We're saved!: Solar project allegedly saves CO2 emissions valued at more than a dime on the Chicago Climate Exchange!

Solar panels are paying off - Business - Peterborough Today

THE installation of solar panels at a Forestry Commission lodge new Peterborough has saved more than a tonne of carbon. [what happens to the "savings" here if you include the CO2 emitted in manufacturing, transporting, installing, and maintaining the solar panels?]

[But note: in the big scheme of things, one ton isn't quite enough to get all worked up about]

The atmosphere contains some 760 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. Living land plants store about 500 billion tonnes of carbon in the materials they manufacture from water and carbon dioxide as they grow. The total store of fossil fuels is estimated at 3,000 billion tonnes of coal and 300 billion tonnes of oil and gas deposits. Earth’s complement of soil stores about 2,000 billion tonnes of carbon in materials produced by once living things. Another 40,000 billion tonnes is dissolved in earth’s oceans. Some 100 million billion tonnes is incorporated in sedimentary rocks such as limestone. These massive deposits of carbon bearing materials are all considered to be products of earth’s life over eons.