Very few of
us understand Carbon Credits. Especially us consumers. You cant eat them or at
the moment spend them unless you own a big Coal guzzling Power Generation
Plant.

Sometime
ago (2005) I developed a business plan for a company that proposed making a
large portion of its revenue from Carbon credits. (In NSW Australia – commonly called NGACS.)

A colleague
on that project recently asked me if as an economist I could devise a carbon
credit scheme that would put NSW Rail into the black.

My response
suggested that the infrastructure and maintenance of an organization that
required large pieces of steel smelted and formed (especially when the
electricity for that process came from Coal fired power plants) probably
precluded that organization from claiming self generated carbon credits for
public passenger movements. No doubt because the organization would fail the
acid test; i.e.: more CO2 was saved by those passengers traveling by train than
by car. (Even though NSW Rail runs predominantly on Electricity, it is mainly
coal fired electricity.) However there is the aspect of car-pooling. So from
that perspective, I am sure a Clean Development Methodology could be calculated
if – we analysed passenger numbers, routes, amount of electricity used per
passenger etc.

Besides, in
this instance it would be one government body (Railcorp) offering Carbon
Credits to another Government (quasi) Government body, Delta Energy.

But then I
got to thinking. Quite probably the passengers could utilize the Carbon Credit
(CC) Saving. In other words, if the passengers intent upon travelling by train
were to lower his or her emissions footprint by opting to travel by train [i.e.:
one day per week and leave their serviceable gas guzzling carbon creating vehicle
at home], then that person should be able to claim the carbon credit saving on
traveled miles basis.

Of course
that evolved into the whole personal CCs model.

Walking
REC’s (NGACS)
– A New Option.

The Human
Generator.

The average
human adult ingests between 2000 and 3000 calories per day. To translate this
into energy we need to analyse the measurement and conversion process.

1 kilojoule
= 0.24 kilocalories (often called Calories)
1 kilocalorie = 4.18 kilojoules

1 Megawatt
= 1000 Kilojoules per second (= 1 REC)

If you’re
of average size, when at rest, you use energy at about 1,500 kcal a day. This
is equivalent to 1 kcal a minute.
An average person is thought to eat about 2,000 kcal a day.
If you stand up, your body’s energy requirement increases by about 20% to say,
1.2 kcal a minute.
If you walk slowly at 2 km/hour this will double your energy output – 2 kcal a
minute.

Walking at
4 kilometres per hour uses 4 kcal per minute or 16.67 Kilojoules of energy

A beginning
methodology of Calculating Walking REC’s for Consumers.

So there we have it anecdotally
speaking.

To translate this into a
CDM, we need empirical data and methodology.

Fortunately, we have some due
to one of the the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Program (GGAP)
TravelSmart projects.

Andergrove/Beaconsfield
TravelSmart Destination (Double Destination) Project Results were funded
by  the Department of the
Environment and Water Resources, Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO).

The
GGAP Deed of Agreement with the schools required TravelSmart to report to the
AGO on the reduction in vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT).

The results
were impressive.

Whilst
there was only a 6.25% increase in walking,  that theoretically provides a whopping 394.9063
tons saving in CO2 or…… $9872.65 worth of carbon credits that the little
darlings could spend on Music, Movies and Ipods.

I can hear
the resounding cheers in the music stores. Now if we can just figure out how to
turn those RECS into Consumer Cash…….

Maybe
the music industry needs some Carbon Credits to offset its Greenhouse emitting
CD’s.

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