Exelon, America’s largest electric power utility, just made some big news. The Chicago-based company wants to significantly reduce their carbon footprint.
“In a bid to shape the debate on carbon dioxide rules and to get a jump on compliance,” according to the NY Times, Exelon will reduce, offset, or displace all of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. That’s no small task. It amounts to eliminating 15 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, an amount larger than Exelon’s total emissions in 2008 and the equivalent of taking nearly 3 million cars off American roads.
There’s a financial incentive for Exelon, and there’s nothing wrong with that. “Dealing with greenhouse gases, while essential, is very costly,” Exelon’s chairman and CEO John Rowe said. “If you have an adequate way of accounting for offsets and displacements, we think we can offset our carbon footprint at a reasonable price.” By improving efficiency among itself, its customers, communities and suppliers, and by increasing output from its existing low-emission reactors Exelon could cut costs by $70 per ton of carbon dioxide.
A side note. In their new book “Grand New Party,” Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam complain that conservatives have become pro-business rather than pro-markets. Interesting distinction, and it reminds me to say that I’m not endorsing specific companies, and that I’m sure our sponsors have their own ideas about Exelon’s approach.
But look: Markets must be part of the solution to heat-trapping greenhouse gases and that means business has to be.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 10:02 am and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Cap and Trade, Eco-Business Strategies, Oil and Gas . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:00 am
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