Tuesday, April 18, 2006

US Department of Energy gearing up for credits

The last two lines of a recent US Department of Energy press release about carbon measurement make interesting reading in light of official government policy on carbon trading:

"Pursuant to the Kyoto Treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, "carbon credits" will be available to farmers whose soil contains large amounts of sequestered carbon.Polluting industries are allowed fixed amounts of carbon dioxide emissions, after which they will have to buy carbon credits, now being actively traded on stock exchanges from Europe to Chicago."

Does the DOE know something we don't know? They know about soil carbon:

"Photosynthesis sequesters carbon in the root systems of plants and finally in the soil. Switching from till to no-till agriculture increases carbon sequestration and farmers will want to be able to verify the amount of carbon stored.
Since carbon sequestration removes carbon from the atmosphere, thus mitigating the global warming, this will allow the farmers to receive carbon credits."

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