CAROL CHRISTIAN
Today staff
Giving Mother Nature a helping hand, seedlings planting began last Wednesday at ConocoPhillips’ Surmont site as the company gets underway with its Faster Forests program, an accelerated reclamation program set to become standard operating procedure.
Under current legislation, companies are only required to re-seed land reclaimed with a grass mix species, but it can take dozens of years before natural tree growth returns and the site is restored naturally. The Faster Forests program recovers the forest ecosystem more proactively.
“What we’re trying to do is simply accelerate the reclamation cycle,” explained Peter Zimmerman, manager of environment and stakeholder engagement for oilsands. “So rather than have a site that might take five or 10 years before you start to get little seedlings established and grow, we’re trying to do that right out of the gate.”
Lands to be planted this year are all delineation drilling well sites, all about a half hectare in size.
ConocoPhillips turned to Outland Resources, a cross-Canada company offering silviculture services — the branch of forestry dealing with the development and care of forests — to Alberta’s forest and oil industries.
They also retained Al-Pac to supply the trees: commercial stock, and mostly aspens for this inaugural planting, although ConocoPhillips is also awaiting delivery of white spruce.
“It’s in the future that we are wanting to move to using different kinds of species that would be more than just commercial timber species that could be used for habitat enhancement or might be of interest for traditional use by First Nations,” Zimmerman said.
Some 30 areas on the Surmont lease, a joint venture with Total about 35 kilometres south of Fort McMurray, have been identified for this program, partly because of the number of trees available. Some of the sites earmarked for planting this year by ConocoPhillips were disturbed a year or two ago, while others will be from this past year.
This planting is expected to last up to two weeks with two or three sites planted a day, depending on how far apart they are. This way, planters are taking advantage of optimal planting time in July.
“You pretty well have to plant (in) late June, July. You can plant in the fall and we might chose to do that on some sites that might have access issues, but I understand that the mortality of the trees in the fall is a little bit higher. You get better success if you do it in the spring.”
The technical foundation for this program was borne from a 10-year University of Alberta study being funded by ConocoPhillips with a number of other organizations. At the midway point last year, the university released a report with a number of recommendations to accelerate the reclamation period.
Zimmerman explained Faster Forests is important because there are two dimensions to surface disturbance: the area disturbed, and the length of time that disturbance remains on the ground.
“So we kind of think that in terms of hectare years: how many hectares are disturbed over what time period,” Zimmerman said.
“You can reduce your footprint in kind of two ways. You can try to shrink the area you that you’re using and we’re looking at ways to try do that,” he said, citing the possibility of such measures as smaller well pads and skinnier pipelines. “But you come up to a point that you can’t reduce that anymore.
“The other thing you can do is try to recover your disturbance quicker … and that is the aspect of Faster Forests that we’re really focusing on right now, so we’re trying to decrease the cycle time of the reclamation.”
cchristian@fortmcmurraytoday.com
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
MXenergy Reaches Carbon Neutrality Through Purchase of Forestry Offsets
STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MXenergy announced today that it has offset the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its national operations as part of the company’s ongoing commitment to reduce its environmental impact.
As part of its membership in the Chicago Climate Exchange, MXenergy has identified its annual carbon emissions of about 1,000 tonnes and has retired the same amount of emission reduction credits to make its national operations carbon neutral.
“MXenergy voluntarily offset the emissions associated with our multiple office spaces, air and road travel and other business operations as part of our company commitment to address climate change,” said MXenergy CEO Jeffrey Mayer. “We are committed to doing more than our share to fight global warming and encourage other businesses to come forward and do the same.”
MXenergy became a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange to take part in its voluntary cap-and-trade system offered to global businesses. As a member, MXenergy made a legally binding commitment to fully offset its emissions on an annual basis. After accounting and verifying its carbon footprint through CCX MXXenergy offsets the emissions.
MXenergy retired carbon offsets that were generated from CCX-registered afforestation projects in Illinois. MXenergy purchased and retired the offsets equal to its annual emissions from a project that plants hardwood and softwood trees on former cropland across more than 2,981 acres. Trees naturally sequester carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and the project was created with the sole purpose of creating a permanent solution for sequestering greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond addressing the emissions associated with business operations, MXenergy encourages its employees to reduce consumption of resources through smart energy and transportation management.
As a national supplier of natural gas and electricity with more than 500,000 customers across the nation, MXenergy is committed to working with customers on reducing their environmental impact. The company offers a program for customers to offset the emissions associated with their utility purchases. In 2007 MXenergy launched the Earth Friendly Partnership for customers to join the fight against global warming, enabling them to make their homes and businesses carbon-neutral by also purchasing CCX afforestation offsets Customers who join the partnership pay only a fraction of a penny more for power service, with MXenergy subsidizing the balance.
About MXenergy
MXenergy is one of the fastest-growing retail natural gas and electricity suppliers in North America, serving approximately 500,000 customers in 39 utility territories in the United States and Canada. Founded in 1999 to provide natural gas and electricity to consumers in deregulated energy markets, MXenergy helps residential customers and small business owners control their energy bills by providing both fixed and variable rate plans. MXenergy is committed to best practices in environmental conservation. MXenergy is a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and an Energy Star Partner. More information can be found at www.mxenergy.com.
About Chicago Climate Exchange
Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. is owned by Climate Exchange plc a publicly traded company listed on the AIM division of the London Stock Exchange (CLE.L). CCX, which began trading in 2003, is the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding, rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system, as well as the world’s only global system for emissions trading based on all six greenhouse gases.
Contacts
MXenergyTodd Miller, 203-378-1152 ext. 149tmiller@cjpcom.co
As part of its membership in the Chicago Climate Exchange, MXenergy has identified its annual carbon emissions of about 1,000 tonnes and has retired the same amount of emission reduction credits to make its national operations carbon neutral.
“MXenergy voluntarily offset the emissions associated with our multiple office spaces, air and road travel and other business operations as part of our company commitment to address climate change,” said MXenergy CEO Jeffrey Mayer. “We are committed to doing more than our share to fight global warming and encourage other businesses to come forward and do the same.”
MXenergy became a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange to take part in its voluntary cap-and-trade system offered to global businesses. As a member, MXenergy made a legally binding commitment to fully offset its emissions on an annual basis. After accounting and verifying its carbon footprint through CCX MXXenergy offsets the emissions.
MXenergy retired carbon offsets that were generated from CCX-registered afforestation projects in Illinois. MXenergy purchased and retired the offsets equal to its annual emissions from a project that plants hardwood and softwood trees on former cropland across more than 2,981 acres. Trees naturally sequester carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and the project was created with the sole purpose of creating a permanent solution for sequestering greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond addressing the emissions associated with business operations, MXenergy encourages its employees to reduce consumption of resources through smart energy and transportation management.
As a national supplier of natural gas and electricity with more than 500,000 customers across the nation, MXenergy is committed to working with customers on reducing their environmental impact. The company offers a program for customers to offset the emissions associated with their utility purchases. In 2007 MXenergy launched the Earth Friendly Partnership for customers to join the fight against global warming, enabling them to make their homes and businesses carbon-neutral by also purchasing CCX afforestation offsets Customers who join the partnership pay only a fraction of a penny more for power service, with MXenergy subsidizing the balance.
About MXenergy
MXenergy is one of the fastest-growing retail natural gas and electricity suppliers in North America, serving approximately 500,000 customers in 39 utility territories in the United States and Canada. Founded in 1999 to provide natural gas and electricity to consumers in deregulated energy markets, MXenergy helps residential customers and small business owners control their energy bills by providing both fixed and variable rate plans. MXenergy is committed to best practices in environmental conservation. MXenergy is a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and an Energy Star Partner. More information can be found at www.mxenergy.com.
About Chicago Climate Exchange
Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. is owned by Climate Exchange plc a publicly traded company listed on the AIM division of the London Stock Exchange (CLE.L). CCX, which began trading in 2003, is the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding, rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system, as well as the world’s only global system for emissions trading based on all six greenhouse gases.
Contacts
MXenergyTodd Miller, 203-378-1152 ext. 149tmiller@cjpcom.co
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