Offset Scorecard: First ODS ARBOCs generated through destruction acts at Texas facility

August 28, 2014 by CaliforniaCarbon.info

CaliforniaCarbon.info, August 28, 2014: Yesterday, California cap-and-trade regulators the Air Resources Board (ARB) announced the issuance of 317,761 ARB offset credits (ARBOCs) to four projects, distributed between the forestry, livestock (two), and ozone depleting substances (ODS) project types. The total number of issued ARBOCs now stands at 11,770,039. The ODS issuance, worth over half the credits in this batch at 160,623, was noteworthy for being the first awarded to a project using the Veolia ES combustion destruction facility in Port Arthur, Texas.

Hanes Ranch Forest Carbon Project sees ACR hit ten

Forest Carbon Partners’ Hanes Ranch (ACR182) was the sole compliance project to be awarded ARBOCs on this occasion, and the only one to have originally been listed with the American Carbon Registry (ACR) rather than the Climate Action Reserve (CAR). An improved forest management project occurring on a 2,456-acre project area, it aims to increase carbon sequestration by reducing timber harvest and deploying uneven-aged silvicultural techniques. Of its 107,214 ARBOCs, 20,586 have been held aside in the buffer, reflecting a 19.2% reversal risk rating.

Taking into account the Yurok Tribe compliance forestry project (CAR993), previously awarded 836,619 ARBOCs, Forest Carbon Partners have now generated 943,833 ARBOCs (152,773 buffered) for the program. Forest projects continue to lead in terms of number of ARBOCs generated for the program, with this issuance taking the total to within a few thousands of six million.

Hanes Ranch is also the tenth ACR project to generate ARBOCs. Unlike CAR, which was set up in 2001 as a California initiative to encourage participation in and documentation of emission reduction activities, ACR was a late entrant to the California offset space, and this is reflected in the profile of ACR’s body of projects. Only two ACR early action projects have been listed with ARB, and only one has earned ARBOCs (compared to CAR’s 47). However, among the active ARB compliance projects, ACR’s outnumber CAR’s nine to eight.

Eight of these ten, including the single early action project, are ODS projects, and the remaining two are forestry.

Windy Ridge Dairy and Environmental Credit Corp

Windy Ridge Dairy (CAR488) in Indiana is the twelfth Environmental Credit Corp (ECC) project to register ARBOCs. It has been awarded 37,535 ARBOCs for all three reporting periods which were listed with ARB for conversion. Waste from 7,000 cows is processed using a mixed plug-flow anaerobic digester, and the captured biogas is either used to generate power through three boilers, or flared. Furthermore, the project has already been transitioned to a compliance project, and is now also listed as CAR1058.

Of ECC’s twelve active ARB projects, eight are livestock, all of which are based either in New York or in Indiana. The four Indiana projects have all transitioned to the ARB compliance protocol, and look set to continue generating credits for fresh ten-year crediting cycles.

Green Valley Dairy and Origin Climate

Green Valley Dairy (CAR504) in Wisconsin is the third Origin Climate project to register ARBOCs. However, only the latest of its five ARB-listed reporting periods – worth 12,389 tons and running from May 2012 to April 2013 – has been credited at ARB level. It remains to be seen when the remaining 37,500 CRTs will be converted to ARBOCs, while 2,068 CRTs from this project have also been cancelled or retired for reasons unrelated to the compliance offset program. At Green Valley, manure from 3,900 cows is fed into a complete mix digester, and the end use is the displacement of fossil-fuel power through biogas power generation and waste heat retention.

Origin Climate, formerly TerraPass, also has two compliance projects which have generated registry offset credits (ROCs) but are awaiting final ARBOC issuance. While the 5,005-credit Sunny Knoll Farms project only generated ROCs at the end of July, the 43,183-credit New Energy One project has been awaiting issuance for nearly four months. Either could be the first to generate ARBOCs through the ARB livestock protocol. Sunny Knoll transitioned from a CAR early action project (CAR490), which similarly awaits the conversion of 17,788 CRTs to ARBOCs.

Reclamation Technologies

Reclamation Technologies, part of A-GAS Americas, has put its third active ARB project on the board, generating 160,623 ARBOCs over three reporting periods under the RemTec International ODS Destruction Domestic Project #2. While hitherto all but one of the ODS projects to have generated ARBOCs have used either the Clean Harbors destruction facility in El Dorado, Arkansas, or ironically RemTec’s own facility in Bowling Green, Ohio, this project conducted its destruction acts at the Veolia ES combustion destruction facility in Port Arthur, Texas. RemTec have now crossed the half-million mark in terms of ARBOCs generated.

Please see our ARBOC Tracker (http://californiacarbon.info/arbocs/)  for a fuller breakdown of ARBOCs generated.

The next ARBOC issuance announcement will be conducted at 12pm PT on Wednesday, September 10.

For further information regarding this article, please write to contact@californiacarbon.info.