WSJ: Coal-burning Ohio Utility to Buy CO2 Credits With Cow Poo--Cows Give a S* About Climate

[Lobster Martini]

(Link is below. The graphic is pretty cool. That is one surly-looking cow.

Cows, Climate Change and Carbon Credits

How a Big U.S. Utility Plans To Use Cattle to Offset Coal;
It's Just a Drop in the Bucket
By JEFFREY BALL

The biggest coal burner in the U.S. thinks it has come up with a cheap way to start fixing its global-warming problem: cow dung.

American Electric Power Co., a utility based in Columbus, Ohio, burns so much coal that it coughs out 145 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year -- more than any other company in the U.S. That puts AEP squarely in Congress's crosshairs as lawmakers push to slap a cap on U.S. emissions of CO2, a gas contributing to global warming.

AEP is investigating various ways to curb its global-warming emissions, from boosting the efficiency of its generators to burying its CO2 output underground. But the search will be expensive and will take years. Meantime, AEP has high hopes for manure.

In a deal to be announced today, the utility has agreed to pay a middleman to put plastic tarps over lagoons holding rotting livestock waste on farms. Decomposing manure produces methane -- a greenhouse gas that, ton for ton, is 21 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, scientists say.

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Methane accounts for 16% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. That is far less than the most prevalent greenhouse gas, CO2, which accounts for 75% of the global total. But methane is an attractive early target because it generates a big environmental bang for the buck. The methane produced by the manure of a typical 1,330-pound cow translates into about five tons of CO2 per year. That is about the same amount generated annually by a typical U.S. car, one getting 20 miles per gallon and traveling 12,000 miles per year. Normally, methane from manure wafts up into the clouds, thickening the gaseous blanket that is contributing to global warming. The AEP-funded tarps will capture that methane and send it to flares, where the methane will be burned, emitting less-harmful carbon dioxide.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118178859139934868.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

[Buzz Clik]

1. Sounds like a step in the right direction.

But there's always somebody trying to muck it up:

But guarding against gaming the system is important. For instance, simply putting a tarp over a manure lagoon can increase the lagoon's production of methane. So projects should claim as carbon credits only the amount of methane that would have been emitted if the lagoon hadn't been covered -- not all of the methane produced by the covered lagoon, Mr. Hohenstein notes.

Geez.