CO2 mapping with Google maps

Some good data via a Google maps flyover, a clever combination mapping of CO2 emissions by type and location courtesy the Vulcan Project:

Biofuel Technology 570% More Efficient

Reported on Biopact:

A study by Canadian and Dutch scientists just released in a book by Springer Publishers found that commercial second-generation solid biofuel technology has set a new Canadian benchmark in greenhouse gas displacement. The solid biofuel technology using biomass from energy crops for heat energy developed by REAP-Canada reduces GHG emissions by 7,600-13,100 kg CO2e /ha. By comparison soybean biodiesel and corn ethanol were found to reduce GHGs by a mere 900 and 1,500 kg CO2e/ha respectively.

Personal Carbon Trading

The House of Commons on onboard, carbon emissions are getting personal:

Personal carbon trading would provide a set “carbon emissions allowance” to each citizen and establish a national carbon budget. Individuals would then be able to trade their carbon credits with one another on a designated carbon market if they chose to purchase additional energy or to partake in activities that would exceed the allowed emissions limit, such as riding a plane.

The House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee urged the U.K. government to make a greater commitment to personal carbon trading, theirreport says. While acknowledging implementation difficulties, the committee said such a system would reduce greenhouse gas emissions more effectively than a carbon tax or the currently employed cap-and-trade system for business and industry.

(reported at WorldChanging)

First Week Volume For Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) Option Contract

Well, over at the NYMEX the Green Exchange‘s carbon options contract started trading last week. More here.

NYMEX President and Chief Executive Officer and member of The Green Exchange Executive Committee James E. Newsome said: “The Green Exchange is committed to being a leader among environmental exchanges, and our successful launch of the first ever options contract for carbon offsets demonstrates this. An initial week of trading under the CER options contract of more than one million tonnes is a great start. There is a clear need in the carbon market for these types of risk management tools, and they are particularly well suited to the global trading platform available on The Green Exchange.”

 

Big Foot article in New Yorker

I just finished reading the carbon footprint article Big Foot in the New Yorker.There’s good perspective re the issues and opportunities. Cap-and-trade systems are surely part of the answer:

When Congress passed the Clean Air Act, in 1990, the law included a section that mandated annual acid-rain reductions of ten million tons below 1980 levels. Each large smokestack was fitted with a device to measure sulfur-dioxide emissions. As a way to help meet the goals, the act enabled the creation of the market. “Industry lobbyists said it would cost ten billion dollars in electricity increases a year. It cost one billion,” Sandor told me. It soon became less expensive to reduce emissions than it was to pollute. Consequently, companies throughout the country suddenly discovered the value of investing millions of dollars in scrubbers, which capture and sequester sulfur dioxide before it can reach the atmosphere.     

 And education will play a significant role. The average person on the street has no idea what the emissions are for different methods of agriculture or mode of transportation, or how to interpret the carbon labels appearing on products in the shops.

Many factors influence the carbon footprint of a product: water use, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer, even the type of fuel used to make the package. Sea-freight emissions are less than a sixtieth of those associated with airplanes, and you don’t have to build highways to berth a ship. Last year, a study of the carbon cost of the global wine trade found that it is actually more “green” for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. The study found that “the efficiencies of shipping drive a ‘green line’ all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the point where a wine from Bordeaux and Napa has the same carbon intensity.”     

  I will start posting links to articles such as this in the New Yorker, there’s a lot of education to be done on this subject.

    Sandor still enjoys describing his first sulfur trade. Representatives of a small Midwestern town were seeking a loan to build a scrubber. “They were prepared to borrow millions of dollars and leverage the city to do it,” he told me. “We said, ‘We have a better idea.’ ” Sandor arranged to have the scrubber installed with no initial cost, and the apparatus helped the city fall rapidly below its required emissions cap. He then calculated the price of thirty years’ worth of that municipality’s SO₂ emissions and helped arrange a loan for the town. “We gave it to them at a significantly lower rate than any bank would have done,” Sandor said. “It was a fifty-million-dollar deal and they saved seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year—and never had to pay a balloon mortgage at the end. I mention this because trading that way not only allows you to comply with the law, but it provides creative financing tools to help structure the way investments are made. It encourages people to comply at lower costs, because then they will make money.”