Moderator: SC Moderators
Greener Sims Bill
1. The CDS will become 'carbon neutral' by purchasing carbon offsets to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the CDS sims.
2. The RA is charged with making sure that any such scheme is environmentally and economically sound before investing in it.
3. The CDS will support the lobby effort to persuade Linden Labs to switch to renewable energy.
We have now been looking into this for a while as a community. I think in the absence of any new information to the contrary, it would be good for the CDS to be a leader in this initiative in Second Life.
The greener sims bill demonstrates classic confusion between "carbon offsets", and "Greentags or Renewable Energy Credits" " Carbon offsets" is a term used to describe a variety of schemes to reduce co2 loading of the atmosphere, this may include planting trees, not cutting trees, putting sequesteration equipment on a coal plant, or financing the construction of a new technology coal plant so an older one might be shut down. Aluminum companies claim that recycling aluminum instead of smelting more ought to give them carbon credits. Carbon offsets are often sold to airline travelers to mitigate their guilt for Carbon producing air travel. Carbon Offsets have been compared by the cynical to "papal indulgences" pay the money and be forgiven your sins. I personally feel this is a bit much, as indulgences at least bought some great Michaelangelo's and DaVnci's. and carbons offsets will hopfully have some positive impacts.
Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) represent the pruchace of new wind, or solar generation (some utilities try to sell existing hydro resources as REC's. A responsible Greentag or REC purchase will be backed by an independent certification company such as "Green-E" these companies carefully document project development based on REC purchaces and corresponding new generation. This certification process is easy to track. I have personally purchased REC's from the Bonneville Environmental Founation for resale to sims in the past. (See the Group "Green Islands" Project 2008, the original group of purchases has now expired and we have called the new group to designate current status.) The Groups function is clearly stated in the Charter and as a group can authorize members to display the Green-E logo tm at the members sim.
If requested, I will handle the paperwork and present the purchaser with documentation of REC purchases, it takes about 2-3 weeks to process the paperwork. "Green Islands" is a project of the Northwest Solar Center (a part of WSU) and uses the keystone mark up from sales of REC's to support its Energy demonstration area at the Commonwealth Archepelago of sims. (Where we have recently purchased a sim we are restoring to "natural condition" with our energy paths demonstation area at 650 m above the restored landscape. If interested ask me for the landmark or a tour (it is still under construction and needs a little interptetation)
Bjerkel Eerie
Thank you for this information, Bjerkel! 
If you would like, I would be happy to work with you on improving this bill.
BJ --
Thanks for your analysis. It clearly set forth the nagging doubt I had about the Legislation, which led me to conclude that the idea was a good one, but that he RL infrastructure was not yet developed. If the BPA current has a carbon offset program, my concerns could be greatly reduced. I still want to hear about pricing of the offsets, however? What does the BPA charge -- and is it a recurring charge subject to increase or a one-time purchase?
Beathan
Breathen and other interested parties,
Its the Bonneville Envronmental Foundation, not the Bonneville Power Administration. BEF charges a fee of $50 usd per REC or "Greentag". These are NOT carbon offsets. They are Renewable Energy Credits(REC's). BEF sells them in blocks of 2 tags each for $50 dollars per block. Each tag represents one MW hour of electricity generated by a blend of newly constructed, 90% wind / 10% solar power generation. One MW hour is roughly the energy consumed by a computer server in one year. THIS IS AN ANNUAL FEE. (Of course consumption may vary, based on many variables, including lag, number of Avies in the sim, and hours they are there, or even actvites, but parsing the consumption level any finer for any particular sim runs into grain size isssues that make meticulous analiysis difficult to say the least.) We know that the 1MW hr per year per sever is in the ballpark. However, over time server performance will improve and energy consumption will go down) The BEF program is certified by Green-E (tm)
On the question of what utility supplies which server, consider the grid to be a lake in which many sources provide water drunk by all of us. Water from one source or another, flows in, it all gets mixed together, and we all diop our collective cups into it. By helping to keep the lake filled with fresh cleand water, we know we will be drinking less of sombody else's.........err, detritus?
Green Islands resells each tag to a member sim represtntative, for $50 USD. This is paid by joining the Green islands Project, an SL Group. Green Islands make's a margin of $50 USD per transaction. The Green Islands Margin goes into paying he teir for our newly acquired Energy Paths informational/educational sim we are operating in association with the Commonwealth Islands NFP Archepelico.