Terrapass

[e_dawg]

Has anyone used this before? I just purchased about 18,000 lbs worth of CO2 offsets for my car, home, and plane usage for this year.

http://www.terrapass.com

 

[ddrueding]

Did you typo the address? It's timing out from here...

 

[blakerwry]

NPR had a segment a month or so back that was talking about a credit card that would negate the carbon emissions from anything you purchased.

How they know how much carbon is involved with producing every conceivable item you can purchase is beyond me, but I thought it was a neat angle. - The "I'm saving the world through shopping" angle.

 

[P5-133XL]

It works for me.

Now mind you: I don't believe in it because they are not actually removing carbon from the air so it is not actually an offset like it claims. What you are offsetting is the extra cost it takes to generate electricity in a greener way than by burning coal. It is not necessarily decreasing the amount of coal or natural gas being burned.

By my way of thinking, offsetting the carbon placed into the atmosphere by an automobile should involve permanently removing a similar amount of carbon from the atmosphere. This does not do that.

 

[ddrueding]

Works from home...I wonder why it timed out from the office.

Your car emits 49,790 lbs of CO2 per year.

Ugh...good thing I'm moving closer to work.

Edit: Heh, if I drove a 1985 'Vette, it would be 75,000lbs per year.

 

[Fushigi]

Your car emits 9,586 lbs of CO2 per year.

Hmm. I wonder how it knew that I have a V6 instead of the I4. Oh, it didn't know because it didn't list that as an option. I think it's assuming the I4.

I agree with Mark; you can't buy your way out of your "carbon footprint". That's simply a way for people to consume all they want and not feel guilty about it.

Planting trees and whatnot is good, don't get me wrong, but the real way to help is to reduce your consumption. My employer is participating in EPA initiatives and has among the top pledge totals on the first page of this list, saving over 2 million kWH and nearly 3MM pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. We've also switched from styrofoam to paper for coffee cups and taken other measures to reduce our energy & resource consumption. And, as the list infers, they're encouraging employees to do the same.

 

[e_dawg]

True, it is not the same as reducing your emissions and consumption, but it is something, and IMO represents a decent option where none existed before.

Also, providing an easy way to calculate your CO2 emissions for car, home, and plane is an important educational piece, because I had no idea how much CO2 I was contributing before and didn't think about car, home, and plane as three major sources of CO2 emissions that I can monitor and reduce over time. I think a lot of people really have no idea, and this kind of thing gives people that little bit of context or perspective that gets the wheels turning inside their heads, and enables them to internalize some of these concepts into their daily lives.

It takes a long time to shift peoples' mindsets and norms around pollution, consumption, and the extent to which their own lifestyles directly impact the environment. It's almost the same kind of thing that hybrids are doing. Instead of getting people to go pure electric, which they are not ready for and will resist if you force them, hybrids are a way to ease into it and get people to buy in to a more environmentally conscious lifestyle. This is a small step, but IMO, a very important one.

 

[jtr1962]

Also, providing an easy way to calculate your CO2 emissions for car, home, and plane is an important educational piece, because I had no idea how much CO2 I was contributing before and didn't think about car, home, and plane as three major sources of CO2 emissions that I can monitor and reduce over time. I think a lot of people really have no idea, and this kind of thing gives people that little bit of context or perspective that gets the wheels turning inside their heads, and enables them to internalize some of these concepts into their daily lives.

That's really the main value I see in this. The concept of buying carbon credits seems like a shell game to me, but at least getting people to think about this stuff is an important first step in getting them to take action. In truth, I'd also like to see some estimates of the cancer deaths a person's energy use might have. This might really get people thinking long and hard.

Along the lines of social engineering, I think we should modify the tax code regarding business travel deductions, perhaps end them entirely. Many business trips are totally unnecessary from a business standpoint. Nowadays so much can be done via teleconferencing, email, phone. Business travel represents a huge carbon footprint. Probably 90% of air travel is business related. Cut that by half and you practically cut the number of plane trips in half (and decrease road traffic to/from airports). A similar line of thought can be applied to some types of jobs which can be done partially or entirely at home. While alternatives are always a good thing, never making a given trip at all saves 100% of the carbon footprint (as well as time/money).

It's almost the same kind of thing that hybrids are doing. Instead of getting people to go pure electric, which they are not ready for and will resist if you force them, hybrids are a way to ease into it and get people to buy in to a more environmentally conscious lifestyle. This is a small step, but IMO, a very important one.

This isn't a good analogy, IMHO. The electric car never had a level playing field, period. GMs attempts with the EV1 over 10 years ago produced a great vehicle which would have served much of the population well had they mass produced it. Nowadays we could do way better. Fact is big oil and the big three never wanted electric cars, so they've been spreading all sorts of misinformation and half-truths. I even question whether the attitude at the top now is to use hybrids as a baby step to EVs as you say, rather than just another evolutionary step in ICEs. The attitude of the powers-that-be seems to be that we should drain the Earth dry of every last ounce of oil, including whatever is under the now melting Arctic Sea, before we even think about using anything else. And if we have more cancer deaths, or deaths from catastrophic climate change, along the way, well, that will neatly solve the Social Security crisis, won't it? The wild card here is that I see a growing grassroots movement to get the heck off fossil fuels. Let's all hope this movement is strong enough to overcome the inertia at the top. It's no secret I want this to happen yesterday. Not just EVs, but solar power, less reliance on autos, more sustainable living.

BTW, my auto footprint is obviously zero, as it is for plane travel since I don't fly. However, the combined electrical/natural gas usage for me and my mother at home came to about 30,000 pounds. Ouch! And we have fluorescent lights everywhere plus double pane windows. Not sure much can be done about it short of switching to solar power, or perhaps adding a little more insulaton. The heat/humidity here makes A/C mandatory for a good 5 months of the year. We only seem to have a few weeks a year of weather which requires neither heat nor A/C. Let's hope Home Depot starts selling solar panels soon....

 

[LunarMist]

Not too bad - 4,695.

 

[timwhit]

Their estimate seems like complete crap to me (for home).

According to Terrapass my home produces 7,113 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

However, I just got an electric bill today and it includes an Environmental Disclosure Statement which tells me that for every 1000 kWh of electricity I burn ComEd produces an average of 106.9 lbs of carbon dioxide. This is because 71% of the power is nuclear generated.

I generally consume around 500 kWh of electricity on an average month. If you multiply that out it comes to around 613 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. I consume no gases of any kind, everything in my condo is electric.

How does Terrapass get their number? They use the EPA's highly inaccurate Power Profiler.

If I put in my zip code it tells me that only 23% of my electricity is nuclear generated. This is because my regions encompasses parts of 10 states. Maybe Terrapass should consider getting better data before they try to sell people carbon credits.

 

[Tannin]

I did some quick sums, soon discovering that the Terrapass calculator is useless (even after I faked it by making up a zip code, using a state without any nuclear power plants (New Mexico) on the theory that that might be, like our power here in Victoria, primarily fossil fuel generated), but that achieved nothing.

One thing that bugs me, by the way, is the stupid inconsistency of measurements: are we talking weight of CO2? Or just carbon? Lots of places don't say and people must get hopelessly mixed up. Add to that the crazy units of measurements used in the US (Pounds? Hello? What century is this?), and it gets pretty stupid pretty fast.

A quick bit of googling led me to some Australian sites. Those, with a bit of help from my electricity bills, gave me a rough (very rough) figure. Then, a bit more googling led me to sites that helped me estimate the per-year carbon consumption of the trees I plant every winter. Near as I can guess it, I'm about even. If I can reduce my electricity consumption a bit more, I'll be a net carbon consumner, which would be nice.

But I have to work the figures out a lot more carefully before I can really say that.

 

[P5-133XL]

Tree's are not bad but they really do little for removal of CO2. While the leaves are green, they are great at carbon sequestering. Unfortunately, when the leaves drop off, most of the carbon they have absorbed throughout the year is slowly released back into the air during the decomposition process. The net result is only slightly positive. Please note that even evergreen trees still drop their leaves: They just don't do it all at one time.

 

[P5-133XL]

How Gasoline Becomes CO2

 

[Tannin]

It had actually never occured to me to count the carbon in leaves.

The appropriate way to measure trees use of carbon is to look at the amount secreted in the trunk and the roots. These are long-term things: that carbon won't return to the atmosphere for hundreds of years - indeed, assuming that you are looking at permanent revegatation of an open cleared area (as is the case here, otherwise I wouldn't give up my weekends to do it), the gain is pretty much permanent, as although these trees die and rot in a few hundreds of years, they are replaced by their progeny.

 

[P5-133XL]

I will agree, that it is the wood that more or less is long-term carbon sequestered. The problem is that it just isn't that much added mass each year per tree. While an individual tree can have a lot of carbon-mass, it is gained quite slowly over hundreds of years and then one good forest-fire and back it goes.

And then there's Bamboo ...

 

[LiamC]

And then there's Bamboo ...

Yes?

 

[P5-133XL]

It's wood is very fast growing, unlike a tree.

 

[Stereodude]

You guys actually buy into this crap?

You guys can save some extra carbon credits for me!

 

[LOST6200]

its like the COp2 comign from my backside, useless.

 

[udaman]

its like the COp2 comign from my backside, useless.

Ummm, I think Lost is confused...again . That's methane gas coming from your rear....end. It too, is a serious greenhouse gas and also quite flammable I might add...'jackass the movie' comes to mind (even if like Brokeback Mtn, I will never see this movie either, lol). .

tannin, how silly are you spotty poofers there in Oz? Use a measure of currency called dollars, lol. Everyone knows British sterling pounds are proper way to measure in the 21st century (well actually it's the Chinese currency you should be measuring by, as well as learning to speak & write in Mandarin...and what exactly is this century on the Chinese calendar tannin? ). Oz is so 20th century, lol.

 

[LOST6200]

I think you are the one cofused. There are many componenst to flatulents. Think abou tthe basic metbolics processes thet produce gases in the human body. Ever run GCMS on anaything in your life? though we normmaly use Ir for cO2 / CO analysues $$.

 

[e_dawg]

Here's some light reading for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence

 

[LOST6200]

There be CO2 in tehm thar farts.

The major components of the flatus by percentage are:

Nitrogen - 20% - 90%
Hydrogen - 0% - 50%
Carbon Dioxide - 10% - 30%
Oxygen - 0% - 10%
Methane - 0% - 10%