Forestry
Forest Carbon Projects: New Revenue Generation from Timber Holdings
U.S. forest owners have significant opportunities for new revenues from carbon mitigation credits generated by their timber holdings as a result of California cap and trade climate legislation and increasing interest in forest carbon in the voluntary market.
Three forest project types are being embraced in environmental markets:
- Avoided Conversion: This project type places forestland under easement to prevent conversion to residential, commercial or agricultural use.
- Reforestation: These projects plant trees in deforested areas.
- Improved Forest Management (IFM): IFM projects maintain carbon stocks above regional averages through long-term changes in management practices.
Demonstrated Leadership
Bluesource leads the forest carbon market with more forest projects and credits listed, registered and sold on the Climate Action Reserve than any other company. We also have more forest carbon credits registered in the California program than any other company. These successes have established our unique position as a leader in forest carbon in both the voluntary and the California compliance market.
Our team provides free project opportunity assessments and turnkey project development services, overseeing and financing every activity from forest carbon inventory to third party verification and final sale of credits. This approach enables landowners to fully maximize the upside from rising carbon prices while minimizing upfront project development time, expense and risk.
Grasslands
Grasslands Carbon Sequestration
Bluesource’s experience in natural climate solutions is highlighted in our grasslands projects. We developed and registered one of the first non-pilot projects under this emerging protocol.
Grasslands projects offer landowners the opportunity to avoid conversion to row-crop agriculture. Carbon credit revenue provides an economic alternative to conversion and allows carbon to remain stored in the grasslands.
Landfill Gas
Landfill Gas Collection: Navigating Best Options
Bluesource has substantial experience in creating and monetizing Verified Emission Reduction (VER) credits from landfill gas (LFG) collection and utilization projects. Working with landfills that have or are considering installing qualifying collection systems, we can help find the best path to create the highest quality, most valuable VER credits. Additionally, we are a full-service provider and market the credits to buyers while covering upfront project development and marketing costs.
Landfill owners are eligible to produce carbon credits if the collection and destruction of the gas is completed on a voluntary basis and not in a business-as-usual scenario. Diverting LFG to a beneficial use project can reduce on-site energy costs and generate an additional revenue stream for the landfill owner. At Bluesource, we have the expertise and experience to help guide you in finding the best options for LFG collection, destruction, beneficial-use projects and more.
Ozone Depleting Substances
Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS)
Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) comprise a group of man-made compounds that deplete stratospheric ozone, many of which, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs), are extremely potent greenhouse gases (GHGs). ODS offset projects involve the destruction of existing sources of ODS, such as refrigerants and blowing agents. They can also involve using advanced materials in place of traditional materials that contain high amounts of ODS, such as building and refrigerator foam insulation.
At Bluesource, we can help with all stages of a project including project documentation and listing, validation and verification oversight, registration, credit marketing services as well as ongoing project support.
Bluesource developed Canada’s first-ever ODS carbon offset project, which was successfully registered on the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) Reductions Registry in 2012. Our Refrigerant Management Canada ODS Destruction Project administers a voluntary program to fund and facilitate the collection and destruction of surplus ODS from stationary refrigeration and air conditioning sources in Canada.
Coal Mine Methane
Capturing and Destroying Coal Mine Methane Emissions
Mine methane projects involve capturing and destroying methane emissions from mining operations that would normally be vented into the atmosphere. Methane is inherent in coal seams and poses explosive danger and other health concerns. It also has over 20 times the global warming potential of CO2.
Bluesource can develop coal methane project types including Ventilated Air Methane (VAM) and Methane Drainage. We have expertise and experience providing financing, project development, marketing and support services for active surface underground mines, as well as abandoned underground operations.
Efficient Cookstoves
Efficient Cookstoves: Life-Changing Impact in the Third World
For over a decade, Bluesource has partnered with one of the leading organizations in the world to provide clean cookstoves for household use in developing nations. Through our relationship with The Paradigm Project, we helped bring efficient cookstove offset credits to market and helped finance stove manufacturing and distribution in East Africa and Central America.
Since it began operating, The Paradigm Project has provided hundreds of thousands of households with life-changing efficient cookstoves. The results of this are slowed deforestation, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and thousands of lives saved due to cleaner air in people’s homes. The project was among the first in the world to begin monitoring and verifying social outcomes in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Transportation Efficiency
Progressive Transportation
Our transportation projects have prevented millions of tonnes of emissions from entering the atmosphere, specifically through the conversion of long-haul trucking shipments to intermodal transport (a combination of short-haul trucking and rail) as well as improved anti-idling practices. Additionally, some of our projects have the co-benefits of reducing the number of trucks on highways, resulting in less congestion and fewer pollutants that contribute to poor local air quality.
Bluesource can assess emission reduction potential throughout the transportation supply chain and operations and assist with data aggregation and analysis. After quantification of emission reduction benefits, Bluesource will coordinate monitoring, verification and registration activities and ultimately market the Verified Emission Reductions (VERs). This full-service approach assures that your transportation project is overseen from initiation to market with the level of detail it deserves and to create the highest quality offsets possible.
Waste Water Treatment
Destruction of Methane from Wastewater Treatment
Our wastewater treatment projects, located throughout the United States and Canada, have produced millions of tonnes of emission reductions over the years. As pioneers in the industry, some of the credits from our Tyson Foods wastewater treatment facilities project were the first-ever Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) to be issued from U.S.-based projects.
Our experienced team can assess emission reduction potential in wastewater treatment projects and assist with data aggregation and analysis. After quantifying emission reduction benefits, we will coordinate monitoring, verification and registration activities and ultimately market the Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) from the project.
Because wastewater projects often result in the release of very large quantities of methane, there is opportunity for large-scale greenhouse gas emission reductions. Ultimately this means the potential for large-scale emission credits to be marketed and sold to potential buyers.
Fugitive Methane Emissions
Fugitive Venting in Pneumatic Controller Applications
Bluesource has made significant strides in reducing methane emissions from high-bleed pneumatic devices in the oil and gas industry. By combining the reductions across multiple sites and producers, we have created a major opportunity for significant economic and environmental impact. We aggregate these reductions, lessening both the project development costs and effort required. We provide capital for controller changeouts, manage installations, provide data aggregation and analysis, oversight for monitoring, validation and verification activities and marketing services for your pneumatic controller projects.
In 2019, Bluesource was awarded the
Energy Excellence Awards Champion in the category Operational Excellence: Industry Accelerator by the Daily Oil Bulletin in its annual Energy Excellence Awards. For many companies, the conversion of their pneumatic devices to low-bleed controllers can seem like an overwhelming task, given the sheer number of devices needing retrofit. Our Methane Reduction Program has made the once daunting task of converting high-bleed to low-bleed pneumatic devices possible by streamlining what could be a very time and labor-intensive process into something feasible, creating both an economic and environmental benefit. These efforts are making a significant impact in helping the oil and gas sector meet the 45 percent by 2025 methane emission reduction targets established by the Alberta government.
Ag Methane
Methane Waste Gas Streams
Methane gas from agriculture presents a significant opportunity to capture and utilize what would otherwise be a harmful greenhouse gas that has over 20 times the global warming potential of CO
2. Manure is a plentiful byproduct of poultry, hogs and cattle farms that releases methane into the atmosphere. Fortunately, dairy owners and other farmers can mitigate this abundant GHG emission through the construction of anaerobic digesters that effectively collect, capture and direct the methane to be destroyed.
Ag methane beneficial-use projects are very economic because they utilize an on-site abundant source of energy. This energy in the form of methane gas can be burned to fire gensets to produce electricity, replace natural gas with direct thermal use, or replace vehicle fuel with bio-CHG. Not only do these projects reduce on-site energy costs, but they can also generate an additional revenue stream for the project and the remaining by-product can be used as bedding for the animals or as fertilizer.
Carbon finance plays an important role in the fruition of Ag Methane anaerobic digester projects. As one of the first four approved project types under the California cap and trade program, this project type provides significant opportunity to generate high-quality and in-demand mitigation credits. At Bluesource, we work with project owners that have qualifying anaerobic digester systems to determine the most effective way to create these credits. We do so through upfront analysis, data aggregation and oversight of monitoring, validation, verification and registration activities, then market the credits produced.
Industrial
Realizing Savings from Production Efficiencies
Bluesource has extensive experience working with owners of commercial and industrial facilities to identify energy-saving opportunities. And reduced energy use means less environmental impact, cost savings and the generation of emission reduction credits. There are many ways to achieve production efficiencies which we can help identify through energy audits, building energy modeling and more. Energy efficiency improvements can include engine fuel gas management, energy-efficient lighting, waste heat recovery and a switch from high- to low-carbon intensity fuels—among other improvements.
Some examples of industrial greenhouse gas mitigation credit projects include:
- Switching from coal to natural gas or biomass as an energy source
- Nitrous oxide (N2O) abatement from nitric acid plants
- Replacement of SF6 as a cover gas in the magnesium production process
One of our projects, the HFC Reduction Industrial Process Emissions Project, reduced emissions by switching to a blowing agent with 99% less global warming potential than the previously used agent.
Renewable Energy
Naturally Regenerating, Renewable Energy Projects
We have experience and expertise developing renewable energy projects, such as solar, wind and run-of-river hydro projects throughout the U.S. and Canada. Bluesource’s turnkey services include project design, documentation, listing, validation, verification, registration, credit marketing and ongoing support.
Our wind power projects have generated hundreds of thousands of RECs by reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned for electricity generation. By supplying clean, wind-generated electricity to the grid, these projects enhance sustainability and decreasing dependence on foreign and finite resources.
Carbon Capture Sequestration
Carbon Capture Projects via Geologic and Biological Sequestration
At Bluesource, we have experience and expertise with a variety of carbon capture projects via geologic and biological sequestration. We have been a developer of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects across the southwest and Rocky Mountain states since our founding. CCS projects capture CO
2 being vented from industrial sources and permanently store it in geologic formations.
CCS projects are unique in their ability to meaningfully address climate change due to their large-scale emission reductions. It is not unusual for CCS projects to capture 500,000 to 2,000,000 metric tons of CO
2 per year. Bluesource is skilled in finding economic and innovative solutions to address large-scale industrial emissions, and CCS projects are a critical component to mitigating and reversing negative climate change.
Acid Gas Injection
Unparalleled Experience in Natural Gas Processing
Produced natural gas requires processing before it can be sold into the marketplace. The conventional method for processing raw, sour natural gas containing high levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) involves using a sulfur recovery unit and/or incinerator to treat the gas and dispose of the H2S. These treatments result in large volumes of CO2 being vented into the atmosphere.
In Acid Gas Injection (AGI) and certain Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) applications, the entire gas stream is permanently contained in an underground storage well so that no CO2 is released into the atmosphere. Our team has unparalleled experience in the natural gas processing field. In fact, Bluesource has worked with oil and gas producers on six of the seven registered AGI projects in Alberta.
Biomass, Biogas and Fuel Switching
Replacing Fossil Fuels with Biomass and Biogas Projects
Biomass and biogas, like other forms of renewable energy, are used to replace non-renewable fossil fuels in the generation of heat and/or power. In many cases, this process is outside of business-as-usual and results in the capture of methane emissions that would normally be allowed to escape into the atmosphere. In these cases, such as when the biomass and/or source of biogas used in the project is diverted from a landfill, emission mitigation credits can be generated.
Fuel switching is similar in that it involves changing from a high greenhouse-gas-intensity fuel such as diesel, to a lower GHG-intensity fuel like Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Or, it may involve switching away from fossil-fuels altogether to using renewable fuels.
Our team has significant experience with biomass, biogas and fuel switching projects. One example is our Prism Farms Biomass Energy Project which utilizes biomass in two combustion boilers instead of fossil fuels. By using the biomass for energy, this keeps methane out of the atmosphere that would have otherwise been released and reduces dependence on fossil fuel. Additionally, it has resulted in a longer crop production season for the facility and made the production process more resilient.
Waste Diversion
Diverting Waste From Landfills
Bluesource develops many types of projects that emphasize waste diversion. We partner with organizations to develop, implement and manage recycling programs on both corporate and municipal levels. We’ve developed waste diversion initiatives for a number of things, from food and biomass to computers and electronic waste.
