The Bay Area Air Quality Management District voted 15 to 1 to implement a CO2 tax of 4.4 cents per metric ton of emissions.  The tax would effect 2500 businesses ranging from refineries to grocery stores.  While this is the first Carbon Tax in the US, 4.4 cents per metric ton of CO2 represents just little more 1/2 of 1% of the actual cost of carbon offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange where offsets closed today at $7.35 per metric ton.

For more details:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/21/MNDN10QD6O.DTL

Southern California Edison (SCE) announced it’s lauch of what will the the largest solar installation in the USA.  The project will install 250 Megawatts of solar panels using 65 million sq. ft. of roof space on the companies buildings.  The project should provide power to over 162,000 homes and will cost about $875 million over 5 years.  The project requires approval by the state utility regulator, which appears to be a formality. 

“The scale of this project is unprecedented,” said Mike Peevey, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) president. “It clearly illustrates once again Edison’s leadership position in the development of new renewable technology.”

The projects will be focused on San Bernardino and Riverside counties and will add capacity at the rate of 1 Megawatt a week.  The SCE spokesperson pointed out that this new capacity will located and connected to local power stations. Generating power nearer to the customer not only reduce losses from transmission but reduces the strain on SCE’s entire network.

I’ve been sent this link to this NY Times Article by about 5 or 6 people today and sent it myself to about the same number.  The article is about the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) looking into the carbon offset market, since there is seemingly no standard for what an offset is.  I argue that this is not true.  There are transparent offsets avail for this newly expanding market, serving individuals and business who can’t wait for government to act against global warming.

In the name of disclosure I first need to say: I am about to launch a Carbon Offset business in the next few days, so i have a vested interest in the business.  I have spent a few months researching this business to determine the what sort of service to offer.  I started by trying to build the business by sequestering land from development, in sensitive areas of the world, but found that there was a lack of transparency in that industry and that the competition was mainly creating their own solutions.  Saving an acre of land didn’t necessarily mean the same thing with each vendor, most didn’t say if the fee was to sequester the land forever or just a year.  Even the Nature Conservancy’s “Adopt an Acre” site doesn’t say what it means to adopt an acre.  The same thing can be argued about “planting a tree”.  Sure a tree will trap tons of CO2 over 50-100 years, but only if the tree lives that long.  Is planting a sampling that won’t weigh 100 pounds 5 or 10 years out really offsetting the carbon we burn today?  And again, i want to make offsets easy for people and businesses to use to help change the world.  I’m not looking to create a solution, go plant trees and then create the studies to prove it right.  I want to help people act on their desire to do something about the greenhouse effect.

The solution that i found are exchange traded Carbon Offset commodity contracts.  These are offsets granted to various private and public organizations, via 3rd party certifiers, projects that reduce greenhouse gases.  These groups sell these offsets to other groups such as Utility Companies, looking to offset their CO₂ emissions.   These are the standard, transparent offsets that the FTC says are not available or at least are not widely use. Our business is only uses these exchange trade contract to fill our clients Carbon Offset needs.  I’ll be posting an official announcement when we launch in the next day or two.

The USA finally relented and stopped blocking an agreement on negotiating a new climate change treaty.  The frustration of the conference with US intransigence, finally came out when Papua New Guinea delegate, Kevin Conrad, challeged the US: “If for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way.” A statement directed at James Connaughton who indicated earlier in the week that the US was leading and other countries “…requires others to fall in line and follow”.  Following an outbreak of boos and catcalls by the international delegates at the US,  ambassador Paula Dobriansky relented. 

Ambassador Dobriansky told the conference “We came here to Bali because we want to go forward as part of a new framework.  We believe we have a shared vision and we want to move that forward. We want a success here in Bali. We will go forward and join consensus.”

Do you want to get $2000 in Free Government Money Thru Dec. 2006?

Yes this is a trick - have to buy $6675 worth of solar panels for your home and have them installed.  You are then eligible to receive a 30% tax credit for your installing solar electricity in your home, up to a total credit of $2000.

 here are the details

http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm