CleanTechnica

Desert Hills Dairy of Nevada has joined with Carbon Bank Ireland, an emerging leader in cap-and-trade carbon emissions markets, to build the state’s first biogas facility to convert cow manure into electricity.  Along with producing enough sustainable methane to power itself and other equipment at the second largest dairy in Nevada, the high tech digester will produce liquid fertilizer and mulch.

Carbon Bank Ireland specializes in harvesting certified emissions credits from sustainable energy projects, which can be traded in the European carbon markets. While some pundits claim that cap-and-trade is “socialism on a grand scale” (whatever that is), that doesn’t appear to bother the cows.  It also doesn’t appear to bother Nevada, which sees a lot of green in its future.  As reported by Nevada Appeal writer Kirk Caraway, interest in the state’s rich solar, wind and geothermal resources is surging, and it is becoming a desirable location for start-ups that are developing sustainable projects such as the capture of waste heat and the development of hi tech batteries.  Green jobs, anyone?

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What we call Cap and Trade, (and what China is now considering)  has already just been tried out in Europe, to meet Kyoto. They called theirs the EU Emissions Trading System. China will call theirs “Limit and Incentivize”. Regardless of whether we call it: capping or limiting emissions and trading or incentivizing to fund the switch to renewable energies - It worked.

In the first three-year phase; European carbon emissions dropped 300 million metric tons of carbon, according to a study by The German Marshall Fund; Ten Insights from Europe on the EU Emissions Trading System. US carbon emissions rose, during those three years from 2005 through 2007.

Here’s what we can learn from those who have gone ahead of us in forging Cap and Trade policy to reduce fossil energy use and increase renewable energies. The German Marshall Fund (remember The Marshall Plan?) has put together these ten tips from their experience.

The main takeaway? Don’t worry.
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The CPUC has just approved the largest energy efficiency program in U.S. history, authorizing $3.1 billion in consumer rebates and efficiency programs over the next three years, bringing the state closer to implementing AB32, according to Lara Ettenson, director of California Energy Efficiency Policy at the NRDC.

Ettenson told me that the funding comes from the part of the budget that California’s regulated utilities may use to invest in conventional electricity. This may include “negawatts”or energy efficiency measures. This is not just cheaper than building new plants and transmission, but also easier to implement, as it is not subject to the NIMBYism and transmission issues that has impeded development of utility scale solar and wind projects that California utilities must add to meet RPS requirements of getting 20% of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2010. Currently it is at 14%.

This giant leap in funding could jump-start the new low-carbon economy in California; helping grow all the businesses that create cutting edge efficiency in cooling and heating, lighting, building materials, windows, insulation, appliances and smart grid technologies that reduce energy use.

Ettenson gave me some examples of uses for the funding in practical terms:
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The aviation industry and the emissions it produces were never included in the Kyoto Protocol that was established 12 years ago, but today at the New York meeting of the UN, there’s a new proposition that will require the international industry to reduce their carbon footprint. Currently, international aviation contributes 2% of the world’s carbon emissions, and this new agreement is set to rectify the industry’s initial omission from the Protocol.

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Now that Cap and Trade is a possibility, there is a rising clamor for a carbon tax instead, from conservative thinktanks like the American Enterprise Institute, outlets like The Washington Times and even directly from Exxon itself. Yet when first introduced by Al Gore, in 1993, the carbon tax was anathema to the fossil industry. What makes a carbon tax now less of a threat than Cap and Trade? It’s the Cap.

The key difference between Cap and Trade and a carbon tax is that a carbon tax controls just the cost of pollution - only a cap limits the quantity.

The “Cap” limits emissions by fossil companies

The Cap in Cap and Trade is the only mechanism for ensuring a total limit to carbon emissions. A Cap is set for the fossil industries as a whole. The Cap on emissions at point-of-entry sources (oil pipelines, coal fields and coal-fired power stations) in the current Cap and Trade bill limits total carbon.
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While carbon capture and sequestration technology remains controversial, studies to delve deeper into it are ongoing in hopes of presenting one way to alleviate emission levels. A team from MIT has been studying a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technique called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion. This process converts the carbon dioxide emissions of a power plant into a pressurized liquid stream meant to be pumped underground. Team leader Ahmed Ghoniem of MIT claims that his team is the only one conducting an academic study of “pressurized combustion system for carbon dioxide capture.”

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Air travel is a major contributor to climate change. Offsets are a small part of a larger solution.

Today at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) we are launching the Climate Passport program allowing travelers to offset the impact of their air travel through an airport kiosk. This will be the world’s first airport kiosk—giving people the opportunity to calculate the environmental impact of their flights and purchase carbon offsets to address that impact while at the airport. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a resource we’ll have plenty of as ever wider swathes of our forests get decimated by pests like the Pine Bark Beetle. Dead trees. In an adaptation eerily reminiscent of Thomas Edison’s dictum We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property” a university has invented a technology to harvest one of the horrific effects of climate change.

The University of Georgia Research Foundation has developed an innovative way to turn dead trees into a liquid fuel and has licensed it to Tolero Energy in California. We could be driving on our dead forests as soon as 2010.

The technology represents a leap forward for the biofuels industry. Not only does the resulting biofuel need no additional refinement before blending with diesel fuel, but it is a naturally very low-sulphur biofuel.

And it would prevent additional CO2 from being released if the forest was left to decay.

But the biggest leap is in thinking of using a non-food source (at least for us humans) of biomass that we will have an ever increasing abundance of, as our climate gets worse and worse. And it doesn’t take scarce water resources to grow. Quite the contrary. Droughts and rising temperatures are all it needs.

Dead trees are one of the major sources of waste biomass, says Tolero CEO Chris Churchill.

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Australia has passed the US as the new world leader in CO2 emissions per capita. That is not the only climate change problem in Australia, though.
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The United Nations stated a couple weeks ago that developed (rich) countries need to provide developing countries with about $500-600 billion a year to control global warming. This was a big increase from other predictions.

Big portions of these funds need to go to India, a large developing country that includes about one sixth of the world’s population. A new study shows what is needed to significantly cut growth in greenhouse gases in this top country.

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