From the daily archives:

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Tree farmers are understanding more and more that they are part of efforts to control carbon emissions, just as industry may be involved is carbon trading.

From small land owners to leaders of South Carolina’s forestry industry will be gathering in Columbia Friday for a workshop on the opportunities available in the carbon market, where carbon credits will be a commodity among those who grow and harvest trees.

Today’s event is sponsored by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, the Nature Conservancy and the Climate Action Reserve, a California-based company. As though the carbon credits concept were not complicated enough for most of us to understand, Max DuBuisson(DU-bi-sen) with Climate Action Reserve explains that his organization actually develops “offsets” to carbon trading found in potential cap and trade targets like coal-fired power plants.

“For example, under cap and trade, dairies would not be required to do anything about their methane emissions,”  he said.  “But it’s a powerful greenhouse gas.  So you can take money from the power plant sector to install equipment at a dairy, to reduce emissions there.”

And Dubuisson points out that it’s cheaper for livestock operations to reduce emissions than it is for power plants to do so. The workshop takes place at Harbison Environmental Education Center, 5600 Broad River Road in Columbia, beginning at 9 am. [click to continue…]

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House rejects Southern Connector bond revamp, discusses I-73 (Audio)

by William Christopher 02/4/10 7:43 PM

The South Carolina House has voted down an amendment that would have allowed the Southern Connector toll road to renegotiate and restructure its bonds. The vote was 46 to 59. The Southern Connector near Greenville provides a shortcut from 385 to 85 and is helpful for traffic headed to and from Atlanta.
Horry County Republican Alan [...]

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Proterra officially welcomed to Upstate, CU-ICAR

by Ashley Byrd 02/4/10 5:22 PM

Proterra’s locating a plant in the Upstate is a “shot in the arm” for the state’s economy, Gov. Mark Sanford said at today’s official announcement.  Proterra will be making battery run heavy duty buses and vehicles, investing $68 million and create more than 1,300 new jobs over the next seven years in Greenville County. The governor [...]

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SC Senate continues point of sale debate (Audio)

by Ashley Byrd 02/4/10 3:47 PM

In the Senate Thursday debate continued on what is known as point of sale taxes on real estate. On the final day of the Senate this week, two major players in the Senate, Rules Committee Chair Larry Martin of Pickens and Finance Chair Hugh Leatherman suggested moving the bill back to committee or even taking [...]

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SC to have specific role in helping Haiti

by Susan Trautsch 02/4/10 1:59 PM

South Carolina has been designated as a staging area for victims of the Haiti earthquake and consequent humanitarian disaster. A statement from the governor’s office said that South Carolina will fill two roles.
One role is that the federal government has chosen Charleston as a site to receive American citizens returning to the United States that [...]

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