Nov. 3--Critics are raising questions about Royal Dutch Shell and its subsidiary Shell Energy North America, which has the inside track this week to sign a contract with the Marin Energy Authority.

In March, Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational corporation based in The Hague, Netherlands, announced it was ending all new investment in wind, solar and hydrogen energy and would instead concentrate its remaining renewable energy investments on biofuels.

In June, the company agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged complicity in murder, torture and other human rights abuses by Nigeria's former military government. In 1995, the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwawas was hanged by Nigeria's military regime after protesting Shell's environmental practices, including gas flaring and the destruction of mangroves to make way for pipelines.

"This business about the human rights record and environmental actions in Nigeria just drove me up the wall," said Bill Rothman of Belvedere, who wrote a letter of protest to Marin County Supervisor Charles McGlashan, chairman of the authority's board.

Rothman is just one of several Marin residents who have objected to doing business with Shell since the authority announced last month that the Houston-based company was leading a field of bidders and that it had entered into detailed contract negotiations with the authority.

The authority was formed last year to explore projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Chief among

those projects would be the Marin Clean Energy initiative, which calls for the authority to compete with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. as a retailer of electricity in Marin. Eventually the authority intends to build and own its own renewable energy projects. Currently, however, the authority is selecting a wholesaler to sell it the electricity it will need over the next five years.

"Shell has a hideous human rights record. It has a very bad environmental record. Shell donated $1,182, 717 to try to defeat AB 32 in this state," said Juliette Anthony of San Rafael, referring to the 2006 legislation that set greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals for 2020.

Phil Paisley of Ross said, "If your goal is to reduce your carbon footprint, it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy renewables from somebody who is backing away from the renewables process."

Paisley worries that if the Marin Energy Authority buys its renewable energy from Shell, it will simply be using renewable energy that some other customer would have purchased from Shell without causing any new renewable energy production to be added to the system.