The best way to Go Green for Christmas... plus a new address for me

Hi all. So I got an email from my dad today, who was thinking of buying some "carbon credits" for Christmas. He asked if I knew anything about Carbon Fund, one of that MANY companies that now sell the ability to be "carbon neutral." Basically, a company will calculate how much CO2 you emit in a year (by asking how much you drive, fly, use electricity, etc.), and then sell you that amount of carbon in "Green Tags," which in principle neutralizes the carbon you emit in your daily living, thus making your own life "carbon neutral." Ironically, I was working on a research paper that concerned this exact topic last spring, since Green Tags are so in vogue right now (see the WWU program, or the Syriana movie production; the latter used to advertise that it was produced "carbon neutral" on its website). Nothing was published, but here is what we were researching in a nutshell (as told to my dad by me):

Hi dad. Interesting that you should bring up Carbon Fund. I interviewed a senior fellow there for the research paper I was working on last year with Dan Hagen, my environmental econ. professor. So basically, when you go "carbon neutral," you're buying what's called a Green Tag. Green Tags are generated when electricity is produced by green sources, ie. wind. So a windmill produces two things as it spins: electricity, and a Green Tag for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. So there are two markets in renewable energy: the electricity, which is bought under contract by utilities and then re-sold to customers, and Green Tags, which can be bought - and sold - by anyone. That's right, there is a secondary market for Green Tags, that is, I can buy a bunch of Green Tags and then sell them to you at whatever price (basically market speculation - but look how cheap it is to be carbon neutral!). How many green tags are out there that haven't been bought yet? 10? 1,000,000,000? No one knows! What year were the tags produced? Well, most organizations, such as Carbon Fund, say they come from "new" sources. What's a new source? Any facility that has come online since 1997. So when you buy green tags, you could be buying something from a windmill that came online in 1997.

I don't know if you remember, but the thrust of our investigation was this: why suppose that your money spent on Green Tags is putting up new windmills? Did you read what you're buying on the website (there are many such sites, and many of them do a poor job of explaining exactly what you're purchasing. The certifier of green tags is Green E, whose website has an OK explanation that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Interesting, considering they are THE regulatory body of Green Tags. They are also the ones who define "new," which is now anything built since 1997)? Virtually all of these organizations that say you can go "carbon neutral" via renewable energy purchases are selling the same product: Green-E Green Tags.

The kicker? We found no evidence that the revenue stream from Green Tags encourages additional capacity (ie more windmills, solar plants, etc.) to be built. Electric plants are built around 30-year payment schemes and financing, thus the contracts for the electricity produced are usually at least for 5 years, often times much longer. How could a renewable producer rely on what is essentially a one-month contract (MAYBE one year) that could be canceled at any time? They can't. Thus, the people that build additional renewable energy generation capacity do not consider Green Tag revenue. It's just icing on the cake for them.

That's the situation in a nutshell. Let me know if any of that didn't make sense. I would say that if you want to help the environment, use a carbon-calculator (the most sophisticated apparatus on those sites, the ones that figure out how much you PAY them) to find your footprint, and then find a friend of yours who doesn't have a lot of disposable income and weatherize their house for them. You'll help someone save on their utility bills, and your actions will have tangible, measurable effects on the environment - plus efficiency measures are ALWAYS the best thing for the environment when it comes to the energy world (in terms of money spent versus benefit received). Sure, they're way less sexy than a Prius, but it's easy to do: just figure out kWh saved and multiply by the amount of fuel burned for that energy. Yes, it involves some math and some basic research (like where you get your energy). Or, if you're not interested in that, just take the same amount of money you would spend on Green Tags and invest it in efficiency. You're guaranteed to do more.

Even the guy at Carbon Fund, when I directly asked him, said "of course our stance is that the purchase of Green Tags encourage additional capacity," even though he couldn't really say how they did. And then he added, "off the record though, I have my doubts. Would you let us know the results of your research?" Dan Hagen told us "the more I learn about this tag issue, the more I support these renewable portfolios, because you can be sure they're actually doing something!" A renewable portfolio, like the one that was recently mandated in WA, requires a certain amount of electricity to come from renewables in each utility district. WA now requires 15% by 2010 or 2012 I think, although districts can buy credits from other utilities that are over-producing. The portfolios do not count large hydro as renewable.

Green Tags are actually what Western Washington University spends almost half a million dollars on each year (thanks to the group I'm a part of, Students for Renewable Energy). We're currently in a 5 year contract with Stateline windfarm, which may or may not encourage them to expand. But the expenditure is more symbolic than anything else, and it's only more so with individuals buying small amounts month-to-month. That was the whole thing that encouraged our research: is the university spending a whole lot of money on symbolism? No one seems to care; Western even won a big award from the DOE and EPA for being so green with our program!

Speaking of the Prius, under the EPA's new mileage estimation guidelines (which basically acknowledge that people today drive faster with bigger cars than in 1975, and that they use more power-hungry gear like stereos and air-con), the Prius' expected mileage will drop from 61/51 city/highway to 44/44 (I got almost as good of milage on the highway in my 2000 Honda Civic). In independent tests, the Toyota Corolla gets about 30 in the city, where people do most of their driving. Price difference? The Corolla is about $8,000 cheaper. Sure, it doesn't wrap you in a cocoon of super-cool, I'm-so-green, tempered steel, but it's a similar car for a lot less money that still gets decent mileage. My advice is to use that 8 grand to buy some extra insulation for your house, slow down on the highway (every mile above 55 reduces milage by 1%), keep your tires inflated (can reduce milage by up to 5%), and walk or drive to work or school. It's better for your health, your wallet, and our environment. Or buy $8K worth of tree seeds (some programs here) or donate to programs that alleviate poverty in Africa so the people there won't feel compelled to clear-cut old growth for cooking fuel, or... there's lots of other options! Don't forget that the mining, smeltering, and production of the steel in a new Prius emits not just CO2, but a whole host of other nasty pollutants, not to mention the plastic, batteries, rubber, wiring... OK, my Prius rant is over. In short, I know we all want to help, but most of us don't have a lot of money to do that. So it's important to figure out how your money will do the most good! It's too bad that being a responsible global citizen isn't as easy as just buying a new car, but it isn't. What's a better option? Well, donate to the Solar Electric Light Fund, which displaces polluting energy AND helps the worlds poor, or to Native Energy, which uses donations to build windmills that otherwise couldn't be built; the windmills also provide a revenue stream for some of the poorest people in America (and a people that the rest of us owe, big time). Or donate to E+Co, which uses money to actually replace dirty energy with renewables and, again, help the worlds poor.

If any of that is confusing, don't hesitate to ask me to clarify! I like talking about this stuff (in case you couldn't tell, 10 pages later).


So I asked at the La Paz post office today, who told me THIS is where you should send me mail (since I know my 5 readers really want to send me a fruitcake! Don't bother - fruitcake is ubiquitous over here):

Devin Malone
Correo Restante
Correo Central
La Paz, Bolivie

No, that's not a typo, it's how they spell Bolivia here. At least at the post office.

One other thing, because I think it's funny: the spell check on Blogger thought that "fruitcake" was me trying to type "britches," a word in the lexicon that does deserve more use. Point taken, Blogger. I'll hitch up my britches and try and use that word more often.