chickenlittle

Purchasing carbon offsets to go carbon neutral

all - there's movement afoot for going carbon neutral by purchasing offsets.  if you'd like to, terrific.  here are a few sites.

www.carbonfund.org

www.green-e.org

www.nativeenergy.com

www.renewablechoice.com

www.greentagsusa.org

www.climatetrust.org

www.americanforests.org

Various Solar Power Resources, Vendors, esp. NY and Northeast region

Nyseia.org

isi solar 845-348-4708 www.isi-solar.com

www.globalresourcesoptions.com

www.nesea.org

www.ases.org

www.getenergysmart.org

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35297.pdf

http://www.thermotechs.com/nyc.htm

http://www.miasole.com/contact/contact.html

Good resources for emission reductions

www.thegreenguide.com This guide has in-depth product reports (on light bulbs, diapers and so on), blogs and a comfy feeling; especially good on health and nutrition.

www.dannyseo.typepad.com Mr. Seo, an eco-friendly designer, blogs about ways to greenify your home, inside and out.

www.energystar.gov Good conversion data is available here. Also, while some may find their eyes glazing over at descriptions of Energy Star-rated appliances, it’s interesting to check out differences between what you have and what’s available now.

www.aceee.org The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy offers refreshingly straightforward information for both regular folks and wonks.

www.nrdc.org The National Resources Defense Council weighs in with good policy papers on almost every aspect of the environment — air, water, cities, waste, etc.

www.stopglobalwarming.org This site lets users join the Stop Global Warming Virtual March (in about as much time as it takes to read this sentence twice). It also has consumer tips. ANDREW POSTMAN

Energy Credits

NRDC

June 2006
FOOTLOOSE AND CARBON-FREE

It's frustrating to feel you're part of the problem when you want to be part of the solution. But there isn't much choice in a fossil-fuel driven world. Unless you practice a severe form of back-to-nature self-sufficiency, you contribute to global warming, like it or not.

There's no avoiding it -- not even if you drive a Prius, perfectly insulate your home, replace all your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, use rechargeable batteries and follow every other precept in the energy-savers rulebook. No, not even if you power your home with your very own solar panels and bike to work each day (though kudos to you if you do).

The reason is that personal emissions -- the ones from home energy use and driving that you're directly responsible for -- account for just 40 percent of your total. The larger part comes from everything else you buy and do. Your clothes, for instance. The songs on your iPod. The food you eat. For all of these things are made, grown or transported with the help of fossil fuels. So is the bike with which you may idealistically pedal to work. So are the solar panels.

But let's get real. If you're like most people, these indirect emissions are beside the point. You do depend on a car for transportation and the "grid" for power and are not about to overturn your whole life in a quixotic attempt to fight a global problem single-handedly. Still, you wish there were something reasonable you could do. And there is: buy carbon offsets to cancel out your emissions.

Carbon offsets are projects that reduce or prevent the accumulation of global warming gases in the atmosphere to make up for the gases that you have inadvertently put there. They achieve this either by increasing the availability of renewable energy, supporting energy-efficiency improvements by industry or capturing and sequestering emissions.

Of course, you don't really buy these projects. What you do is contribute to them. Depending on who you do it with, the contribution may or may not be tax-deductible. What it goes towards will also vary. Some organizations and companies focus on just one thing, such as buying renewable energy certificates. Others make a point of funding different types of projects, much as a mutual fund would. Certain groups choose projects that not only help with global warming, but other environmental or social problems as well, such as forest degradation or poverty.

Here are some of the major players in the United States:

CarbonFund.org is a non-profit that funds renewable energy, efficiency and sequestration projects. You can choose among them on the contribution form. The site has an easy-to-use calculator on the homepage for estimating your emissions, both direct and indirect. However, it only factors in carbon emissions, not those from other global warming gases. If this bothers you, contribute a little extra.

CarbonCounter.org is a joint project of The Climate Trust and the international relief organization Mercy Corps, which has gotten involved out of a desire to forestall humanitarian disasters stemming from climate change. CarbonCounter.org funds energy efficiency, renewable energy, cogeneration, transportation efficiency and reforestation projects. For project details, see The Climate Trust site.

Native Energy, a privately held Native American energy company, helps build new wind farms and biomass generators owned by Native Americans and/or farmers. Native Energy also offers renewable energy credits. In addition to an all-purpose calculator, it has a travel calculator that factors in all kinds of transportation (including train and bus) as well as accommodations. Unfortunately, the site itself is a little confusing, but not so bad you can't make sense of it.

Bonneville Environmental Fund is a non-profit that sells renewable energy credits to offset emissions. Bonneville's site has several calculators -- one is all-purpose, another is for special events and a third is for car and air travel.

Terrapass is a for-profit company that offers a simple 1-2-3 process for offsetting your car emissions. Funds go toward a variety of wind, biomass and efficiency projects.

Solar Electric Light Fund provides rural villages in developing countries with solar power. A gift to this group isn't an offset per se, but a way of extending the benefits of electricity -- in a climate-neutral way -- to some of the two billion people on the planet who lack it.

Each of these groups, other than the Solar Electric Light Fund, takes pains to get third-party certification for the projects it funds. Unfortunately, certification criteria aren't uniform, so you can't be sure all projects measure up. Renewable energy certificates are the exception. You can feel confident they conform to high standards if they have the Green-e seal of approval.

Some people question whether buying offsets isn't like paying for the right to pollute. They think we should focus on bringing our individual emissions down instead. I don't see it that way. Sure, we should do what we can in our personal lives. But dealing with global warming requires something more -- a change in the technologies that power our world. In my view, offsets will get us there quicker.

Besides, it's not an either/or choice. We can reduce our energy use and buy carbon offsets at the same time. The more we do -- and the sooner -- the better. Time is short.

—Sheryl Eisenberg

ONLINE RESOURCES DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION Go Carbon Neutral GRIST Fee to Be Carbon Free POWER SCORECARD Twenty Things You Can Do to Conserve Energy MAINE GREEN POWER CONNECTION How to Buy Green Power Certificates EERE Renewable Energy Certificate Products NRDC Turn up the Heat -- Fight Global Warming NRDC Global Warming Basics

Another idea list for emission reduction

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/takeaction.asp?items

Also, seems like a useful information source and, by joining the "virtual march" a small way to demonstrate support for the cause.

Home Audit Can Pinpoint Energy Lapses

Home Audit Can Pinpoint Energy Lapses

By JEANNE B. PINDER

PELHAM, N.Y. — My house, a 1922 colonial with plaster walls, a gas boiler and 34 windows, looks from the outside like a solid citizen with thrifty ways. But step a little closer and you will find unexplained drafts, a chilly kitchen and winter heating bills that have gone as high as $450 a month. With a household budget so tight it squeaks and the cost of gas expected to climb 40 percent, I decided it was time to bring in an expert.

That expert arrived one morning in mid-October bearing Ghostbusters-style cases and gauges and wearing a T-shirt emblazoned "City Scrap." He introduced himself in a soft Barbadian accent as Henderson Callender, an energy auditor at the Community Environmental Center, a nonprofit group in Queens that makes house calls under a state program, Home Performance With EnergyStar.

The program, begun as a pilot in 2001, now serves the entire state. By October, it had audited nearly 9,000 homes, saving each an average of $600 a year in return for an average of about $8,000 in improvements. Other states and municipalities have similar programs, many listed at energystar.gov under "home energy analysis."

Mr. Callender's tallying of energy leaks and lapses would cost $350, but that would be deductible from the cost of any repairs done by his state-accredited group. We started with a basic rundown of the house, including the cold kitchen and the appliances - all recent models and reasonably energy-efficient, I told him. He nodded, took notes and went to work.

Mr. Callender examined the gas boiler, 15 years old and rather dusty, but not yet wheezing. He pronounced it 78 percent efficient ("22 percent of your heating dollars are going up the chimney"), pretty typical for a boiler that age.

On to the kitchen, which sits over a dirt-floor crawl space. In vain efforts to remedy the cold, I had caulked and weatherstripped windows and a door leading to a patio, insulated the floor, replaced the sweep under the door and added a threshold bolstered by a rolled-up rug. Nothing seemed to work.

Mr. Callender opened a trapdoor to the crawl space and said darkly, "I feel a cool breeze." Somewhere, he suspected, cracks were inviting in cold air.

Upstairs in the kitchen, Mr. Callender asked politely, "Is this house insulated?"

Well, I don't know, I said, mumbling something about Styrofoam under the siding, and maybe a previous owner, and ... umm ... He fixed me with a solid gaze and said: "The first thing - the first thing - is to insulate the walls. It's like putting a blanket around the house."

After pulling out one of his monitors, he discovered that the stove leaked gas whenever it was on. "First time in 10 years of doing this I've seen that happen," he said, edging away. I made plans for a new stove - and a new gas and carbon monoxide detector.

On the second floor, Mr. Callender used his palm to check the temperature of a plaster wall. "Feel how cool that is?" he asked, adding that the presence of plaster often means that a house is so old that it has no insulation.

Imagine my relief when he discovered signs of insulation in the attic.

Back downstairs, he did a blower door test: He hauled out an adjustable metal frame with a vinyl covering and a circular opening, set the frame into an open doorway, inserted a powerful fan in the opening and proceeded to suck air from the house. A gauge reported a number meaning "not very airtight": further evidence that insulation was absent.

As Mr. Callender prepared to leave, he gave it to me straight. Along with insulating the walls and ceilings of first-floor rooms that jut out, he recommended insulating the pipes that carry water to and from the boiler and cleaning the boiler. He would also have foam sprayed into the cracks in the crawl space, and its earth floor covered with plastic to keep out cold and moisture. Replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs would help, he added; written report to follow.

Later I spoke to Peter R. Smith, president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which runs the EnergySmart program. (Those interested in participating can go to getenergysmart.org, click on the blue logo that says "Home Performance With Energy Star" and then "Locate a B.P.I.-certified home performance contractor near you.")

Contractors must be certified to take part, he stressed, and audits are done "from a whole-house perspective," measuring not only energy efficiency but also comfort (how cold can you stand it?), affordability (how much can you pay for heat?) and health (are there gas or carbon monoxide leaks?).

In addition to the rebate of the audit cost, if the auditor then makes the improvements, the program offers a cash incentive of 10 percent of the costs (up to $3,000) if the homeowner pays out of pocket. Low-interest loans are available, along with grants of up to $5,000 for households whose incomes fall below 80 percent of the state median.

As for me, I plan to have the Community Environmental Center (cecenter.org) clean the boiler (about $100), seal the cracks ($750) and possibly insulate some of the first-floor ceilings ($699). With the $350 rebate, the 10 percent incentive (about $150), and the hope of savings of maybe $400 this winter, that seems the way to go. I'll insulate the pipes myself and switch to compact fluorescents.

What I won't do right away is sink $11,900 into 34 new windows. And I'm on the fence about insulating all the walls: Mr. Callender said that if I do the first floor now (about $2,300), and the rest in 2006 (about $2,200), it will help a great deal. And if I wait until after Jan. 1, I can apply for a new federal energy tax credit of $500.

Meanwhile I know more about my house and am even feeling virtuous about my energy-related expenditures. With my soon-to-be-warmer kitchen - and a new stove - I'll spend more time with my children baking cookies this winter, and let the winds whistle outside instead of indoors.

Cool energy saving device (from Ethan Ayer)

http://www.energybuddy.com/kvar.html

Per Ethan: "I haven't used this actual device (being that I live in a rental in manhattan) but the concept it sound and with battery technology as advanced as it is, it makes sense to have a home device to smooth out the peaks and valleys. Here is a fact that you probably didn't know. In Germany, the electricity prices at 9:00 on Monday are nearly double the average rate for the rest of the week. This is because German households are particularly regimented in their desire to start laundry on Monday morning. Through a combination of public education and the installation of battery devices, a German town near Frankfurt was able to reduce their "spike" but 40%."

Great source of useful links

http://www.wilderhill.com/links.php

Seems too easy?

www.carbonfund.org

Nick Eisenberger sent this website along.  This non-profit org uses your donation to buy and retire carbon-emissions trading rights, so, for example, for a couple hundred dollars a year, you can offset your annual emissions and effectively go 'carbon neutral'.  Pretty amazing - it almost seems too easy.  If this calculation is legit (I have no reason to believe it isn't), this is another data point for why the key here is spreading awareness.  Cost is not the hurdle.

p.s. using Carbonfund, although a good deed, doesn't count towards 'the game.'  Or should it?

Useful resource on emission-savings ideas

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid173.php#Citizens

Or

www.rmi.org