Killington Resort to Offset 100% of Power Usage through Renewable Energy Credits

[Greg]

http://news.alpinezone.com/26632/

 

[drjeff]

Now I see their strategy, by opening later and closing earlier their a much more environmentally friendly Killington

 

[BeanoNYC]

I'm not all convinced as to the impact of these credits. Why not just try to eliminate your carbon footprint pro actively and on site, rather than buying these feel good credits. Not to mention taking said credits and spinning it into a press release so people will "oooh and ahhh" at how environmentally responsible the company is. Am I missing something here? I'm not fulling briefed on environmental credits.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

But will the Superstar glacier be open Memorial Day weekend to offset their late opening?

 

[marcski]

I'm not all convinced as to the impact of these credits. Why not just try to eliminate your carbon footprint pro actively and on site, rather than buying these feel good credits. Not to mention taking said credits and spinning it into a press release so people will "oooh and ahhh" at how environmentally responsible the company is. Am I missing something here? I'm not fulling briefed on environmental credits.

Yes agreed. Total BS. It seems as though these do absolutely nothing for the overall good of the environment.

 

[Rogman]

The increased use of Low Energy snow guns has reduced Killington's diesel consumption by more than 30 percent and electricity by 25 percent over the past three years.

Coincidentally, they are also open about 25 to 30 percent fewer ski days, to say nothing of closing Skyeship and Pico a couple of days midweek as well.

 

[thetrailboss]

Now folks, it's simple. Just pay me $50 per credit, plus a $5 handling fee and I will not only sell you some carbon offsets, but I will print you up a handy dandy certificate that you can display. Operators are standing by!










:wink:








My next business venture is to sell ocean front property in Utah. :wink: :lol:

 

[BeanoNYC]

Yes agreed. Total BS. It seems as though these do absolutely nothing for the overall good of the environment.

Now folks, it's simple. Just pay me $50 per credit, plus a $5 handling fee and I will not only sell you some carbon offsets, but I will print you up a handy dandy certificate that you can display. Operators are standing by!

OK, so I'm not far off on this. I just get a funny feeling about it. It's like "we'll go ahead and keep our carbon footprint on the world, but we'll buy these credits." Meanwhile the credits just add green-sourced power to the electric grid, it's not replacing and traditional source. I wonder what the tax break is for doing this as well. The efficient snow guns, on the other hand are a kind of "roll your sleeves up and get in there" approach and I applaud that. This is the kind of approach from a company that I would like to see.

 

[wa-loaf]

Hehe, I hope this a joke: http://www.carboncreditkillers.com/

 

[mondeo]

Treading dangerously close to politics I fear, but...

The first "carbon neutral" university in the U.S. got that claim to fame by buying credits to fund a program to redo traffic light timing in some place in the northwest. WTF? What's next, getting carbon offsets for losing weight, therefore reducing the amount of energy your car needs to use to accelerate?

And I'm not, by any means, sold on photo voltaic as a legitimate energy production option. Last I saw, it takes 8 years out of a panel's 20-30 year life span just to reproduce the amount of energy that went into the panel. Electric and hydrogen powered cars will do nothing until the coal, oil, and gas that are used to produce the electricity and hydrogen are replaced by other energy sources. Ethanol, depending on where you are and whose numbers you look at, uses more oil than gas.

There are legitimate solutions out there, but all anyone cares about is the hype. What else can explain the advent of the Prius and Insight in an age (mid 90s) where traditional diesel engines were nowhere to be found, despite their 15-20% improvement in carbon emissions?

I guarantee you that economics will drive the shift away from fossil fuels, probably beginning in earnest in 5-10 years. It's my understanding that at this point in time, wind and solar thermal technology is getting effective to the point of being economically advantageous when compared to oil and gas in select regions. As the technologies and production capacity mature and the price of fossil fuels continues to climb, the push for persistent energy production (I refuse to use the term "renewable," as it ignores the laws of thermodynamics,) and conservation will become increasingly significant. We're already seeing this happen in the aviation industry, where airlines are looking for aircraft that deliver 15%+ reductions in direct operating cost, most of which is coming from reduced fuel consumption, and there are test programs ongoing for gas-to-liquid fuels and biofuels (GTL has higher energy density -> less fuel weight -> lower fuel burn.)

 

[SpinmasterK]

The purchasing of RECs is the next step in our ongoing environmental initiatives, and there will be many more to come. Last season we spent $50,000 on a Freeaire system for our walk-in coolers, which so far has saved more than 50,000 kWh of electricity. In addtion, we have started a resort-wide co-mingled recycying program, no-idle policy for all company vehicles, and replaced lightbulbs with more than 600 CFLs throughout the resort. In addition, we have purchased more than 300 Low Energy snow guns over the past four years, which has reduced our electricity consumption by more than 25 percent.
More on our envitronmental programs is available here: http://www.killington.com/winter/media/pressrelease.html?pressrelease=pressrelease30

 

[riverc0il]

I'm not all convinced as to the impact of these credits. Why not just try to eliminate your carbon footprint pro actively and on site, rather than buying these feel good credits. Not to mention taking said credits and spinning it into a press release so people will "oooh and ahhh" at how environmentally responsible the company is. Am I missing something here? I'm not fulling briefed on environmental credits.

Completely agree. As someone very much in favor of "going green" and doing the right thing environmentally (often times, this is also has a beneficial financial impact as well), I am somewhat doubtful to the funds put into carbon off setting actually really off setting the entire carbon footprint of an organization. I don't think any organization could afford to offset 100% of their footprint. That includes all the gas emissions made by groomers, snow mobiles, company vehicles, airfare for company execs, etc. let alone other fringe factors such as employees vehicle carbon emissions driving to/from work and customers driving to/from the mountain. Even if you cover all the bases, how is the financial value determined and does the investment really and truly completely "offset" the carbon footprint completely? This would entail counter measures that fully reverse every particle of carbon. I guess "Power Usage" is the technicality here. Power Usage sounds like electric only, big whop dee doo. Hardly a good PR move having dropped the cheap season pass, raised prices through the roof, pissed off customers, and now pushing that money on a dubious offset plan instead of actually reducing carbon emissions and electricity usage. "My Hummer is okay environmentally because I buy offset credits." Yea, right....

 

[riverc0il]

The purchasing of RECs is the next step in our ongoing environmental initiatives, and there will be many more to come. Last season we spent $50,000 on a Freeaire system for our walk-in coolers, which so far has saved more than 50,000 kWh of electricity. In addtion, we have started a resort-wide co-mingled recycying program, no-idle policy for all company vehicles, and replaced lightbulbs with more than 600 CFLs throughout the resort. In addition, we have purchased more than 300 Low Energy snow guns over the past four years, which has reduced our electricity consumption by more than 25 percent.
More on our envitronmental programs is available here: http://www.killington.com/winter/media/pressrelease.html?pressrelease=pressrelease30

Word, that is what I am talking about! Whatever to the carbon emissions off set but this is REAL impact. And of course, is the financially sensible thing to do because it saves the company a lot of money in the long term.