[HCoop-Discuss] EnvironmentalPolicy

[Nathan Kennedy]

Adam Chlipala wrote:
> Nathan Kennedy wrote:
>
>   
>> The immediate action I want to take is to have HCoop buy wind energy
>> credits from NativeEnergy to offset its electricity consumption at
>> Peer1.
>>
>>     
> I guess the thing I haven't understood yet is this: Does the 
> organization we would pay for these credits somehow have "write access" 
> to the same electrical grid path that is feeding our servers, or is this 
> a more abstract act?
I know when I originally joined the cooperative and brought up this 
idea, carbon credits and offsetting were a novel idea to the general 
populace, but I thought that awareness of the concept had increased.  
NativeEnergy has a number of projects, most of their wind farm activity 
is in the Midwest, so no, it is unlikely that very many electrons from 
their turbines will pass through our servers.  This doesn't matter 
though, because greenhouse gasses are a global problem, not a local 
problem.  The important thing is that these certificates are backed by a 
number of contracts and certified by Green-e, the #1 organization that 
does this sort of thing in North America, as displacing the face value 
number of KW/h of dirty electrical power on the grid with renewables.  
If we could buy wind power directly we'd have no need for certificates.

The particular certificates I recommended, NativeEnergy CoolWatts, is 
invested in construction of new wind turbine projects, in particular 
projects on tribal lands in South Dakota.  But the way the certificates 
work, the carbon offsetting is not dependent on the success of any one 
project.

-ntk