I’ve written a lot about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, our 10-state carbon cap-and-trade program that many see as a test bed for a national program, but I must admit there is much about the program that I don’t entirely understand. If you’re in a similar boat, may I suggest reading this piece from a site called SolveClimate.com. It’s a terrific overview of how RGGI works - mostly about policy and finances rather than technology, but that’s important, too.

Among the thing it discusses that I hadn’t really understood are offsets, used by utilities to compensate for emissions. (PSNH’s wood-burning conversion of part of the Schiller plant is our big example.) The offset categories are: landfill methane capture, reduction of sulfur hexafluoride emissions from electricity transmission and distribution (which helps explain why PSNH really wants that scrubber built at Merrimack Station), carbon sequestration on lands converted to forests, reduction of carbon emissions from “end-use” efficiencies in the building sector, and agricultural methane capture and destruction from animal manure and organic food waste.

Tags: cap-and-trade, carbon offsets;, RGGI