 Update My Project Report Prior Year Projects Annual Summary
Grant Reports
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Grantees are expected to submit an initial report describing their project within one month of receiving funds. The report should then be updated as the project produces results and upon it's final completion.
The Red and the Black: Countering Green-Power Cost Creep with Carbon Pricing
Decarbonization of electricity supply is a cornerstone of U.S. and, hence, global efforts to phase out fossil fuels and eliminate their carbon emissions. Key to this endeavor is rapid deployment of large-scale wind and solar farms and nuclear power stations. However, expectations that these technologies would scale broadly and easily are being called into question by cancellations of notable projects including a giant wind farm off the coast of New Jersey and a highly touted "small modular reactor" facility in Idaho. Our project will determine and quantify the key "cost drivers" behind these and other green-power cancellations and evaluate which are likely to be permanent and which will be transitory. We will also assess the extent to which robust carbon-emissions pricing could return these green projects to profitability by strengthening their revenue stream and helping the developers rout the "NIMBYs" who are hamstringing project schedules and eroding their bottom lines.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 US Forest Carbon Pricing Initiative 2025-2026
In 2025 and 2026 CSE seeks support to extend our work on forest carbon pricing and market-based solutions to deforestation and forest degradation by (1) advocating for a no-net-forestland-loss policy in key land use planning processes; (2) continuing to publicize and disseminate our peer reviewed paper and model legislation for a forest carbon tax and reward program; (3) researching and advocating for carbon border adjustments both in the US and internationally that include a price on forest carbon; (4) building strategic alliances with wood alternative industry leaders to help combat logging subsidies and timber industry disinformation, and; (5) defending and extending legal victories holding public agencies accountable for the social cost of forest carbon emissions under state environmental policy acts.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 Fossil Fuel Risk Bonds - National Campaign With Strategic Partners
CSE’s Fossil Fuel Risk Bond program is having an impact on the ground. As a result of successful research and advocacy in the Pacific Northwest, we now have policy templates that can be used at the state and county level in every US county that has a significant concentration of fossil fuel infrastructure. In addition, the work has been publicized by Brookings Institution, which will greatly enhance our ability to spread the model. In 2025 and 2026, we seek support for a joint campaign with Physicians for Social Responsibility to achieve three overriding outcomes: (1) ensuring that FFRB programs in Oregon and Washington are implemented in the strongest possible fashion; (2) having a model national FFRB program proposed and introduced in the 119th Congress, and; (3) persuading several jurisdictions to consider FFRB programs as a way to finance climate adaptation, as demonstrated in our new report with researchers at the University of Oregon and Reed College.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 Clean-up expedition to plastic-polluted Henderson Island.
1. Return site visit to Henderson Island to complete work interruped by COVID Pandemic.
2. Support efforts around "circular economy" solutions for plastic waste.
3. Speaking engagements to message need to reduce plastic pollution at the source.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
Symbiosis: A forest that creates markets; markets that safeguard the forest
The Children's Eternal Rainforest, owned by the Costa Rican nonprofit Monteverde Conservation League, provides diverse and massive benefits to people on local, national, and international scales (see below). To date, however, recognition of those services – particularly in the financial realm – has been inadequate. This project aims to create a new staff position, the exclusive purpose of which will be to (a) reach out to diverse stakeholders and stimulate reflection about why they are stakeholders, (b) explore and implement mechanisms through which stakeholders are incentivized to contribute reciprocal financial support, and (c) produce a publication that summarizes the lessons obtained from this initiative as a useful reference for others.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
National Wildlife Federation Conflict Resolution Program
After decades of conflicts between wildlife and public land livestock grazing in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, NWF entered the scene in the early 2000’s with a novel approach to ameliorate these conflicts. Over the last two-plus decades, staff from the Wildlife Conflict Resolution program (WCR) refined a strategy that compensates ranchers for voluntarily waiving their livestock permits, thereby removing their livestock from those conflict grazing allotments. NWF’s grazing retirements benefit myriad species, but our primary focus is to enable the expansion of large carnivores like wolves and grizzlies and bighorn sheep. The geographic focus of this proposal is Southern Utah and the Grand Staircase- Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. As discussed with the trustees and as noted below, we shifted some of our work to the Wind River Reservation in support of the Buffalo reintroduction efforts by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe Tribes.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 Successfully Decarbonizing New England's Electric Grid
This project will use the CACI software to investigate how the New England Region can successfully decarbonize their electric grid using nuclear power. The project will create new roadmaps showing how the region can reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. The education/advocacy group Eco-Nuclear Solutions will use these results to change the debate in New England over its energy future.
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 New Tool, New Solutions for Decarbonizing Calif & Georgia Grids
This project will use a unique new computer-based tool to investigate how two states, California and Georgia, can successfully decarbonize their electric grids by introducing nuclear power, a reliable, emission-free energy source. The electric grids in these states will need dispatchable emission-free resources to assure a reliable future grid. This project will describe the size, output requirements, and cost of these resources in these two contrasting case studies.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
-thumb.jpeg) Support Youth in Legal Actions to Stabilize Climate
Our Atmospheric Trust Campaign is built on the belief that everyone has a fundamental right to a healthy atmosphere and a stable climate. Through legal action and public education, we aim to establish a constitutional standard for climate stability, holding governments accountable to reduce CO2 below 350 ppm by 2100 – a threshold aligned with the scientific threshold for a safe climate within Earth’s planetary boundaries. Rooted in science and justice, our mission is to protect current and future generations from the devastating impacts of climate destabilization.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 Engaging Diverse Stakeholders on Issues Concerning Carbon Pricing Policies
In 2025, the Pricing Carbon Initiative (PCI) will continue to build support for bipartisan carbon pricing policy solutions, designed to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by fostering understanding and cooperation between a wide range of organizations and opinion leaders. That work will include in-person and virtual Pricing Carbon Dialogues, public forums, a special project that focuses in carbon border measures, and disseminating information via PCI's website.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Investigates the effect of the global financial system and/or the monetary system in fostering a sustainable economy.
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 Pricing Carbon Initiative Dialogues, Public Forums, CBAM Project, and Capacity Building in 2024
The Pricing Carbon Initiative (PCI) will continue with its mission, to build support for bipartisan carbon pricing solutions, designed to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make US goods more competitive with nations imposing Carbon Border Measures, and foster understanding and cooperation between a wide range of organizations and opinion leaders. Specifically, the Walker Foundation funding this year will assist PCI, begun in 2011, with projects informed by the day-long Pricing Carbon Dialogue on January 23, at Brookings Institution. That work will involve virtual Dialogues, public forums, the “Convening the Conveners” project (seeking viable Carbon Border Measure opportunities) and overall PCI capacity building.
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Investigates the effect of the global financial system and/or the monetary system in fostering a sustainable economy.
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
 Nuclear Energy Innovation
The key priorities of Breakthrough’s Nuclear Energy Innovation Program include public advocacy for nuclear energy; comprehensive regulatory engagement at the NRC; Congressional engagement, inclusive of both congressional oversight of NRC and ongoing policy support for nuclear commercialization; and research and policy development in support of regulatory reform and public and private efforts to deploy advanced nuclear reactors.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
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