By
President and CEO
On Sunday our local paper here in
Xcel’s previous resource plan in 2003 estimated carbon costs at $9 per ton, and the increase reflects Xcel’s anticipation of a carbon tax, cap-and-trade plan, or some other scheme to raise the cost and limit the production of greenhouse gases.
At the same time, yesterday’s “Wall Street Journal” reported that the rapid growth of carbon “offsets, and their lack of regulation, is raising doubts about whether emission cuts the sellers are claiming really are taking place.”
For a variety of reasons, public and private organizations, large and small, want to accurately measure their greenhouse gas footprints. They may want to generate carbon credits for sale, fulfill environmental audits from their customers, measure liability or respond to regulators.
The problem is that their approaches to measurement are ad hoc. They’re expensive and slow. Companies are tasking environmental compliance executives with this job and these executives are to some degree scratching their collective heads and blazing their own measurement trails.
Frankly, as the “Journal” and numerous other media organizations have observed, there’s no way to know if we’re making progress against global warming unless we can accurately measure GHG emissions – and do it automatically, quickly, accurately and economically.
Our patent-pending C-Lock™ technology addresses that issue with a software and Web based solution that accomplishes this task. And it’s important to note that C-Lock’s business model is not about trading carbon credits, it’s about measuring GHG emissions so that others may accurately trade these credits or, comply with reporting and audit requirements
Look at our own core business as an example. We know our K-Fuel® refined coal burns with a lower CO2 profile than raw low-rank coal. K-Fuel offers “carbon avoidance” because is makes less CO2 per kilowatt-hour generated than raw coal.
Seeking ways to measure our CO2 advantage we came upon the C-Lock process, which was invented by
We recognized that if Evergreen was challenged with the need to accurately measure its own greenhouse gas profile, other companies and institutions must face the same obstacle and would welcome a turnkey process that metered their GHG output.
C-Lock became more than a tool for us, it became in intriguing new business opportunity with a close relationship to the needs of our core business and our potential customers.
A separate management team, linked closely to Evergreen, is working to build C-Lock without distraction to our core pursuit. These teams work together because many of our prospective K-Fuel customers are also seeking ways to better measure and report their GHG profiles. We see great opportunity in what C-Lock is doing and we look forward to updating you on its progress.