Green energy refers to the use of power that is not only more efficient than fossil fuel but that is friendly to the environment as well. Green energy is generally defined as energy sources that dont pollute and are renewable.

There are several categories of green energy. They are anaerobic digestion, wind power, geothermal power, hydropower on a small scale, biomass power, solar power and wave power. Waste incineration can even be a source of green energy.

Nuclear power plants claim that they produce green energy as well, though this source is fraught with controversy, as we all know. While nuclear energy may be sustainable, may be considered renewable and does not pollute the atmosphere while it is producing energy, its waste does pollute the biosphere as it is released.

The transport, mining and phases before and after production of nuclear energy does produce and release carbon dioxide and similar destructive greenhouse gases. When we read of green energy, therefore, we rarely see nuclear power included.

Those who support nuclear energy say that nuclear waste is not, in fact, released into our earths biosphere during its normal production cycle. They stress as well that the carbon dioxide that nuclear energy production releases is comparable, in terms of each kilowatt hour of electricity, to such sources of green energy as wind power.

As an example of the green energy production the average wind turbine, such as the one in Reading England, can produce enough energy daily to be the only energy source for 1000 households.

Many countries now offer household and commercial consumers to opt for total use of green energy. They do this one of two ways. Consumers can buy their electricity from a company that only uses renewable green energy technology, or they can buy from their general supplies such as the local utility company who then buys from green energy resources only as much of a supply as consumers pay for.

The latter is generally a more cost – efficient way of supplying a home or office with green energy, as the supplier can reap the economic benefits of a mass purchase. Green energy generally costs more per kilowatt hour than standard fossil fuel energy.

Consumers can also purchase green energy certificates, which are alternately referred to as green tags or green certificates. These are available in both Europe and the United States, and are the most convenient method for the average consumer to support green energy. More than 35 million European households and one million American households now buy these green energy certificates.

While green energy is a great step in the direction of keeping our environment healthy and our air as pollutant free as possible, it must be noted that no matter what the energy, it will negatively impact the environment to some extent.

Every energy source, green or otherwise, requires energy. The production of this energy will create pollution during its manufacture. Green energys impact is minimal, however.

You can’t trade in something unless you own it. When governments and companies “trade” in carbon, they establish de facto property rights over the atmosphere; a commonly held global commons. At no point have these atmospheric property rights been discussed or negotiated – their ownership is established by stealth with every carbon trade.

Market shares in the new carbon market will be allocated on the basis of who is already the largest polluter and who is fastest to exploit the market. The new “carbocrats” will therefore be the global oil, chemical, and car corporations, and the richest nations; the very groups that created the problem of climate change in the first place. What is more, with the current absence of “supplementarity”, the richest nations and corporations will be able to further increase their global share of emissions by outbidding poorer interests for carbon credits.

Many of the projects proposed within the CDM, in particular tree planting and dams, are subject to the same criticisms as other large scale development projects- they assert foreign ownership of local resources, they consolidate the power of undemocratic elites, they oust people from their land, they undermine local self sufficient economies and low carbon cultures.

Carbon absorbed by forests is only removed from the carbon cycle for as long as the tree is standing and alive. Industrial forestry will not sequester carbon. Permanent reforestation is a once only removal of carbon from the cycle and cannot offset sustained overproduction.

Because we cannot know the future, we can have no certainty that any project selling carbon credits has really reduced its emissions further than it would have done without the intervention. Profit competition and technical innovation ensures that industry consistently reduces its energy costs. A carbon market can provide an automatic cash subsidy for any investment in low energy technology. If such incentives exist they should be explicit, targeted and accountable.

Russia’s economic collapse since 1990 has reduced its emissions by 30%. Russia is intending to sell this incidental windfall (often call “hot air”) as international carbon credits- potentially swamping the market. If countries subsidise their emissions with these Russian credits, the final global emissions will end up being exactly the same as they would have been without a carbon market or a Kyoto protocol.

There are strong incentives for cheating and creating bogus credits that do not represent any real reduction in emissions. The vendor gets the cash without having to change anything and the buyer gets cheap credits. There are similar incentives for misdeclaration, and “leakage”- transferring polluting activities to areas that are not accounted.

The temptation for all parties to cheat requires that every transaction to be scrutinised and every sale to be certified. There is no global institution or accounting system that can manage the complexity of this market.

International legal frameworks are usually very weak. Countries that want to use carbon credits to subsidise their emissions are already arguing for penalties so weak that they will not discourage cheating. Many of the Annex 1 (Russia, Turkey, Ukraine), Romania- these are some of the most corrupt and lawless countries are corrupt or desperate for foreign currency and will happily endorse doctored carbon credits.

The main model for carbon trading is Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) emissions trading under the US 1990 Clean Air Act. This programme faced none of the problems listed above- it was small (a few hundred companies), easy to monitor (one pollutant from one source-power generation), had permanent targets, and, above all, was conducted within one country with strong enforcement mechanisms.

The only international emissions trading has been in CFCs under the Montreal Protocol. Once again, the programme was small (only 17 producer companies), easy to monitor (one pollutant from one industrial process), and within a strong legal framework.

The market assumes that carbon credits from different sources will be fully interchangeable (“fungible” in carbospeak). However, carbon sequestered in sinks is a completely different product from the carbon “saved” by a technical innovation, which is different again from the carbon “saved” by a social or lifestyle change. Add to this the complexity of trading in different greenhouse gases. Each source requires different monitoring rules, different criteria and different agencies. Forcing them to be interchangeable in one market is a recipe for corruption and fraud.

Supporters of carbon trading will argue that these are not problems- they are challenges. “Just because it is hard, does not mean that we should not take action”, they say. Let’s be clear that carbon trading is not being supported because it will solve climate change. In fact it will undermine even the pathetic emissions reductions already proposed. The real reasons for carbon trading are:

1. Governments want to be assured of a cheap way to buy off their failure to meet their Kyoto targets which will keep public and corporations quiescent.

2. Brokers, accountants, and financial institutions are extremely excited at the thought of the size of their cut in a new $2.3 trillion speculative market.

3. Corporations and other major polluters want pliant governments who don’t punish them for their emissions and hand over public money to pay for any emissions they are forced to make.

4. Oil companies support carbon trading as a way to avoid making any cuts in oil production.

5. Academics and financial consultants see rich pickings from becoming “experts” in the new market.

Product Description
This book covers energy conservation and new technologies needed within the materials field for today’s climate of high energy costs and environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. Also included in this book are papers from the second symposium on carbon dioxide reduction metallurgy. This title includes approaches on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction in metal production by improved energy efficiency in life cycle fuel use, reductions in carbonate-b… More >>

Energy Technology Perspectives: Conservation, Carbon Dioxide Reduction and Production From Alternative Sources: Proceedings of Symposia Sponsored by the Light Metals Division of The

If you really think about it, it’s pretty darn disappointing that it took a former Vice President of the United States of America to convince the whole world that the planet is in a whole lot of trouble – the disappointment is rooted from the fact that is has be a major international concern for years prior to that point, only that people who claimed that we must take better care of our planet were considered kooky or strange. Very sad, as some of those people once had reputations of being brilliant minds in their community prior to being antagonized by others who think that caring for the environment is technically one of the ways of the extremist. Now, thanks to Al Gore being respectable enough (with all the right sorts of backing), the world has come to appreciate how close we are to self-annihilation, if we don’t make a change. Couple this with the fact that celebrities loved the film so much that they promoted it at every turn, and we find ourselves with a recipe for success.

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