In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

COMPANIES CURB CARBON EMISSIONS

In Business, July-August, 2006, Vol. 28, No. 4, p. 14

From Kyoto and Tokyo to Ontario, California, firms show commitment to curbing emissions and setting sustainable energy goals.

A JAPANESE company is taking major steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its vehicles. Based in Kyoto, Japan, Sagawa Express handles about 940 million packages annually (2004 data). Its goal is to become the number one logistics company in Asia using its 20,000 vehicles while reducing CO2 emissions. Currently, the transportation sector accounts for 20 percent of Japan's total CO2 emissions.
In 2003, Sagawa became the first business in the transportation sector to join the Climate Savers Program developed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Participating companies are required to set a net greenhouse gas reduction target greater than their current target and to accept inspections. After a year of preparations, Sagawa announced its commitment to reduce total CO2 emissions by six percent by 2012. Sagawa Express has also started to build its own natural gas (NG) stations to service larger numbers of CNG vehicles.
Another development in Tokyo aims to boost use of renewable energy to about 20 percent by 2020. On April 3, 2006, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) described its strategy as valuable not only as a measure against global warming, but also as a tool for the development of disaster prevention measures in a city that faces the risk of periodic earthquakes, while creating business opportunities for new potential growth industries.
In fiscal 2003, Tokyo's renewable energy use accounted for only about 2.7 percent of total energy consumption, prompting the city to review energy use and consider plans for reducing energy consumption. To expand renewable energy use, the TMG will consider measures such as disclosing information on actual renewable energy use and adopting policies that encourage use of set levels of renewable energy in overall energy projects.
To implement the strategy, the TMG will collaborate with businesses and citizens interested in the wider use of renewable energy. Some concrete measures in the strategy include increasing green procurement of electricity, seeking donations and investments from citizens and corporations for introducing solar power systems at public facilities, developing attractive, comfortable energy-saving houses, and encouraging greater use of solar heat in housing.

CURBING EMISSIONS AT TIMBERLAND
For Timberland, an outdoor clothing company based in Ontario, California, reducing carbon emissions has become a major goal. According to CEO Jeffrey Swartz, the company considered such options as buying power generated by renewable resources, building a wind farm, and setting up banks of solar panels - finally deciding to use all those methods.
The United States is responsible for 25 percent of all carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere each year. At today's fossil fuels consumption rates, the Department of Energy estimates that carbon emissions in the U.S. could rise to more than 8 billion tons by 2030. In Europe, companies that exceed emission limits must buy carbon credits. As specified by the trading system, cost of carbon credits reached $39/metric ton last month. Only 86 companies in the U.S. have enrolled in Climate Leaders, the EPA program to cut emissions.
Major strides have been made by corporations with operations outside the U.S. IBM and DuPont won savings from lower manufacturing costs while decreasing emissions. At DuPont, savings from energy projects totaled $2 billion over the last 15 years. IBM has saved $115 million since 1998 by avoiding 1.3 million tons of carbon emissions.
The nation's largest utilities - Exelon and Duke Energy - report they favor a mandatory cap on emissions, recommending they prefer firm rules “that would level the playing field for everyone.” A senior executive at Duke Energy told a Senate committee that “customers and shareholders need greater certainty.” Meanwhile, California and nine Northeastern states have drawn up plans to limit carbon emissions. And the author of The End of Nature, Bill McKibben, observes that there is no single answer to global warming: “What people don't get is the scale of what needs to be done. Anybody whose solution includes the phrase 'in 20 years' hasn't quite caught on to where we are.” - J.G.

MAJOR MEDIA DISCOVER BIOCYCLE POWER

AFTER YEARS of focusing newsroom staff on operations of major oil companies and nuclear power sources, the major media are at last discovering the energy in biopower. In a front-page story (6/29/06), The Wall Street Journal announced: “Big Players Join Race to Put Farm Waste Into Your Gas Tank.” In laboratories run by DuPont Co. and other competing labs, tiny organisms are generated that hold the keys to U.S. alternative fuel sources like cellulosic ethanol which can be made from “crop residues, wood chips and even municipal garbage.”
Its backers see the potential to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil, cut emissions that cause global warming, and support the nation's rural economy. Big names are attracted to the concept: Archer-Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), Royal Dutch Shell Group and Goldman Sachs Inc. “Suddenly, there is a race out there to develop a new source of energy,” says Thomas Connelly, DuPont's chief innovation officer. The search, says the Journal, is leading scientists to explore the dung of elephants and the guts of cows. The U.S. Energy Department has $160 million to spend on a competition to back three plants. Each candidate must have a pilot plant showing a process that can be successful once scaled up. At least 30 companies are competing - including Iogen Corporation, a biotech company based in Ottawa that says its pilot plant can produce cellulosic ethanol at a starting price of $1.35/gallon - far cheaper than current gas prices.
ADM wants government help to build a $50 million to $100 million plant, and another contender - a U.S. subsidiary of Abengoa BioEnergy - would open a pilot in the Midwest to make ethanol from wheat straw and corn stalks, while Cargill has licensed to Abengoa a microorganism it discovered for ethanol production.
A few days after the The Wall Street Journal's coverage (7/4/06), The New York Times headlined an article: “Tapping the Latest Power in that Powerful Barnyard Smell.” Cows, hogs and turkeys generate a steady stream of manure, “one of nature's richest sources of natural gas,” reports the Times' article on farm waste. Brown energy - or what we've called BioCycle Energy - has led more utilities to buy the gas. For example, Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to transport gas from a Microgy digester in California since it provides pipeline-quality gas and reduces carbon emissions. At least 70,000 dairy and swine farms are estimated to be large enough to support a commercial digester.
A 900-cow dairy - Five Star in Wisconsin - expects to profit from its $1.2 million digester as Dairyland Power Cooperative pays about 5 cents/kilowatt hour for energy, plus it saves money on bedding and compost. These changes are leading companies to rely more on digesters for significant income. One company that sells digesters in the Midwest, GHD, is cutting back on its business of cleaning up spills from underground gas tanks to concentrate on its anaerobic digestion patents. And Intrepid Technology and Resources in Idaho will focus on its digester processes collecting manure from 100,000 cows on 50 farms and generating enough gas to serve 40,000 homes.
And finally, biodiesel also came into its own with an article in the Times (7/5/06) that explained how the renewable fuel is made by a chemical mixing of alcohol and fats, greases or oils from animals or vegetables. Says Bob King, president of Pacific Biodiesel: “Our largest plant will produce 8,000 gallons of biodiesel per day. That comes out to more than two million gallons annually.”
You'll hear about all these developments at the BioCycle Sixth
Annual Renewable Energy From Organics Recycling Conference coming up in Minneapolis, October 31 to November 1, 2006. See the program outlined on page one of this issue. You'll get a clear idea of renewable energy feedstocks - and the complete connections that are being made with organics recycling.