The following post was written by Vice President Mike Farmer:
On Tuesday, May 20th, Loren Petzoldt and I attended a training session on carbon trading sponsored by Cornell University. The purpose was to educate individuals working with farmers about opportunities to sell carbon offset credits. We both learned a lot and the speakers were very good.
Carbon trading is still a young industry in the US. The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is the market clearing house for trading in the US. Carbon is traded on the CCX in metric ton carbon dioxide equivalents. Methane is 23 times more polluting than carbon dioxide as far as increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Locally, Vermont has a Renewable Energy Credit available that provides substantially more revenue for farm producers than Carbon Credits, but these are primarily for the methane digester producers. Timber farmers could also benefit from selling Carbon Credits but they would be required to grant a permanent easement that essentially restricts timber harvesting forever.
Selling both Renewable Energy Credits and Carbon Credits is not allowed (no double dipping). The CCX has established rules to monetize the credits and third party verifiers audit and confirm that the credits are real. Typically an Aggregator acts as a middle man between the producers and the CCX to combine enough credits to meet the CCX minimum. Some of the Aggregators allow pooling of the credits for the producer and allows them to sell the credits at a later date (thinking the credits will be worth more in the future).
Neither Loren or I can think of any current customers that would sell Carbon Credits right now but as the industry evolves and more options become available, it may be another revenue source for our producers.
