The Carbon Market

I've been working on various concepts for my Carbon Diet project. My running idea had been to let people build up lbs of CO2 savings and if they exceeded a certain amount, let them sell their extra pounds to the market. My assumption was that there were lots of people that are interested in reducing their carbon footprint, but too lazy to ride their bike to work. So I started looking around at the market price of carbon (really C02) offsets. I was surprised to find how cheap it was to become carbon neutral. Based on the following assumptions here are some estimates for going carbon neutral:

• The average American responsible for about 20 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually
• The current market rate for a metric ton of carbon offset ranges from about $5.50 - $13.00 USD.

Basically it will set you back about $110.00 - $260.00 a year to kick your CO2 habit. Yes, I realize most people would rather spend an extra few hundred on a new whatever, but compare this to buying a new Prius vs. a Corolla... yeah, 60 mpg will lower your gas bill, if you opted for the $10K you'd save buying a Corrolla instead and settled for 40 mpg, you could pay for your entire extended family, 2 guys from down the street, that neighbor with the Hummer and dentist to all go carbon neutral. Hmmm... what would happen if everyone started buying up carbon offsets like they were the new iPhone. Hmmm... what if Apples next killer app is the iCarbon... getting off track... How fast is this market growing? Will the price per metric ton really change that dramatically? Hmmm... how much is my bike ride to work worth? Let see:

• We'll say the Subaru which is getting old in town only gets 22 mpg
• Burning gas puts out about 22 lbs per gallon
• That equals 1lb / mile
• So my 10 mile round trip save about 10 lbs of emissions.
• We'll take a rough market average price of $9.00 a metric ton
• That equals about $0.00401 / mile
• Which means my ride to work is worth slightly over 4 cents in equivalent carbon offset value.

I think I better rethink my original business model.

Carbon Diet version 0.0.0.9

I've been working evenings on a new project operating under the code word "Carbon Diet."

The basic idea is to create a website that allows people to make a tangible commitment to reducing their carbon footprint. Yes, I know, that's been done. Since Al Gore's movie, carbon footprint calculators are almost as prolific on the Internet as mortgage calculators. I do have a twist. Where most of the calculators help you see how many planets you would require (if everyone lived like you...) I want to make people more accountable to their earth-friendly ideals. I want this website to insert some personal accountability into the mix... Call it my environmental libertarian political leaning.

In my version, users will have to report back to the world how they are doing after they make their commitment. If they don't, we assume they did nothing... they will loose all the warm cockles they received at creating a carbon reduction plan they never implement. Better yet, the website will allow them to enlist friends to harass, i mean, help them if they aren't meeting their goals.

My current version of project "Carbon Diet" is something like 0.0.0.9. But I am working on it bit by bit, page by page. My plan is to release version 0.0.1 for comment to family and friends. This should include screen shots and some working interface components.

Stay tuned.

A weekend with Grandma

I spent the weekend in St. Paul, MN with my 84 year old grandmother. She asked me for help to replace her old computer which she bought in 1999. We got her setup with a DSL connection, new monitor, plenty of ram. We opted for XP over Windows Vista.

As I find with most of my family visits I was grilled on a variety of computer questions. While I would give my grandmother 5 stars for her level of computer knowledge relative to her age group, she is still very much a newbie to the modern Internet. She emails with family and friends, monitors her investments, and will occasionally look up a website address she’s clipped out of the newspaper or a magazine (which I find very 50s-esque.) For some reason I feel compelled to try to explain how the DSL line works. I am forced to retreat to topics such as explaining that Internet Explorer is not Google & vice versa, but I have to admit the difference is somewhat ethereal. Explaining tab menus goes a bit better when I can pull out physical folders with real tabs and show her the tangible office supply juxtaposed to its virtual cousin on the screen.

How do I know how to right click? Why doesn’t her 1997 greeting card program work in Windows XP? (Microsoft Greetings v3.0.0.0 in case anyone can help with that.) How do you attach more than one picture to an email? (“When I right-click on the image it says, attach to email… but how do I get two images on the same email?)

We engage in a Paul Bunion vs. the steam saw style competition when looking up words for the crossword puzzle. I win a few times, but only on the modern movie questions that came out after her crossword dictionary was published. Her page turning skills still give Google a run for its money.

We talk to family in Seattle, Montana & Colorado on the new web-cam. We sponsor a two aspiring entrepreneurs on Kiva.org. We play more than a few rounds of spider-solitaire. We learn about the continental knitting technique on YouTube. I show her how to avoid the ads on Windows Media player in order to play her classical music CDs and how to play the Scott Joplin tracks she downloaded off Napster back in the music free-for-all of the dot com boom.

We moved into our first official office this week. Yes it is still on the same property as someone’s home, but this time it is not my house or the home of someone that works for Metric Media!

We brokered an easy deal with one of our clients who recently purchased a building moved their backyard operation closer to downtown where they will have room to grow. Thus Metric Media is now renting what I’ve been referring to as the most heavily wired building (per square foot that is) in the city. This approx. 300 sq/ft converted detached garage includes: in-wall Cat-5, audio and cable wiring, 4 phone lines (we’re using 2), DSL (we’ll split the cost with the landlord since this it also provides his house with bandwidth), in-floor heating, A/C unit, remote controlled fan, AM/FM stereo/CD player, wall mounted speakers, a wall mounted infrared sensor (so you can keep the stereo cabinet closed and still use the remote), 2 smoke detectors (one of which can call the fire department), a 24 port switch, three 4-line phones, bathroom, kitchenette, microwave, mini-hot water heater, whiteboard, built in desks, 3 roller office chairs and plenty of on-street parking (since most of the people in the neighborhood don’t work at home.) We did have to provide: vacuum cleaner, floor mat, calendar for the wall, soap, towel, coffee maker, computers and employees.

I expect the 10-minute commute is going to take some getting used to after 4 years of rolling out of bed and ambling into the home office, but since we’ll have VPN access from anywhere with a digital pulse, I’m sure I can have a few PJ Mondays to aid the transition.

The biggest challenge now is dealing with growth. Somehow we’ve survived for 4 years with no office; now that we have one all I can think of is that it’s not big enough to handle the growth. The lease is month-to-month, but perhaps we’ll keep the space as the Metric Media club house or coding cave if we are forced to larger office pastures.

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