News
First sale of greenhouse gas credits in California from “Cow Power”

The Inland Empire Utilities Agency
has announced the first-ever sale of greenhouse gas credits generated
through “Cow Power” to occur in California and the largest sale of
these credits in the nation.

    The Inland Empire Utilities Agency has announced the first-ever sale of greenhouse gas credits generated through “Cow Power” to occur in California and the largest sale of these credits in the nation.

    The purchaser is Environmental Credit Corp of Santa Cruz, California, a leading supplier of environmental credits to global financial markets.

    “We are proud to offer to Environmental Credit Corp over 20,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) credits that have been created through the anaerobic digestion of dairy manure at IEUA’s facilities,” said John L Anderson, board president of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency.

    Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are said to be the prime culprits in causing global warming. Many scientists agree that these gases are trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere, altering weather patterns, shrinking snow packs and raising sea levels. Greenhouse credits are created when the release of greenhouse gases is reduced. The credits must be documented and verified before they can be sold.

    “We were very excited to learn about the availability of IEUA’s greenhouse gas credits,” said Scott Subler, president of Environmental Credit Corp. “They allow IEUA to get paid for their project’s environmental benefits, and in turn help lessen the overall cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

    IEUA’s lead project is a centralized “dairy waste to energy” digester that converts manure to methane gas and then uses this renewable fuel to power a desalination plant. By picking up and transferring the dairy manure to an enclosed plant for processing the digester significantly reduces the release of methane gas and other emissions to the atmosphere.