Quantum Materials Corp. (fka QTMM)

[puravida19]

One of the ways to earn carbon credits is to reduce the carbon emissions of your plant, which includes the energy used to make the product you are selling. In a paper on a Natural Gas Production Plant in Algeria, I read that CO2 that is not released into the atmosphere, but is re-injected 1800 meters down into an aquifer that will hold it is eligible for trade-able carbon credits. While it takes an investment of $100 million to build the re-injection system, it would return much more than that. 1 million tons per year of CO2 will be geologically stored or about 17 million tons of CO2 will be re-injected during the whole life of the project.

Google the following pdf for info on this project;
Haddadjisonatrach_Algeria.pdf

That pdf on the project said it would cost out at $6/ ton of Carbon Dioxide. Another article (link below) I read said that 1 ton of CO2 is worth 12.33 Euros or $16 US/ton. $10/ton is a good profit for waste you were going to burn, anyway. A cool $170 million for the above project!

Here is a recent newspaper article on carbon credits that Masdar will be granted for a 10mw solar array plus an energy efficiency project at a plant.

The article:
http://blogs.thenational.ae/the_grid/2010/07/masdar-a-step-closer-to-first-carbon-cash.html

Another way to earn carbon credits is to buy them from green projects. If you are producing carbon, you want to offset that production by supporting green energy production that mitigates your production. So the question is, what is the value of 1GW of Solar Panels as an offset for a power utility in Saudi Arabia that wants to earn carbon credits to offset it's production of carbon waste into the atmosphere?

The Masdar project cited above will receive $1.5 million/yr in carbon credits for a 10MW solar array project plus an energy efficiency project at a plant there. Hypothetically, let's say $1 million/yr of the $1.5 mil is for the 10MW solar array. That expands to $100 million for a hypothetical 1GW solar.

Of course, these projects have to be approved by a regulatory committee, the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which rewards innovation and is not a rubber stamp on projects that seem more greed than green. They might not allow a 1 to 1 ratio when comparing projects - larger projects might earn less credits percentage-wise when costs and all factors are considered.

If you are a solar silicon based panels manufacturer, it takes a lot of energy just to manufacture your silicon substrate and complicated panel production methods, which must count against the ecological footprint of your product. There are extremely high temperatures involved in melting and purifying silicon to the level of quality needed, and then in processing it by slicing thin "substrates" by laser or diamond wire cutting, etc. Silicon Processing Plants can cost billions to build.

What good does saving energy by solar do for you when your production method in heat and toxic throw-off mitigates the savings? These type of solar projects might not qualify or earn as much carbon credits if the energy waste of making the silicon solar panels is taken into consideration.

CEO Stephen Squires in his InterPV article, as well as in hiring Green Giant Venture Fund, has affirmed his intention to make Solterra a very Green company. This is not only ecologically sound, but can be very economically sound, too, especially when you will be the low-cost solar farm producer. Inkjet printing on flexible substrates would use less energy in production and materials.

I think this aspect of Solterra's plan will bear fruit in the future and could be part of mitigating the cost of a solar plant in Saudi Arabia. I wanted to show that Solterra's interest in carbon credits can be smart business and possibly a positive cash flow area.

Puravida19