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Measuring additionality has clear benefits — and also some obvious costs

The second in a series of posts on additionality.

In his post criticizing the design of carbon markets, Sean correctly notes that additionality is a pain to measure -- an ever more expensive pain, as the industry matures and quality controls become more stringent.

To take an example I know well, at TerraPass, we spend tens of thousands of dollars per project helping dairy farmers validate their methane digesters under the Voluntary Carbon Standard. It's a complex process, requiring a fair amount of domain expertise, outside consultants, site visits, and ongoing monitoring. The process is meant to ensure additionality, but the cost carries some clear downsides. For example, we can't consider any projects that are below a certain size. Even if they're great projects, they won't generate enough carbon reductions to justify the effort.

So Sean and I agree that additionality in the carbon world is expensive and tricky to measure, and that the cost of doing so drives some worthwhile projects out of the system.

Spots vs. strips

This is the fourth post in five-part series on the details required to get carbon policy right. See also parts one, two, and three.

We now get into an issue that will seem a bit arcane, because no one's talking about it, at least not explicitly. But it's a real choice, and in many conversations about carbon policy we are implicitly getting it wrong.

Should we price carbon in spots, or strips? Or, to take it out of financial jargon, should we:

1. set up markets such that people who are selling or buying emissions credits have to go to the market with each incremental ton to determine what the price will be (a "spot" market), or
2. set up markets such that buyers and sellers can enter into long-term contracts for the emissions they will produce/reduce (a "strip" market)?

Land swap would allow drilling in Alaska wildlife refuge, two huge solar projects slated for Califor

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Like a Bat Out of Help An Offer We Can’t Refuge Go Toward the Light We Detect a Seal Change Law & Order: Species Victims Unit Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Garbage, Man Different Beasts All the World’s a Shag

EPA announces new lead standards for renovation of older buildings

Contractors will have to train workers to follow “lead-safe work practice standards” when renovating or repairing older dwellings that house children or pregnant women, according to new standards introduced Monday by the U.S. EPA. The new requirements are an attempt to keep lead out of the bloodstreams of babes, as structures built before 1978 are […]

File under Epitaphs for Humanity

Wow: Here’s the back:

Blogger Nathanael Greene takes on Philpott re: biofuels

The Natural Resources Defense Council evidently remains pretty sanguine about biofuels as a "solution to energy dependence and global warming." Over on the group’s Switchboard blog, senior policy analyst Nathanael Greene recently took exception to some unkind words of mine on cellulosic ethanol. I responded in the comments section. I hope a robust debate follows.

Small wind in urban settings

I never really thought much about small wind's potential as a significant source of a city's electricity supply. Windmills in a urban setting? I just don't see it.

Didn't see it, that is, until I saw it. The other day I biked by 1303 Alabama St., in the Mission District of San Francisco. Softly -- very softly -- whirring overhead is a 1.9 kW Southwest Windpower Skystream windmill. The Choose Renewables resource estimator says that it's a class 3 wind site, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually higher. As any San Franciscan knows, the Mission can be very sunny and pleasant during a summer day, but on summer evenings, as the marine layer moves in, the wind just nukes over Twin Peaks and the South Mission/Noë area can be a wind tunnel.

The result, I expect, makes for propitious economics. The house also has a 5 kW SunPower solar system. California's system peak is shifting later and later, which is being reflected in PG&E's tariffs. The old E-7 Residential Time of Use (which is being phased out) had a summer peak of 12 to 6 p.m. The new E-6 has a summer peak of 1 to 7 p.m., and a partial peak of 7 to 9 p.m. In practice, that means that as the solar system's production winds down in the early evening, the windmill steps in and produces electricity that would have cost up to 53 cents/kWh if bought from the utility.

That's just a wonky way of saying that wind and solar are like peanut butter and chocolate: great on their own, but even better together.

Polar bear ventures far inland, shot to death

Having boldly gone where no polar bear has gone before, a 3-year-old female polar bear was shot dead 250 miles inland in Fort Yukon, Alaska, last week. Hunters who thought they were tracking a grizzly bear shot the polar bear in what they say was self-defense; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the […]

Umbra on organic vs. natural foods

Dear Umbra, I’m trying to convince my sister that there is a difference between all-natural and organic products, and she doesn’t think there is. I’m pretty sure there is a difference, I just don’t know what it is. I look at the ingredients of some of the food she buys that she says are “natural” […]

Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection unveils ambitious $300 million ad campaign

If you read Juliet Eilperin’s great rundown in the Washington Post, you know that today marks the launch of a massive PR effort from Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. Gore has concluded that U.S. politicians will continue to be timid on climate change until the public demands otherwise. “The simple algorithm is this: It’s […]