Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Calpine Among Consumers of Carbon Credits

MPBN:
Maine has earned another $1.7 million from the
greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program known as RGGI, state environmental
officials say. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is aimed at regulating
emissions that contribute to global warming by forcing dirty power plants to buy
emissions allowances from cleaner ones. Ten northeast and mid-Atlantic states
are participating in the initiative, including Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and
Maryland. So far, Maine has earned more than $15.2 million from the six
allowance auctions conducted so far. The money is being spent on programs that
promote energy efficiency and cut energy costs.

- John C.L. Morgan

2 comments:

Keith P. Luke said...

This article provides an opportunity to point out that the City of Westbrook is fully aware of the RGGI Trust Fund. We're fortunate that Westbrook Businessman Adam Lee was recently elected chair of the Energy and Carbon Savings Trust.

We've contemplated a number of large scale energy conservation/re-use projects that could involve Calpine and/or SAPPI, centered in the area of district heating. It doesn't take a genius to see that there MUST be a better way to utilize the steam that both Calpine and SAPPI now release into the atmosphere.

The first obstacle to overcome will be for the Trust to provide access to RGGI money to fund feasibility studies and do preliminary engineering work. As it is, funds will be awarded on a competitive grant-basis. Building a competitive application for a large scale project could easily cost over a hundred thousand of dollars, money no municipality wants to risk if landing a grant is something of a crap-shoot.

Again, we're fortunate that Adam Lee is now Chairing the Energy & Carbon Savings Trust, and that his office is so close by (my green thought for the day - walk across the street to meet with Adam Lee).

Keith P. Luke
Director of Economic & Community Dev.
City of Westrook

James Tranchemontagne said...

Two other great ideas, one easy and one hard, would be to compost local business and school system food waste then in turn use it for our public services. Westbrook own land to do this on.

Second is to harness the power of the river. With the right generators we could make our downtown electrical needs self sufficient.