Offset Scorecard: Finite Carbon scores first ARB forestry offsets with 1.4 million CT Lakes issuance
December 27, 2014 by CaliforniaCarbon.info
CaliforniaCarbon.info, December 27, 2014: Earlier this week, forestry offset project developers Finite Carbon were awarded their first ARBOCs generated through an ARB forest offset project protocol, when the Forestland Group CT Lakes project in Coos County, New Hampshire, was awarded 1,442,576 credits for improved forest management. Along with this, an Origin Climate* early action livestock project scored 10,000 ARBOCs. The total issuance of 1,452,576 credits two days before Christmas means we close 2014 with a total of 15,252,503 ARBOCs (88,955 of which have been invalidated by ARB) issued into the program. An estimated 22 to 24 million credits will be needed if compliance entities are all to maximise their 8 percent usage allowances in CP1.
Previous to this issuance, Finite Carbon had generated 688,505 ARBOCs through the early action system. Finite Carbon now has 2,131,081 ARBOCs against its name – including 411,917 buffered (276,975 for CT Lakes) – the third-highest number among all project developers, and the second-highest for forestry credits after Blue Source. Finite Carbon has six other projects listed under the compliance route, four of which have transitioned from previously being early action projects.
The CT Lakes project (ACR199) is the largest project by volume of credits to have come through the American Carbon Registry (ACR), and accounts for nearly half of the 3,074,213 ARBOCs that ACR has generated through ARB compliance projects. The ROCs for this reporting period (Jul 2013 to Jan 2014) were actually issued as long ago as Jul 9. However, the latest revision of the OPDR is dated as Dec 2, with the revised verification report following on Dec 4, on the ACR documents database. Issuance 350 days after the conclusion of the reporting period is the quickest seen in the compliance program thus far; the four projects to have previously generated compliance forestry offsets averaged 363 days. Environmental Services verified this project.
In total, forestry projects have now generated 4,821,504 ARBOCs through the compliance mechanism and 2,848,442 ARBOCs through the early action mechanism. The next most prolific project type is ozone depleting substances (ODS) with 6,880,082 ARBOCs combined, but future supply is under question with the likely cessation of ARB offset project activities at the Clean Harbors facility in Arkansas. Forestry projects for IFM may receive a bumper haul of credits upfront if there is a difference between the project area’s initial stocking levels and the common practice value. This may explain why certain projects with large ICS-CPV differentials opt to shorten the first reporting period to below a year so that issuance is expedited. Blue Source’s 2,163,951-ARBOC Bishop IFM project (the largest single issuance in the history of the California offset program) ran a ten-month reporting period from Aug 2012 to Jun 2013.
Origin Climate’s Scenic View Dairy I project in Michigan is the first digester project in the US to generate both electricity and pipeline-grade natural gas. According to a USDA database, there are 3,800 cattle and 9,000 swine at this farm, while the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) database suggests only manure from 2,200 cows is currently going into the three large storage tanks involved in the project. It has completed the conversion of 10,000 early action offset credits into ARBOCs for a reporting period covering the 2009 calendar year. Three subsequent reporting periods (2010 to 2012) have also been listed for conversion, and the market can expect 55,353 more ARBOCs from this project. This project has furthermore been re-listed as CAR1035 under ARB’s livestock protocol this January, with Ruby Canyon listed as the verifiers. Origin Climate were the first developers to secure ARBOC issuance for ARB livestock projects when the New Energy One project received 43,183 ARBOCs this September.
Scenic View Dairy is the 24th livestock digester project to have seen conversion under the early action mechanism. These 24 projects account collectively for 54 reporting periods out of the 98 that have submitted credits for conversion. 616,656 of the 1,086,777 credits submitted for conversion have now been turned into ARBOCs. Including ARBOCs generated through the compliance pathway, Origin Climate ranks as the second-most prolific developer at 140,510 ARBOCs, after Camco with 431,606.
*Origin Climate were previously known as TerraPass at the time when the project in question was listed under early action.
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