

Company in Oz replaces lightbulbs with CFLs for free - makes money selling carbon credit - jwilliams
http://www.lowenergy.com.au/eshd_index.html

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netcan
These guys must be making a mint. They caught me on my way out, scheduled a
time to come back, then when I cancelled at the last minute, came again. All
they got where 3 bulbs, but they still seemed pretty pleased. More persistent
then door to door mobile phone guys.

I guess this is like a super simple case study in carbon trading, pitfalls &
all. How many credits should these guys be getting?

In my case, I probably would have replaced those bulbs anyway. In other cases,
the incentive can be weirder. For one thing, There's a double jeopardy going
on here. 1. Individual feel-goodness of the guy who traded in his bulbs 2.
Individual feel-goodness via the carbon market.

Both are getting credit here. I feel like I'm lowering my emissions. But since
those credits have been sold, someone else is emitting them in my place. They
do the equivalent of taking my 100W bulb & plugging it into their wall with
the fuzzy feeling that even thought they are emitting carbon, it is being
offset. We are both claiming credit.

That's before the perverse incentives kick in. Why should I pay $8 X 10 to
bulb my house with low watt bulbs when I can pay $0.50 X 10 to do so with
cheap bulbs & call in these guys?

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jwilliams
_But since those credits have been sold, someone else is emitting them in my
place._

I know what you mean - but they will be paying to emit them, which will set up
an economic basis in the long term.

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netcan
Sure, it may eventually. If they _need_ to buy them to do whatever it is they
want to do & I sell because I want the money. But at the moment this is just a
way of cashing in public sentiment towards climate change: at a bad rate.

~~~
jwilliams
Why at a bad rate?

Companies are compelled to do this in Australia (amongst others) due to our
Kyoto targets, etc.

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netcan
_Why at a bad rate?_

I feel like I am saving X watt hours & the purchaser does too. So they (the
company) are trading in 2X watt hours "emotional credits" (the utility of this
market) for 1x watt hour savings.

Of course, that's an exaggeration. I lost my drive & ability to save those
emissions by replacing my bulbs, but it's not 100% certain that I would have
done so anyway.

 _Companies are compelled to do this in Australia (amongst others) due to our
Kyoto targets, etc._

Are they? I don't think they are directly. The Government is probably
subsidising this & other efforts but there is no compulsion to purchase carbon
credits. They Get bought by bus companies, airlines, etc. They are basically
also riding on public sentiment.

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astrec
Nice idea, but given the Commonwealth Government will pass legislation to ban
incandescent light bulbs in 2009/10, this product has probably has a fairly
limited life. My local supermarket has already stopped stocking them for the
most part.

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cdr
With LED bulbs making steady gains, CFLs also definitely have a limited life.
Maybe these guys will be back in a few years picking up your CFLs.

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hhm
This is brilliant. One of the best ecologic business ideas I've seen in a
while.

~~~
jwilliams
Yeah, I was really impressed when I heard about it.

Makes you wonder if there are carbon credits in other areas (e.g. Computers,
Data centres? Who knows).

Water is also a big issue in Australia. With the right legislation in place
around water you might be able to do the same with water-saving measures.

~~~
netcan
Water is _way_ easier. Could turn water into a working market in 6 months,
given the political support. Water is something that is much easier to
control. In fact, it's already controlled. All you need to do is limit supply
(via mostly government "owned" resources) to whatever you deem to be a
reasonable level, & charge for consumption. The smaller players (people with
dams on their land) will follow.

You could even have the government manipulate prices by literally 'flooding'
the market when necessary.

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patrickg-zill
Carbon credits are a scam.

~~~
mynameishere
Unquestionably. What they ultimately do is reward the unproductive for their
great virtue of being unproductive.

If the purpose was simply to reduce the amount of CO2 produced, then
governments would agree to a common tax: x number of dollars per metric ton of
CO2, period. Instead of that, the money transfer occurs between different
entities. This rewards countries that aren't capable of significant CO2
creation, CO2 creation being a signal of a first-world, productive country.

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dejb
If they agreed to a single common tax for carbon creation it would still end
up as a transfer from high carbon producing countries to lesser ones. They
wouldn't just burn the money collected or something, it would be
redistributed. So the developed world would end up shouldering most of the
cost. In my view that is only fair and natural. If the US had agreed to Koyoto
we would probably be close to negotiating that very situation about now.

~~~
mynameishere
_it would be redistributed_

I certainly don't suggest that it would be a _global_ tax. Rather, a globally
consistent tax. All money would stay within the given countries.

