TerraPassTom’s Recent Comments

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  Organic actually 8% more

  Meredith:

  I pulled the Wieske et al. article, and taking the data from Table 1, its pretty clear that organic dairies in his sample produce 8% more kg CO2e per kg of milk than conventional dairies. Disappointing, but true. I didn't dive into your other studies.

  Now this wasn't the thrust of the article, and it was only a sample of 12 farms, not enough to discount the gains from organic practices.

  Wieske's thrust of the paper is to quantify gains from managing manure, livestock efficiencies, and biogas production at both conventional and organic dairy farms.

  The first and last were both central to analysis prepped and strategies explored at the DMI conference.

  Tom Arnold Chief Environmental Officer TerraPass

  On Sustainability goals for the U.S. dairy industry posted 1 year, 4 months ago 10 Responses

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  Actually, the GHG inventory was big picture

  Meredith:

  I was at the Summit, and have got to say the picture from a GHG inventory picture was pretty broad, down to including savings from encouraging pasturing, as well as reduced nitrogen volatilization savings from crop farming practices such as organic farming.

  I'd be interested in your claim that organic fluid milk has 50% of the emissions. That seems very large and impressive to me. What study is that?

  Tom Arnold Chief Environmental Officer TerraPass

  On Sustainability goals for the U.S. dairy industry posted 1 year, 4 months ago 10 Responses

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  Silver Buckshot

  Dr. Hansen:

  I agree on the necessity and urgency of weaning ourselves off energy from fossil fuels, and I admire the clarity of your call to Jim Rogers and other captains of industry.

  I also encourage you not to confuse carbon offsets generally with tree-planting projects. The best carbon offsets do just what you seek -- hasten the deployment of clean energy. I spend much of my time talking to dairy producers that can't quite make a digester project work financially. Carbon offset revenues materially help these projects remain viable, reduce dairy emissions, and provide clean energy in rural American communities. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is real and immediate.

  Please don't dismiss the efforts of hundreds of thousands of regular Americans dedicated to reducing their carbon footprint. These people aren't celebrities, and their concern isn't just for show:

  http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/terrapass-custo

  Offsets are of course only a part of the solution. Think of them as some of the "silver buckshot" that you've spokenof so eloquently in the past.
  

  Tom Arnold Chief Environmental Officer TerraPass

  On James Hansen writes to Duke Energy on coal posted 1 year, 7 months ago 11 Responses

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  Try: We will no longer get to burn coal for cheap

  Pangolin: The idea of a cap is that in fact coal plants won't continue to be able to burn coal for cheap, without paying for the allowances needed. At a certain level this does work like a tax, except its focused on a known outcome (lowering emissions).

  Allowances provide a hard limit on carbon emissions, and coal producers bear the cost of that limit, no matter how much the carbon prices goes up. That's not accomplished with a tax, where you just have to pray that the tax is set at a rate that hopefully curtails consumption. As an example, the rough doubling of gas prices from $2 to $4 is a carbon price of $200 per metric ton -- yet it hasn't really decreased consumption that much.

  Do we want a world where emitters know that they have to pay a known fine to keep polluting, or one where they are freaking out about a carbon price that could be very high and are mustering all their efforts to keep there emissions going down?

  A Cap links with Sean's world quite nicely -- with a price of carbon, anything that increases efficiency (such as great CHP projects) will suddenly look economic, as well as wind and renewable projects as you point out.

  I agree that attention has to be paid to the details, and that the system is gameable. But with folks like you paying attention, I'm optimistic that an effective cap can be put in place.

  Tom Arnold Chief Environmental Officer TerraPass

  On Does additionality matter? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 29 Responses

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  Additionality is only for offsets

  Capster, I agree with you. Additionality is what preservers credibility in the carbon market.

  Sean: if you work within a capped sector, you will monetize the carbon reductions in the forms of allowances (the ability to sell yours, or hopefully, the need to buy less) and no-one will care about how you did it. Additionality doesn't apply in the allowance market. For your work, the price signal enforced by a carbon market should be a huge motivator for emitting entities. I agree its a shame its not up and running yet.

  But in the offset market, we're always dealing with uncapped sectors, and there must be high credibility for the reductions, otherwise emissions just continue to expand. As a carbon offset buyer I want to know that I, collectively with other market participants did something to reduce emissions. If you find a gold mine CHP project, more power to you, but you don't need TerraPass funds to make it pencil out.

  Tom Arnold Chief Environmental Officer TerraPass

  On Does additionality matter? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 29 Responses