It is important for every member of Citizens for Fair Utilities to understand what cap and trade is and what we can do about it. This will affect not only ElectriCities, but everyone who buys electricity anywhere…especially in eastern North Carolina.
This bill would impose a cap and trade system for carbon emissions on utilities. Under this bill (or another cap and trade system like it) your electricity provider would be given a fixed number of pollution allowances. Every allowance equals one ton of carbon dioxide pollution a company is allowed to emit.
The number of available allowances goes down every year. If you’re a polluter, you’re required to go to the market and buy allowances from an auction (operated by the Environmental Protection Agency) or buy allowances from other utilities. Companies will have to determine whether it is cheaper to put engineers to work on reducing CO2 emissions, or to buy more allowances, rewarding cleaner energy and driving utilities to innovate.
So how does carbon cap and trade relate to the data center?
First and foremost — it’s going to drive energy costs up an estimated 20% across the board. Data center operators already constricted by huge power bills are in for even more sticker shock at the meter in the future.
FROM US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT:
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Geo Fish 