Climate Task Force Resource Page

This page contains links and references provided by members of the Climate Task Force related to strategies under consideration to reduce greenhouse gases in Fort Collins.

The Economic Case

• Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost?
• The Economic Case for Climate Action (PDF 617KB)
  Report by Natural Capitalism Solutions

Carbon Tax

• Boulder Carbon Tax News release
• 2/07 white paper (PDF 13 pages) by Boulder staff on the development and implementation of Boulder’s carbon tax

Clean Cars

• Union of Concerned Scientists clean vehicle information site.
  Information on performance and less pollution of clean vehicles. Experts in diesel, gasoline, and advanced vehicle technologies provide consumers and decision makers with the information they need to build a robust economy based on cleaner transportation choices.
• Union of Concerned Scientists hybrid information site.
  Key consumer and technical resources on hybrid vehicles. Detailed comparisons of hybrid technologies, reviews, and comments from current hybrid owners around the nation.
• Austin, Texas, initiative--Plug-In Partners. This is a national grass-roots initiative to demonstrate to automakers that a market for flexible-fuel Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) exists today.
• RechargeIT
  Google’s initiative that aims to reduce CO2 emissions, cut oil use and stabilize the electrical grid by accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid technology (V2G).
• State of California’s initiative--CalCars.
  A non-profit startup formed by entrepreneurs, engineers, environmentalists and consumers. The projects tackle national security, jobs and global warming.
• HybridCars.com
  part web journal, part online community, and part hybrid market research organization. Content from HybridCars.com is syndicated to Yahoo!Autos and BusinessWeek Online. HybridCars.com works closely with the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation in developing surveys and other research projects related to the emerging hybrid market.

Green Building - Residential

• Jim Logan, "Future of Green Built Homes" (PDF 185KB)
  CREC07 Conference, June 9th, Steamboat Spgs.

Renewable Energy

• Chelan County ,WA Public Utility District "SNAP" Program
  SNAP uses voluntary utility customer subscriptions to fund local small scale solar and wind power.
• Start a SNAP at Your Utility
• Making Solar Cost-Effective Today is a SNAP (PDF 530KB)

Renewable Energy Credits

• Redefining RECs (Part 1) (PDF): Untangling attributes and offsets
• Redefining RECs (Part 2) (PDF): Untangling certificates and emission markets

Smart Metering

• ESOURCE Tech News 01-31-2007 (PDF 17KB)
• Smart and Smarter Metering

Solid Waste Reduction

• Advancing Climate Protection Planning Through Municipal Solid Waste Programs (PDF 594KB)
• Draft (PDF 382KB) Fort Collins 50% Diversion 5 year Strategic plan (2/06)
• 2006 Larimer County Landfill Waste Characterization

Traffic Roundabouts

• From the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (See #5)
• Roundabout references from Twin Owl Consulting

Transportation

• LUTRAQ VMT Estimate (2001, PDF 121KB)
• "Cruising for Parking" by Donald C. Shoup,
  • Consumer friendly version (PDF)
  • With math and equations (PDF)
• An Integrated Model of Downtown Parking and Traffic Congestion" (PDF) by Richard Arnott

Willingness To Pay

Highlights from the 1998 Wind Power Pilot Program Survey (PDF 440KB)

• 1998 potential wind subscriber base between 6000 and 17000 customers
  (2006 subscription at approx 2100 home equivalents - 1400 actual residential subscribers)
• 0.025 $/kWh was suggested as the threshold above which wind subscribers would drop out of the program.
• Wind customers tended to be 'no-frills" greens - interested in green energy, energy efficiency, and desired quick outage response but not necessarily high reliability.
• When customers, in general, were asked about a flat $5 fee, 60%/35% of subscribers/non-subscribers said they'd would be interested. When the fee was raised to $10 the percentages were cut in half.
• 60% of customers believed that the utility should offer green services.