Oglethorpe Power Joins Leading U.S. Power Companies in Carbon Sequestration Project

In a 22 million acre swath of land running along the lower Mississippi River from Cairo, Ill. to the Gulf of Mexico, a consortium of 25 leading U.S. electric power companies, including Oglethorpe Power Corporation, is planting trees to capture carbon dioxide (CO 2).

Trees are referred to as “carbon sinks” because via photosynthesis they take CO 2 out of the air and sequester it in living plant tissue. About one-half of a tree is carbon. Forest carbon management opportunities are among some of the best ways to address CO 2 emissions.

“Carbon sequestration through the planting of trees could be one of Oglethorpe’s most cost-effective mitigation options,” said Boyd Vaughan, Principal Environmental Specialist at Oglethorpe Power in Tucker, Ga.

“The projects that the consortium is involved in not only address CO2 emissions, but they also restore critical habitat, improve water quality and reduce flooding,” he added.

In 2003, the consortium—called the PowerTree Carbon Company LLC—committed $3 million to establish six bottomland hardwood reforestation projects in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. As the trees grow, they will eventually capture more than 1.6 million tons of CO 2 from the atmosphere as well as provide critical habitat for a number of either threatened or endangered species that live in the area.

According to the PowerTree Carbon Company, the LMAV is one of the most important but degraded ecosystems on the North American continent. It once contained nearly 22 million acres of highly productive bottomland hardwoods but today only about 4 million acres remain. No other wetland system in North America has suffered such extensive reductions.

These projects represent a partnership between the PowerTree Carbon Company, several different federal agencies, conservation groups such as the Nature Conservancy, and private landowners.

Oglethorpe is also participating in a number of other environmental initiatives, including several research projects through its membership in the Electric Power Research Institute. These projects are aimed at evaluating the costs and benefits of various climate change policy options being considered both nationally and internationally and helping individual companies better understand what options are available for mitigating their emissions of greenhouse gases. This research should allow for more informed decisions by both utilities and policy makers regarding any future regulatory programs.

< back