Open Banking—is a regulated standard that addresses data sharing across the banking sector. 

It addresses: 

• Rights
• Liability models
• Dispute resolution and redress
• Consent
• Security
• Legal frameworks
• Usability 
• Logistics
• Technology architecture
• Operating principles
• Myriad related issues

Open Banking was created by convening teams to develop common principles and practice for sector-wide data sharing. They included existing and challenger banks, trade bodies, fintechs, Treasury and regulators. In the UK, this led to the creation of an independent non-profit (funded by the banks) to develop and take the standard to market, with a directory of accredited organisations using it. 

The standard was (and is) developed openly—as a result, it has helped to catalyse initiatives around the world.  Similar initiatives now exist across Australia, Bahrain, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore and the USA.

This work is being extended to ‘Open Finance’. This would further include Investments, Pensions, Savings, Consumer Credit, Mortgages and General Insurance. 

We are also working on its extension into other sectors such as energy and environment (through IcebreakerOne.org). 

We are working with the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, to help shape the direction of this work.

[a 10 minute read]

Guest post: Constellator, Peter Clive, Senior Scientist at Wood – Clean Energy

On my way to a meeting this morning I was walking along Brooktorkai in Hamburg. I passed a fuel station for vehicles. This is a completely unremarkable event, except the fuel in this instance was hydrogen. It left me reflecting on how the synthesis of fuels using power generated from renewable sources of energy will replace the reckless and extravagant use of fuels accumulated over hundreds of millions of years of photosynthesis with which we are jeopardising the planet. The choices we make now place us at the pivot of aeons, as we decide how best to make the transition to a sustainability that balances our future against that past.

It has been observed that we live in unique times. As we enter the third decade of the third millennium of the Common Era we find ourselves being the first generation of the first species to understand the severity of its impact on the planet, and the last generation to be in a position to do anything about it. Whether this is a condition of privilege or perdition depends upon what we do now.

We know where we are, and we know where we need to be.

The only sustainable future of our species (in the numbers we currently represent enjoying anything resembling the standard of living experienced by the most fortunate billion or so among us) relies on rapid and lasting decarbonisation of our economies. The recent IPCC report on limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius degrees presents this in the starkest terms yet. It is clear that targets we previously hoped to achieve by 2050 need to be achieved by 2030.

However, knowing the destination is not sufficient. We also need to know, step by step, how to get there. In many ways the greatest threat facing us as a species is not the primary challenge of alleviating climate change, with all its attendant stresses and disruptions. It is overcoming the apathy and defeatism that comes from not being clear about what coherent sequence of actions are required, starting now, to do anything about it.

On the other hand, I am confident we will prevail. One can point to many instances where a civilisation failed due to rising inequality and disregard for its environmental impacts. However, in general the continuity of human history and society is testament to the fact that most problems get solved. In fact, most challenges are met by solutions that emerge without  explicit co-ordination or acknowledgement. They emerge from our general unexpressed awareness. What is necessary is that the conditions for solutions to emerge are preserved. These include well informed participants in society sharing their experiences on the basis of common concerns. They include the understanding that our interests are both individual and collective. Our fates are geared in secret, where we cannot interrogate them, in hidden hinterlands of thought where our intentions and anxieties overlap and intertwine. When our salvation is announced, even though it may seem miraculous, it is mundane.

What are the developments that seem to me to indicate the emerging pathways to sustainability?

I am inclined to speculate about a variety of steps that may combine to form a viable pathway.

It is clear renewable energy generation will play a central role. At the moment there are discussions about how to develop cost models for renewable energy beyond a simple Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE). This considers discounted lifetime costs, including the initial highly capital intensive construction phase of project development. Reasons to look at other ways of costing renewable energy that place greater emphasis on the post-construction phase include the volatility of power prices and the imminent post-subsidy environment (for example, the end of Production Tax Credits (PTCs) in the USA in 2021).

However, the most transformative impact will arise from the zero incremental cost of renewable energy. This will become the dominant consideration of any economy powered by renewable energy. In fact, the transformative impact of a zero incremental cost of energy will eventually reduce the initial capital costs. In order to access this feedback mechanism, that will reduce the capital expenditure that is reflected in the LCoE, we need to move beyond LCoE first. We need to decouple the capital intensive build from the zero incremental cost associated with operation in the absence of fuel costs in order to access those benefits. This is already underway, motivated by other considerations regarding price volatility.

When I say zero incremental cost, I am clearly disregarding operational expenditure arising from, for example, both routine and unscheduled maintenance activities. But these costs are falling all the time, as the scale of deployment increases and the pace of innovation accelerates. In fact, in renewable energy technologies such as wind power,

unified digital workflows are emerging that will allow us to continue reducing costs.

These workflows will accommodate both remote sensing of operational conditions using lidar and asset design and operation based on simulations of those operational conditions using models validated by those measurements. These will be integrated into a single optimised asset lifecycle. I see the optimised digital workflows of which this is just one example as tributaries to our overall pathway to sustainability.

Digitisation in general will make a significant contribution. The more that activities can be in some way digitised, the more they can be assessed using algorithms that demonstrate Proof of Work (PoW). These algorithms perform calculations of the sort necessary to validate  cryptocurrencies.

Could optimising renewable energy finally be a good use-case for Proof of Work?

At the moment PoW for bitcoin mining is based on undertaking pointless tasks. However, if useful work is digitised in some way, it becomes possible to make this the basis of PoW. Not only does this form a more equitable basis for rewarding effort. This can also bring activities previously excluded from our normal calculations of costs and benefits into consideration, such as performing housework, and writing blog posts like this.

Crucially, though, it achieves two things. Firstly, in linking currency to useful effort, it supports the development of our economies away from the fiat currencies that underlie neoliberal economic and monetary policies that have resulted in precisely that highly skewed commodification and valuation of resources and labour that has led to the current crisis.

Secondly, it provides a basis to hardwire renewable energy into our economies. In order to decouple the producer from the consumer of renewable energy using synthetic power purchase agreements (PPAs), green energy certificates or Guarantees of Origin will be created and exchanged. The PoW algorithm can be formulated in such a way that it requires a GoO of the renewable energy consumed performing the useful work that has been digitised and assessed. This then encourages energy efficiency as the means to achieve maximum leverage of the available GoOs.

Indeed, the zero incremental cost of energy may result in all trades being based on peer-to-peer exchange of GoOs over a decentralised synthetic PPA. Essentially the energy utility will become an API for peer-to-peer exchange of GoOs between individuals who are both producers and consumers of renewable energy. This is already the case in microgrids emerging in places like Bangkok and Cornwall, where energy is bought and sold using an app.

Reducing utilities to APIs will not happen without transformation of our transmission infrastructure.

Again, this is already underway in response to the increasing penetration of renewables. There are two key concepts that will form the nexus around which the grid of the future will coalesce: tight local binding and loose global binding. Microgrids combining a variety of renewable and storage technologies will represent the tight local binding end of this spectrum. This will be based on existing energy distribution infrastructure and technologies. Loose global binding will be achieved via sector coupling.

This is where other sectors of the economy are configured to couple with renewable energy generation. As we adapt our technologies to be more compatible with highly distributed, intermittent and variable energy resources, the end use becomes the grid. We adopt a systems approach, where a monolithic grid is replaced by energy use cases.

Examples include autonomous electric vehicles (EVs). The electrification of transport in general provides a number of energy use cases where storage capacity will have an energy transmission as well as a passenger transportation function.

Another energy use case will lead to the complete decarbonisation of global shipping. Over the next decade the deployment of floating wind turbines (possibly in combination with other marine renewables) to locations far offshore will dramatically increase the proportion of the Earth’s surface available for power generation. The locations that would be available would be restricted by a conventional approach to power transmission.

Instead, energy will be stored, perhaps through hydrolytic production of hydrogen or some other electrosynthesised fuel, perhaps through the production of electrolytes for exchange with depleted electrolytes in flow batteries, or perhaps in some other way. This will provide a source of energy for global shipping, displacing the estimated annual $150 Billion bunker costs for fuel which results in the shipping industry being the world’s 6th largest emitter of carbon, were it a country.

The adoption of petrol for the automobile happened in under a decade. The elimination of CFCs from refrigeration happened in under a decade. The Y2K problem was solved in under a decade. People went from looking at the Moon to walking on it in under a decade.

We can do this.

In fact, I would assert, we will do it, and that the processes that will deliver this outcome are already underway. I have perhaps been deliberately provocative in some of my suggestions here.

It is as important not to obstruct the emergence of solutions as it is to encourage them.

It is entirely possible that we will achieve a sustainable cash-free post-scarcity circular economy by 2030. Then we will stand at that pivot of aeons, between the era in which energy was accumulated for hundreds of millions of years by natural processes, only for us to consume it over a short period of time, and an era where the technologies that consumption enabled allow us to directly access the energy that was previously accumulated, and consume it in a sustainable manner.

At the moment our energy consumption is similar to the energy consumed by a Kardashev type 1 society – one that consumes all the energy arriving at a planet from the star it orbits. But it only seems that way because of the long integration time represented by fossil fuels. A pathway to sustainability is the way we become a genuine Kardashev type 1 civilisation, which is the only position from which to progress further. In this way, the pathway to sustainability is the pathway to the stars.

In 2005, I was working with climate change charity Global Cool and global hedge fund Man Group (in my spare time) to try and create a global movement around climate change awareness and action.

While chairing the working group that created the “Global Cool Tonne” (which became one of the first UK Government’s Gold Standard offset mechanisms) I became very concerned about the transparency and credibility of the information being used in the market. As a result of this I started to pull together ideas about how to solve that problem.

To create long-term, scalable change I believe you need credible, transparent information. We have all witnessed that the Carbon markets have suffered greatly from a lack of such credibility.

Andrew Conway and I studied astrophysics together at Glasgow University, and have been friends for over 20 years. Diggory Briercliffe and I worked together to to design and build Virgin Net’s web systems, and have been friends for over 15 years.

The genesis of AMEE (in 2006) was the combination of three events: (1) a conversation with Diggory to discuss the potential of representing emissions data and a computational and transactional engine, in a web-service API. (2) a conversation with Andrew to discuss the potential of codifying Government and environmental standards in such an open platform, and (3) a presentation I gave to Climate Change Capital presenting my ideas for treating carbon as a global currency – with CO2e values mapped against every line-item on financial statements.

I funded the initial development through Dgen and, via various friends and colleagues, we were noticed by Bryony Worthington from Defra, who was lead author on the Climate Change Act. The Friday before Christmas in 2006 I was called into Defra to explain what our plans were for helping to open up Government data (the bedrock of the calculations used in carbon footprinting). At the end of that meeting I was asked to write a white paper for UK Secretary of State, David Miliband, to go in his briefcase on the Monday so he could digest it over Christmas.

We began working directly with Defra on 2nd Jan 2007. Six months later, the Secretary of State went on national television to launch the project, “Act on CO2”.

There were many “firsts” that came from this project:

• The first Government standard for domestic footprinting in the world
• The first national climate change campaign in the world
• The first Government-backed open data initiative around carbon footprinting data
• The world’s largest survey of domestic energy and carbon consumption (1.8 million homes)
• Proper separation of data of personal identity from underlying profile data from a data protection perspective

AMEE was also one of the first commercial companies to pioneer access to open Government data using a web-service API, and to address privacy issues by anonymising citizen information as the default setting within our solution. As a result AMEE was held as an exemplar by both Government and industry leaders, such as the Open Knowledge Foundation, and referred to as “the magical machine behind most carbon calculators”. 

This “founding team” of AMEE included Anna Clayton, Andrew Conway, Diggory Briercliffe, Marcus Bointon, and Chris John.

While they remained an integral part of the project for some time, Diggory, Chris and Marcus chose to continue running their own companies, while Andrew chose to continue to run his own venture and join AMEE. Anna continued as project and account manager.

After DECC’s official launch, AMEE adoption grew exponentially – over 1.8M end-user profiles through Act on CO2, Google, Morgan Stanley, Radiohead, The Energy Savings Trust, Dopplr, EEDA, The RSA, and many others signing up and pioneering use of the service.

After presenting at the 2008 O’Reilly conference, ETech, I met with Mark from OATV. On the strength of this and meeting with the AMEE team, OATV led (within 3 weeks) our $2m Series A investment with Union Square Ventures, and catapulted us on our journey to provide Environmental Intelligence — Everywhere.

After our investment, we added Bryony Worthington (now Baroness Worthington), Jamie Andrews, James Smith, Calum Alexander, Dickon Ausden, and James Hetherington to the startup team, shaping the core of the AMEE platform and its content.

Part two to follow….

My slides from O’Reilly’s Strata conference “Making Data Work” today.

I described some of AMEE’s journey: through open data aggregation and distribution, accessibility, provenance,  and structure. But better data isn’t enough – no one (well, a few) really cares about the science or the technology. We need to engage with stakeholders to provide meaningful insight and relevance to their business. AMEE will be launching a new initiative this year to create an environmental score for every company in the UK.

[repost of my AMEE post on Energy Identity]

Since AMEE’s inception in 2005, we have recognised that the emerging sets of data needed for carbon calculation and energy assessment present huge privacy issues.

Combined with the automation of data capture through smart-meters, mobiles, purchases and other “digital identity” sources there is a real need to address some fundamental issues.

As we help to glue together the instrumented world, what are the outcomes and what are the risks?

Energy Identity = The digital embodiment of
your physical consumption

(from slide 32 of my eTech presentation)

This concept applies to everything from individuals to businesses to countries, a product to a supply-chain, a home to a bank.

Issues include;

1. Data ownership
2. Data privacy
3. Data portability (sharing) and control

The good news is that we’ve “seen this movie before”. In the 1990s we stumbled online, throwing our digital identity information all over the place, in an unstructured manner, and didn’t consider these points until it was too late. Initiatives such as OpenID and OAuth are only now trying to re-invent control mechanisms to address what we all need.

With energy, we have an opportunity to pre-emptively declare the rules of engagement. Some activity is already evident in this space (e.g. Google Powermeter testifing to congress). In the UK, since we have the UK Government as a client, I was able to seed some of these ideas some time ago (the UK is also gifted with the presence of MySociety).

To summarise, the issues include:

1. Data ownership

This should really default to you/your business (i.e. the source of the consumption).

The EULA of your service provider should ensure that you own your data and have expressly given permission to use it. Standard stuff really, but we’re a long way from that in this emerging dataverse.

From AMEE’s perspective, when we hold your data it’s subject to the EULA of the provider you are coming through (e.g. Dopplr) and defaults to you otherwise.

2. Data privacy

As with other services, the default should be to use a series of seperate silos.

AMEE holds each client’s data in separate silos (e.g. Google in one silo, Morgan Stanley in another). This allows for both digital separation and, if required, physical separation. AMEE can shard to enable this.

Further we anonymise the data on the way in – in fact we insist that clients don’t use AMEE to store e-mail addresses etc, and just use the anonymous key AMEE provides to link their user data. This key is held in their user database and points to the anonymized “AMEE Profile”. Given how much personal data is stored about businesses and individuals in AMEE we wanted to pre-emptively push away this risk, and instill confidence in our clients that even if AMEE were compromised, their users would remain anonymous.

3. Data portability (sharing) and control

Having established that ownership and privacy are the two foundation stones, we can then acknowledge that the ability to share information is extremely important. To do so opens a lot of issues, which we’ve been working on for a long time now, but we are confident that AMEE’s model enables extremely rich data portability without compromising ownership and privacy, by pushing control back to the data owners.

Thanks to effective anonymisation and security, we also believe that data mining and interpretation can be carried out without compromising privacy. Because AMEE has an effective security strategy in place, we can interpret and analyse the Energy Identities of, and on behalf of, our clients, and their clients, in an aggregate fashion, without becoming a “big green brother”.

The results of this research can be used to track the impact of policies regarding energy generation, distribution and use; and to confirm and develop carbon accounting protocols.

Summary

Thankfully most of the these issues are recognisable trends in the online development.

The challenge, and more importantly, the opportunity is to pre-emptively address these issues as we move to a deeper interconnected world.

The potential is for all of us to become involved in the development of our low-carbon economy, the democratization of energy and sustainability and, we hope, to avoid mass extinctions.

Chomsky’s piece in the Guardian is “what next for Occupy“;

“Coverage of Occupy has been mixed. At first it was dismissive, making fun of people involved as if they were just silly kids playing games and so on. But coverage changed. In fact, one of the really remarkable and almost spectacular successes of the Occupy movement is that it has simply changed the entire framework of discussion of many issues.”

The other was NASA’s James Hansen & Co. starting direct action against the distribution of coal – below is an open letter that Hansen has sent to Warren Buffet (I’ve copied as his website seems to be offline at the moment).

The following Letter to Warren Buffet can be found on my website.

Sent By Mail:

Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
3555 Farnam Street
Suite 1440
Omaha, NE USA 68131

Dear Mr. Buffett:
We want to inform you that on Saturday, May 5^th, from midnight to midnight, we intend to prevent BNSF coal trains from passing through White Rock, British Columbia to deliver their coal to our coastal ports for export to Asia. We have chosen May 5^th to take this action because it has been designated an International day of action by 350.org, with the theme “Connecting the Dots.” We can’t think of a more important connection to emphasize than the one between burning coal and putting our collective future at risk.

Who we are and why we are prepared to engage in civil disobedience to stop your coal trains:
We are a group of citizens in British Columbia, Canada who are deeply concerned about the risk of runaway climate change. There is a broad scientific consensus that we must begin to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade to avoid climate change becoming irreversible. At the same time, governments and industry are eager to increase the production and export of fossil fuels, the very things that will ensure climate change does get worse.

These two things are irreconcilable, and since we can’t dispute the scientific findings or change the laws of nature, those of us who care about the future must do what we can to reduce the production, export and burning of fossil fuels – especially coal.

Since we know what is at stake we feel a moral obligation to do what we can to help prevent this looming disaster.  On Saturday May 5^th that means stopping your coal trains from reaching our ports.

Our actions will be peaceful, non-violent, and respectful of others. There will be no property destruction. We are striving to be the best citizens we can. We will stand up for what we believe is right and conduct ourselves with dignity.

Why we are involving you:
We know that you have canceled plans to have your utilities build coal fired power plants. Like us, we are sure you know that coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels; when burned it produces the most global warming pollution per unit of energy. We assume you are familiar with the growing number of scientists – including NASA’s Dr James Hansen, and IPCC member Dr Andrew Weaver – who warn us that if we burn the world’s accessible coal reserves we will destroy the benign and hospitable climate that has allowed human civilization to flourish.

What we can’t understand is why you allow your railway, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, to continue shipping vast amounts of US coal out of Canadian ports to be burned in Asia. No matter where this coal is burned, it brings us closer to a climatic point of no return.

Mr Buffett, you have spoken eloquently about the need for shared sacrifice. But with all respect sir, when it comes to climate change it appears that other people are doing all the suffering while you profit from the very causes of the problem. That’s not fair, and we urge you to apply the same moral reasoning to the climate crisis as you have to the problem of economic inequality in your country.

You are in many ways an important figure of conscience in the world. We appeal to you to seize this opportunity and make a bold decision on coal. With your support we can ensure a healthy future for our children and people around the world.

We acknowledge that this action is taking place on unceded Coast Salish territory.

Sincerely,

British Columbians for Climate Action
http://stopcoal.ca
@stopcoalBC

cc:
Chief Willard Cook, Semiahmoo First Nation (sent by fax)
Andrew Weaver, University of Victoria
James Hansen, Columbia University
Bill McKibben, 350.org

Specific details on our intention to stop your coal trains on May 5th:
For 24 hrs on May 5^th we are prepared to stop all loaded coal trains traveling west/north that approach mile 122 (White Rock pier) on the New Westminster Subdivision, Northwest Division, of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.  From dawn to dusk on May 5^th we will also stop all unloaded coal trains traveling east/south approaching mile 122.

We will not interfere with other freight trains using this line on May 5^th, nor will we interfere with the movement of Amtrak Trains using the New Westminster Subdivision on that day:

• Cascades # 513, passing mile 122 at approximately 7:40 a.m. en route to Bellingham;
• Cascades # 510, passing mile 122 at approximately 10:30 a.m. en route to Vancouver;
• Cascades # 517, passing mile 122 at approximately 6:45 p.m. en route to Bellingham; and
• Cascades # 516, passing mile 122 at approximately 9:50 p.m. en route to Vancouver.

We will step off the tracks well in advance of the arrival of Amtrak service. Our spotters to the south and north will give us notice of the approach of any freight traffic, and we will step away for these trains as well. A 21 MPH speed restriction is in place for some distance both sides of mile 122 of the New Westminster Subdivision, which is the site of a well used foot crossing that is safe and familiar to both pedestrians and train crews.We are confident that we can safely remove ourselves from the tracks to allow the passage of Amtrak service and freight trains.

Our spotters in the USA and Canada will provide us with notice well in advance if coal trains are moving anywhere on the New Westminster Subdivision on May 5^th. We ask you to stand down all coal traffic on this day in order to avoid a confrontation at mile 122 and potential disruption of passenger rail service.

A tragic and untimely loss.

David is still a huge inspiration, his thinking, consideration and actions have touched so many people. I am glad we had the opportunity to share ideas, conversation, and a beer.

Cheers to you David, and thank you.

For those who didn’t know him, I strongly recommend reading and distributing his works.

In particular, his contributions available via:

http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net on Nuclear , TEQs (tradeable energy quotas), Energy and the Common Purpose and Peak Oil.

David was a co-founder of the Green Party in the UK, and amongst many things, developed the idea that we might have a personal carbon budget…

Others have already written far better than I can here:

http://transitionculture.org/2010/11/29/dr-david-fleming-1940-2010/

http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/2010/12/01/david-fleming-1940-2010

http://www.darkoptimism.org/2010/11/29/in-memoriam-david-fleming/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleming_%28writer%29

Hermann Scheer (1944-2010): German Lawmaker, Leading Advocate for Solar Energy and “Hero for the Green Century” in One of His Final Interviews

[emphasis mine]

“HERMANN SCHEER: The big mistake in the energy debate is that most people think, because they believe that there is a monopoly and the expertise for all energy activities in the hand of the existing energy players. Many people, including governments, including many scientists, who get their orders for studies from them, they believe and think that the present energy suppliers, the present energy trusts, the companies, they should organize the transformation. And this is a big mistake—a big mistake—because this part of the society is the only one who has an interest to postpone it. The only one. All others, all the others, have an interest to speed it up. But as long government think that it should be left to the energy companies, we will lose the race against time”

– Lossy is “ok”

– p2p/IPv6/multicast can support the back-channel from a load-balancing, network monitoring and bi-directional messaging standpoint (mashing up with MQTT) for broadcast controls, for localised network optimisation and for back-haul diagnostics.

I’d be interested to how technologies can re-apply to scalable, low-cost infrastructure (a single server should be able to support many thousands of nodes).

Comments?

Building on this

two things:

1) add the cyclic patterns for every form of centralisation->decentralisation

technology | politics | finance | energy | cosmology | art | religion | etc…

2) look to see if there’s a damping factor

Are we dealing with periodicity that has diminishing amplitude?

ie. thinking in a political/government sense: do we “normalise” into the status quo – and then need a revolution to introduce a new disruptive signal?

How quickly do we get to the “right” cloud-edge balance?

Can we map the damping factor to accelerate change? (ie. reduce wastage)

If we use a large pile of sand, could we get expectations towards “sustainability”(1) moving faster?

Or am I trying to invent (another) negative entropy machine?

Or is it all just about gravity?

(1) Sustainability being defined as “measuring the rate of change of the right thing”.