An Alberta company is in the market for carbon credits.
Bill Letondre, a spokesperson for Flatlanders Environmental Services of Clyde, said offset aggregator companies such as his are the only way farmers can take advantage of the new market in carbon credits.
“It is impossible for a single producer to get enough,” said Letondre.
“We can put projects together so that they are large enough operations and they can be traded.”
Aggregator companies collect large groups of farmers to meet the minimum 12,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent needed to trade on the Chicago Climate Exchange. The exchange is North America’s only system for buying and selling carbon credits and allows polluting companies to offset the greenhouse gases they produce by buying credits from industries that store carbon, such as what farmers do through minimum or no till cultivation, improved livestock feed efficiency and better manure handling.
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Carbon is currently trading on the exchange for $4 US per tonne and a producer may expect to be paid $1.50 per acre.
“With some of the legislation coming down the line, I can see that value will increase,” Letondre said.
Flatlanders was formed 18 months ago and is registered in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It will sign four year contracts with farmers and use third party inspectors to verify the actual amount of credits produced by each farm.
Emissions Credits Corp., of Didsbury, is one such inspector.
Company marketing director Bob Coulter said new Alberta legislation is seen as a market opportunity for the carbon credit industry. The government demands polluters reduce emissions by 12 percent on July 1 or pay $15 per tonne to the government’s technology fund.
Coulter said many companies will be caught short by four to six percent so they must find offsets.
“Our partners on the supply side are the farmers of Alberta. By their agricultural practices and their activities on the land, they would actually develop credits.”
The company can measure a farm activity such as no-till and convert it to a credit. It has an agreement with the Canadian Standards Association to register credits to prove that something real is being traded.
One credit equals one tonne of carbon dioxide.
The company offers a one year contract and can work with landowners and renters.
Coulter estimates carbon should trade for $6 to $12 per tonne and the farmer receives 60 percent of the final sale. A polluting company may need to offset 100,000 to five or six million tonnes of emissions.
“There is a business opportunity for people to participate in a program that helps the environment but also generate some revenue into the rural community,” he said.
“They aren’t going to get rich, but they might pay the taxes on their land,” he said.
Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and halocarbons, which are converted to carbon equivalents.
Using zero tillage could remove half a tonne of carbon dioxide per year per acre. By more efficiently applying nitrogen fertilizer, farmers could reduce carbon dioxide by another third of a tonne per acre per year. Converting marginal farmland back to hay or grass could remove 1.19 tonnes of carbon dioxide. If that land is converted to trees the reduction could be nearly two tonnes per year per acre.
Alberta is considered a major polluter in Canada with its high number of coal generated power plants, gas plants and oilsands activity.
Alberta Environment said about 100 facilities accounted for 39 percent of the total reported emissions for Canada in 2005, which translates to 109 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of emissions was carbon dioxide. Ontario was next at 78 megatonnes, or 28 percent of Canadian emissions.
