Should we pay people to do what they were already going to do anyway?

Carbon Credit for Reprocessed Coal Ash? - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

Dominion wants its reprocessing of coal-ash to generate credits for carbon-emissions reduction, which it hopes to use in the Northeast’s carbon-reduction scheme, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But the Conservation Law Foundation, a Northeast environmental group, rejects this idea, saying that the carbon-reduction benefits of using coal-ash to reduce emissions from cement production are questionable.

The group also argues that Dominion would be reprocessing fly-ash anyway because it makes business sense — and therefore allowing this as a carbon credit would essentially be double-counting.

“There is this robust fly-ash cement business that allows them to turn this costly waste product into a valuable commodity they can sell. The idea that they wouldn’t make use of that market, even if there were not CO2 rules, is just silly,” said Seth Kaplan, a vice-president for climate advocacy at the Conservation Law Foundation, in an e-mail message.