Boulder’s one thing. Boulder’s small. Boulder’s landlocked.

But affixing a carbon tax-like program to a heavily-populated port city like San Francisco is a whole different animal. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District wants to charge businesses a fee of 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide. The draft regulation imposing the new fees would go into effect on July 1, 2008.

According to a fact sheet put out by the BAAQMD (PDF here), it would take stock of how much emitted greenhouse gases were reported over a year, and charge the fee before allowing a facility to re-apply for a permit to own and operate equipment that emits pollutants.

One example provided in the initial coverage of the proposal by the San Jose Mercury-News gives is that a Shell oil refinery in the affected area would be charged $186,475 a year for its carbon dioxide emissions.

That’s a lot of money, and even a huge corporation like Shell will take notice of it. But they’ll likely fight it, too. And they won’t be alone. (more…)

The Colorado Carbon Fund, brainchild of the Governor’s Energy Office, seemed to become a more tangible, richer thing at the University of Colorado last week when CU pledged to spend about $50,000 on carbon offsets from the Fund. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter was even on hand to talk about it.

But what is it? Well, it’s an idea.

The Colorado Carbon Fund was started by the Governor’s Energy Office as a localized alternative to Renewable Energy Credits that would help Colorado make strides toward more voluntary environmentally-sound practices on a large scale.

Credits, which can be bought from middlemen like Community Energy, CU’s dealer over the past, function kind of like retroactive investments in renewable energy. For example, the credits that CU had been buying helped alleviate, in part, the startup costs of a wind farm in southeastern Colorado, according to Susan Innis, program manager of the Colorado Carbon Fund.

The new Carbon Fund functions differently. It’s designed to enable local entities like CU to help pay for local carbon offset projects. Innis gave the example of improving insulation in homes in Colorado to help preserve energy that would heat them.

“We obtain those carbon offsets from those projects and we would sell them to you,” Innis said. The functions of Renewable Energy Credits and the carbon offsets offered by the Colorado Carbon Fund are quite similar, in that they both provide money and encouragement for carbon-cutting measures, but the Colorado Carbon Fund would focus its efforts on local projects.

The CU Environmental Center learned about the Carbon Fund’s plans and opted not to renew their contract with Community Energy.

“We’re looking at a number of different certification standards and protocols for measuring,” Innis said. “There are some widely accepted methodologies for calculating greenhouse gas emissions.”

An advisory board that the Governor’s Energy Office will soon assemble will decide which standards to use, but three well-known programs they’re already looking at include the Gold Standard, the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the Green E Climate, she said.

More soon, as we talk to Dave Newport, director of the Environmental Center at CU.

Yesterday I discussed how it might be useful for the Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker project to acquire the dataset from the city’s new municipal emissions inventory. This morning, Boulder’s environmental affairs director, Sarah Van Pelt, clarified her earlier statement. It does appear, after all, that this project will have access to that data — but through the city, not directly.

Van Pelt wrote:

“The data are not proprietary but the inventory maintenance system is proprietary. I am happy to share any data that you want. Because we have a lot of data I would prefer to provide information that responds to specific questions rather than provide the entire data set that may not really get at the questions you have. In short, I’m trying to make it easier for you and others to understand the data rather than provide all of the data with no analysis or interpretation.”

As a journalist, my preference is to have the dataset so I can see for myself its patterns, organization, and intricacies. Also, I’d like to be able to offer it to independent experts for analysis.

But, for the time being, this offer from the city is a good start. So we’ll start here.

I’m looking over the data summaries Van Pelt provided yesterday, and considering what questions we might like to get answered from the latest emissions inventory.

In the meantime: What would you like to know about Boulder’s greenhouse gas emissions? Please suggest your questions in the comments below.

Boulder Dept. of Environmental Affairs

Summaries: 2006 greenhouse gas inventory (above) and 2006 inventory comparison (below). Click either thumbnail to view the full document.

(UPDATE July 11: The city clarified that it is willing to share this data.)

I just heard back from Sarah Van Pelt, Boulder’s environmental affairs directory, regarding the latest municipal emissions inventory I mentioned earlier. She offered two data summary sheets (click thumbnails at right to enlarge) and said:

“The inventory database is a proprietary product so I can’t send the entire system to you but I can provide data to address specific questions. I’ve attached two sheets from the inventory that I hope will provide the information you seek. If not, let me know what you are interested in and I will send additional information.”

I do appreciate Van Pelt’s (and her staff’s) responsiveness and willingness to engage in public conversation on this topic. The department of environmental affairs is obviously a key player in the carbon tax and local climate action issues, and this community journalism project has enjoyed a very positive, communicative relationship with that department. It’s always better to be on good professional terms with your sources.

That said, I do think we need to push further on this. Here’s how I replied to Van Pelt:

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ecenter.colorado.edu

Did CU cause a 4% increase in local CO2 emissions?

Way to go, Camera! The front page of today’s Boulder Daily Camera features a story by Ryan Morgan: Boulder spews more CO2.

Apparently a new CO2 emission inventory for the city of Boulder is, or is about to be, released. I haven’t seen this document yet, but I have requested it from the city’s department of environmental affairs. I am trying to obtain not just the city’s summary, but the complete inventory.

(UPDATE: I did just get some summary data, but am pushing for more.) 

The Camera noted an interesting aspect of the latest inventory: “Emissions across the city rose by 4 percent last year — the first time emissions have risen since city officials started counting carbon. Part of the increase comes from a decision by University of Colorado officials to stop burning natural gas to make electricity, and to instead buy it all from Xcel Energy’s coal plants.”

Emission inventories are crucial documents in understanding local greenhouse gas issues. In my work as an energy and environment reporter I’ve seen them before, and I know they often have many stories to tell. The Camera definitely found a good story here, but I’m sure it’s not the only one.

How can we dig deeper on this? The key is getting the inventory. Colorado’s open records law requires, among other things, that local governments produce upon request public records…

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GOBikeBoulder.net

GOBikeBoulder.net says I should take this route to lunch today. Thanks, but I prefer off-street riding.

It’s that time of year again: Walk & Bike Week is upon us — when Boulderites are cajoled and coaxed to get out of our cars and onto the town’s many trails, sidewalks, and bike lanes.

To celebrate, GO Boulder’s new local bike route resource, GOBikeBoulder.net, is finally up. The Daily Camera reports that this web application was a year in the making and cost a total of $150,000.

In about an hour I’m having lunch with a colleague from my former employer, E Source, to talk about the carbon tax tracker project. They’re located in the office park just north of Arapahoe and East of 55th. I’m biking to that meeting, so I thought I’d see how GOBikeBoulder.net would direct this trip…

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How big is your personal slice of Boulder’s CO2 pie? Photo by dongkwan, via Flickr, CC License

As the City of Boulder proceeds with its plan to curb its carbon emissions, some Boulderites might wonder, “How much of those emissions am I personally responsible for?”

That’s a surprisingly complex question to answer. When I recently ran my own carbon numbers using two different online calculators, I got wildly different answers (neither of which was as good as I’d hoped — a disappointment since I’m currently car-free).
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