos».

Pan American Silver aún no ha reconocido públicamente la decisión del Pueblo Xinka de denegar su consentimiento para la mina Escobal. Suscríbete a las actualizaciones por correo electrónico para conocer las oportunidades de actuar.

The post Aquí seguimos: el Pueblo Xinka y sus quinientos años de resistencia appeared first on Earthworks.

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice stands in solidarity with the people of Nepal and Tibet as they confront one of the most devastating disasters to hit the Himalayan region in recent years. We mourn those who have been killed and stand in grief with the communities that have lost their family and loved ones, their homes, their lives and livelihood and we stand with the workers engaged in the treacherous relief and rescue efforts as they confront the unimaginable scale of the disaster. Nearly 1000 people have been reported killed so far and thousands remain missing after an enormous collapse of ice and rock in high Himalayas triggered a cascading event in the Lhende Khola, sending a sudden surge of water, rock and sediment into the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli river system causing devastative floods in the border region. The formation of new lakes behind the ice and rock debris continue to pose a risk of more destructive floods while rescue operations still continue in the region.

The scale of this tragedy demands more than our sympathy, mourning or condolences. It demands that governments confront the conditions that are making communities across the Himalayas, and on the frontlines of climate impacts everywhere, increasingly unsafe. While the people of Nepal and Tibet grapple with this devastation, the broader climate context and global failure to address it form a clear path that has led to this disaster. Rising temperatures are rapidly transforming the Himalayan cryosphere, accelerating glacier loss and destabilising high-mountain environments. 

The Hindu Kush Himalaya contains more than 63,000 glaciers and feeds ten major river systems on which huge populations across South Asia depend. These mountain’s glaciers had disappeared 65% faster between 2011 and 2020 than in the previous decade. As glaciers retreat and permafrost thaws, slopes become less stable, glacial lakes expand and communities face growing risks from floods, landslides, avalanches, and cascading disasters. This is also not an isolated Himalayan emergency. Communities across the region have repeatedly faced catastrophic floods, landslides and glacial lake outburst floods, from Sikkim in India in 2023, Thame in Nepal in 2024, to the Tibet-Nepal border in 2025.

What is striking is that Nepal has contributed almost nothing to the crisis that is transforming its mountains. It is responsible for only 0.1% global greenhouse gas emissions yet finds itself on the frontlines of climate impacts. It is forced to self-finance the monitoring of glaciers and unstable slopes while building early-warning systems, but also the protection of settlements and infrastructure, responses to disasters, and rebuilding of what is destroyed by disasters that are increasingly becoming hard to predict. The World Bank has warned that unchecked climate impacts could make Nepal’s economy at least 7% smaller by 2050. Meanwhile a Green Climate Fund project intended to reduce the risks of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in Nepal took 7 years to be approved. 

The fundamental injustice is that countries with very little responsibility for the climate crisis are being forced to spend their limited resources surviving it while the global climate finance policies continue to fail them. This is precisely why adaptation finance is a matter of survival, not a secondary component of climate policy. Developing countries will need nearly US$400 billion every year for adaptation by 2035 while the international public adaptation finance was only US$26 billion in 2023. That gap means countries such as Nepal are being told to become more resilient without being given adequate resources and support required to do it. On the other hand, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage has seen pittance in financial commitments so far. Developed countries must significantly increase public, grant-based finance, rather than loans, with direct and rapid access for affected countries and communities under their existing obligations. Where mitigation and adaptation have failed to prevent harm, loss and damage must be paid for at a scale that reflects actual needs of trillions. This is a historical debt and reparations owed to the Global South and not voluntary contributions disguised as aid or charity and must reach the communities at the frontline of the crisis instead of creating new markets for private investors or new debts for governments.

At the same time countries most responsible for this crisis must move first in stopping the expansion of the fossil-fuel economy. But in contrast the United States, already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, is on track for another record year of natural gas production in 2026 while the US crude production and export reached a record early this year. Similarly in Western Europe, Norway, the largest petroleum producer and the largest supplier of gas to Europe, expanded the exploration area for oil and gas exploration in 2026. These are not economic decisions but political choices. Rich countries cannot describe disasters in Nepal as an unfortunate consequence of a changing climate while continuing to explicitly expand the industries driving that change.

Nepal cannot reduce the world’s emissions on behalf of the polluters. It cannot protect the Himalayas through adaptation alone while the world continues to burn more fossil fuels. And it should not have to take on more debt to protect its people from a crisis overwhelmingly created elsewhere. The immediate priority in Nepal and Tibet must be rescue, relief and recovery led by the needs of affected communities. But international solidarity cannot end with emergency assistance after people have died. We demand:

• Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage must immediately respond and deliver on Nepal’s request for urgent and direct funds to support its immediate response capacity 
• The Global North countries and other big polluters must cut their emissions far faster without false solutions and end continued fossil fuel expansion
• Global North must urgently provide much higher public and grant-based finance so Global South countries can adapt before disasters happen
• Global North countries must fund the Loss and Damage Fund at the scale of the losses communities are already experiencing without pushing loans and private finance as substitutes for their public finance obligations

We stand with the people of Nepal and Tibet in grief and solidarity and also with their right to justice. What happens next must not be another cycle of disaster, condolences and forgotten promises. There must be greater protection for communities now, far deeper emissions cuts by those most responsible, adequate finance for adaptation and loss and damage, and accountability for the governments and corporations that continue to fuel this crisis.

——

The post DCJ solidarity statement on recent Nepal-Tibet Floods appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Wolf recovery is far from complete, but these three stories are worth celebrating.

August Community in the Gitigaan and Beyond August in the North: Harvest, Medicines, and Community August marks the beginning of the harvest season for many communities across northern Minnesota. While some of the early summer berries are beginning to wane, late-season fruits are coming on strong, with plums, apples, and other fruits beginning to ripen. […]

This article What the 1960s can teach us about cross-racial solidarity was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

There is a particular kind of political amnesia that can overtake movements in difficult times. We remember the victories but forget the arguments that preceded them. We remember the marches but forget the years of patient organizing that made them possible. We remember solidarity as a feeling rather than a political practice.

Alice Echols’ “Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic” is a useful antidote to that amnesia.

Echols tells the story of interracial and cross-racial organizing within the Black freedom movement through two organizations that bookend the decade: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, and the Black Panther Party. The Panthers’ commitment to armed self-defense, and later debates over militancy and guerrilla warfare, form part of that history. Echols’ central concern — and the focus of this review — is the difficult work of solidarity: how movements build relationships across differences in race, power and political position.

This book arrives at an important moment. Across the United States and elsewhere, racism, xenophobia, and religious and white supremacist nationalism are again being mobilized to divide people who might otherwise have common interests. Authoritarian movements understand something the left sometimes forgets: people who can be persuaded to see one another as enemies are much easier to govern.

The question of how we build solidarity across difference is therefore an urgent question of power.

From Black Power to “Radical Chic”

The title captures the book’s historical arc.

Black Power meant, among other things, the assertion of Black autonomy, self-determination and political power.

White Heat comes from SNCC organizer Bob Moses’s metaphor for the transformative potential of white participation in the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. Nearly 1,000 mostly white college students traveled to Mississippi that summer to support Black voter-registration efforts. Moses hoped their presence would expose white America to the reality of racial violence and help generate political transformation beyond Mississippi.

And then there was “Radical Chic,” Tom Wolfe’s infamous 1970 caricature of wealthy white liberals hosting a fundraiser for the Black Panther Party at Leonard and Felicia Bernstein’s Manhattan penthouse. Wolfe transformed cross-racial political solidarity into a punchline: wealthy liberals playing at revolution, fashionable people dabbling in radical causes. Echols argues that the essay became more than a satire of one awkward party: It helped create a durable political language for attacking solidarity itself.

What happened between those moments is the heart of the book. Echols resists a simple story of interracialism giving way to Black nationalism, or a morality tale in which one side was right and the other wrong. She describes experiments in solidarity that were sometimes extraordinarily productive, sometimes painful, and often both at once.

That complexity is precisely what makes this history useful now.

Solidarity is not sameness

The early SNCC experience illustrates both the promise and limitations of interracial organizing.

SNCC brought Black and white activists together in a shared struggle against segregation and disenfranchisement. But Freedom Summer also intensified questions about power inside the movement. What did it mean for white people to participate in a movement led by Black people? Could interracialism reproduce the racial hierarchy it was supposed to challenge?

Echols gives this contradiction a particularly revealing form. Some Black SNCC organizers noticed that local Black people who had repeatedly ignored their appeals to get involved would suddenly listen to newly arrived white male volunteers. In other cases, white volunteers arrived in Mississippi with assumptions about how things should be done, even taking over office work that Black staff had been doing. The conflicts revealed a deeper problem: The racial hierarchy SNCC was trying to dismantle could reappear inside an interracial movement.

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These questions shaped the organization’s strategy and eventually contributed to SNCC’s turn toward Black Power and the expulsion of white staff in 1966.

Echols’ history offers no simple verdict on interracial organizing. It shows how coalitions can generate real political power while reproducing some of the very inequalities they are trying to overcome. The people in her history wrestled with that contradiction, producing new strategies, organizations, alliances and political possibilities.

Their experiences point toward a more demanding alternative to divide and rule: organized solidarity capable of turning difference into political power.

Organizing is more than mobilizing

One of the book’s most important lessons for the present concerns the difference between mobilizing and organizing.

The 1960s are often remembered through spectacular images: marches, demonstrations, sit-ins, crowds in the streets. But the power of the movements Echols describes depended on much more than protest.

It grew through people living in communities, building relationships, developing political confidence, creating institutions and learning how to act collectively. One example is the Freedom Schools organized during Mississippi Summer. Their purpose went beyond political messaging. Organizers developed curricula intended to help people understand their communities and develop the confidence and skills to participate in changing them. The schools became part of the infrastructure through which Freedom Summer could turn a national moment of attention into deeper local organizing.

Freedom Summer did not emerge from nowhere. Neither did the Panthers’ survival programs or their legal and political defense networks. This infrastructure depended on relationships and material capacities built over time.

The mass protests following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, and more recently against Trump’s authoritarianism, demonstrated extraordinary popular anger. But mass participation alone does not create durable power. Movements need the capacity to bring people into action — and then to keep organizing them after the cameras leave. They need structures through which people develop political agency, and organizations capable of surviving repression, disagreement, electoral cycles and changes in public mood.

We need movements that can mobilize. We also need movements that can organize.

The politics of the “ally”

Another question running through the book has become familiar on the contemporary left: What should people do when they want to support a struggle that is not their own? Echols offers no simple answer.

White activists sometimes became important organizers and collaborators. Others became what Echols calls “awkward allies” or “clueless comrades.” The harder question concerned the terms of participation: what could meaningful support look like in a movement organized around Black self-determination?

Ella Baker advocated for a broad movement expansive enough even to include what she called the “matron in the fur coat.” Her approach was not merely rhetorical. When SNCC was getting started, Baker hired Jane Stembridge, a white Southern theology student and poet, as the organization’s first paid staffer. Echols notes that historian Clayborne Carson has suggested SNCC might have collapsed during that first summer without the energy and skills Baker and Stembridge brought to the work. Baker’s organizing philosophy centered on developing people’s capacity rather than accumulating authority. As Echols notes, she believed that “strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

Solidarity is a relationship, not a performance. That does not mean every contribution carries the same value or that movements should welcome everyone without conditions. It means that meaningful participation depends on relationships of trust, accountability and a willingness to support work that one may not control.

The Panthers offer a particularly interesting example. They remained committed to Black political autonomy while deliberately cultivating relationships with white radicals, lawyers, journalists, publishers and other supporters. These relationships could be politically useful, but they also created tensions. White radicals sometimes struggled with being asked to play supporting rather than leading roles, while the Panthers had to navigate relationships with people whose social position was fundamentally different from their own. Huey Newton later acknowledged the importance of progressive white activists to the Panthers, even as relationships between Black and white radicals remained fraught.

SNCC’s evolving approach to white radicals points toward another way of thinking about this relationship. Stokely Carmichael, later Kwame Ture, increasingly argued that white activists should organize in their own communities. White radicals were encouraged to confront the institutions shaping their own lives, including the military draft and the Vietnam War. Bob Moses himself worked with white antiwar organizers such as David Dellinger, A. J. Muste and Staughton Lynd.

Organizer Staughton Lynd shakes hands with a Mississippi resident during Freedom Summer. (Mark Levy Collection/The Civil Rights Archives of the Queens College)

Carmichael’s argument proposed a different structure for solidarity: people developing power in their own communities and around the forms of oppression shaping their own lives while remaining connected to a broader struggle.

That approach can help shift solidarity away from paternalism. Rather than entering someone else’s struggle primarily as a helper, people are asked to examine how the systems they are fighting also shape their own lives, communities and possibilities. That can create a more grounded basis for political commitment.

There is a tension here as well. A politics built around one’s own stake can narrow into self-interest, with people feeling responsible only for struggles in which they can identify themselves as directly affected. The challenge is to begin from one’s own lived position without ending there — to build power where we are while recognizing the larger systems that connect our struggles.

Autonomy and coalition can coexist.

The material side of solidarity

Echols also pays unusual attention to something movements sometimes overlook: the practical resources needed to keep political work going. Movements need lawyers, meeting spaces, printing presses, transportation, ways to communicate, food, bail money, staff, research, childcare, and, of course, money. 

The Panthers’ relationships with white lawyers and other supporters offer a useful example. Their legal defense efforts depended on people who could provide skills, money, publicity and access to institutions that the Panthers themselves could not easily command. In courtrooms across the country, mostly white left-wing lawyers defended Black radicals against prosecutors and police forces. These relationships could strengthen the movement materially and sometimes helped expose the workings of the state itself. 

Political economy is inseparable from organizing. Good intentions do not build legal networks, communications systems, or the other infrastructure movements need.

Resources, however, also create relationships of power. A movement dependent on wealthy supporters can become vulnerable to their influence. A donor may want to help without understanding the political work — or may expect gratitude, access, influence or even authority in return.

Movements often need resources from people outside their core constituencies. The challenge is to build relationships in which those resources expand collective power rather than quietly shifting power toward those who control them.

Rather than resolve this contradiction, Echols shows why movements have to confront it.

Repression and the politics of division

Movements do not operate in a vacuum.

Echols shows how repression can reshape a movement from within. COINTELPRO and local police “Red Squads” amplified existing rivalries and ideological divisions inside the Panthers, helping create a climate of debilitating paranoia. Panther chief of staff David Hilliard captured the bitter irony: The party had been created to help Black people determine their own destinies, yet increasingly “the state — FBI, police, Red Squads — is deciding our fate.”

Repression also pushed the Panthers toward coalition. Echols traces how the pressure of state surveillance and police attacks encouraged the party to seek alliances with other radicals and left-leaning liberals, including through the 1969 United Front Against Fascism, a broad coalition that brought together the Panthers and other groups concerned about state repression and the threat of fascism.

Previous Coverage

Ingredients for building courage

Authoritarian politics thrives on fragmentation. It encourages workers to blame migrants rather than employers, poor people rather than concentrated wealth, and racial minorities rather than the institutions that reproduce inequality. It turns religious difference into a political weapon and cultural difference into evidence of threat.

The parallels between the present and the 1960s have limits. The present should not be reduced to a replay of that earlier period. The underlying political problem, however, is familiar: Those in power often seek to divide people who might otherwise recognize their shared interests and build power together.

Echols’ history shows what becomes possible when movements resist that fragmentation — and what can happen when they cannot. 

“Radical Chic” and the attack on solidarity

Perhaps the book’s most surprising contribution is its treatment of Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic.”

Wolfe’s 1970 essay mocked a fundraiser for the Black Panther Party held at Leonard and Felicia Bernstein’s Manhattan penthouse. The image was almost irresistible: wealthy white liberals in evening clothes mingling with Black revolutionaries, champagne and revolution sharing the same room. Wolfe turned the gathering into a joke about fashionable people playing at radicalism.

Echols argues that something more consequential happened. “Radical Chic” helped establish a political language for dismissing cross-racial solidarity as fundamentally unserious: the rich were hypocrites, the radicals were dangerous, and everyone involved was performing for status.

That framing has proved remarkably durable. Echols traces how the idea of “radical chic” migrated into conservative politics, becoming part of a broader effort to portray progressive politics as the indulgence of cultural elites rather than a response to real systems of exploitation and racial domination.

There is an important tension here. Some of the people who participated in these relationships undoubtedly were motivated by status, fashion or a desire to be close to something exciting. Yet the imperfections of individual participants do not tell us much about the value of solidarity itself. Treating privileged or imperfect allies as evidence that coalition is inherently fraudulent can become a way of making solidarity seem suspect.

Echols shows that cross-racial solidarity persisted in forms far removed from Wolfe’s caricature. Black radicals continued to find unexpected points of connection with white lawyers, journalists, activists, jurors and ordinary people who encountered their politics through organizing, political trials and community work. What mattered was whether those relationships could produce greater political understanding and collective power.

That distinction matters now. In a political culture increasingly eager to reduce solidarity to social-media signaling, celebrity activism or elite posturing, cynicism can spread easily.

We should be capable of criticizing performative solidarity without becoming cynical about solidarity itself. The first can sharpen political judgment. The second can become political disarmament.

A history worth putting to work

“Black Power, White Heat” offers no formula for building the next movement. Its value lies in the richer political history it gives us for thinking about our own organizing — and in the questions that history leaves us with:

How do we build solidarity across real differences in power and experience?

How do we combine autonomy with coalition?

How do we organize people rather than simply mobilize them?

How do we build institutions that can survive repression?

How do we develop political power within our own communities while remaining committed to a larger movement?

And how do we build relationships strong enough to withstand the deliberate efforts of those in power to divide us?

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Echols’ story offers no easy answers, and the people she writes about did not have them either. Their collaborations were productive and fraught, sometimes exhilarating and sometimes heartbreaking. That is precisely why this history is useful.

The left does not need another mythology about the 1960s. We need its contradictions.

For those of us trying to build movements now — against racism, militarism, ecological destruction, exploitation, xenophobia, patriarchy and authoritarianism — this history offers something more valuable than nostalgia. It offers political literacy.

Read it with your organizing group. Read it with your political education circle. Argue about it. Ask where the people in the book succeeded and where they failed. Ask what their dilemmas look like in your own community.

Because solidarity is something we build.

In an age increasingly defined by attempts to divide us, building solidarity may be one of the most important forms of power we have.

This article is co-published with ZNetwork.org.

This article What the 1960s can teach us about cross-racial solidarity was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.