Clean energy credits and indulgences

In the 16th-century church, those who were long on cash but short on righteous living could balance the equation by buying "indulgences", representing a sort of absolution for sinful behavior.Indulgences may have disappeared about the time of Martin Luther, but they seem to be alive and thriving in a more contemporary religion - the Church of the Green.Wells Fargo & Co. announced this week that it is buying renewable energy certificates for 550 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy a year for three years.The bank said the acquisition makes it the "largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the United States," but it's hardly the first. Everyone from the National Farmers Union to Audubon New York to Whole Foods to Starbucks to FedEx Kinko's has done similar deals. And how much of this "clean" wind-generated electricity will Wells Fargo be taking for its own branches, offices and facilities, to supplant supposedly "dirty" power it's getting from other sources?Not a single watt.Instead, Wells Fargo and others are buying credits or certificates representing wind-farm electricity already generated and sold to other utilities and customers. You and I, in the industry, know how it works; the amount of wind generation is tallied by various organizations that act as clearinghouses, and they in turn sell the credits.But if Wells Fargo isn't actually cutting its consumption of power, and the credits represent power that someone else has already bought (and would have whether or not someone acquired the credits), it's an incredible stretch to argue that the purchase of credits represents a reduction in emissions. Not one less lump of coal or cubic foot of gas will be burned because of this. The only heat generated is the warm-and-fuzzy feeling the buyer of credits hopes everyone gets from the publicity.This is the unspoken truth of renewable energy and carbon credits.So what exactly do these transactions contribute - beyond burnishing a company's environmental reputation and linking the pockets of the middlemen who take commissions on these credits? Yes, they ARE helping jump start renewable energy technology investment. A Wells Fargo spokesperson gushed about their money helping push windpower development, specifically.But it's not as though wind power has lacked for development incentives without resorting to the gimmickry of renewable energy credits. What with tax credits, technology advances that have driven down the cost of wind power, the cost of other generating fuels going up, and the interest of utilities in diversifying their energy portfolios, wind power has been flourishing as the preferred alternative energy flavor of the moment. For all its attributes, wind as a means of generating electricity has drawbacks. There are a limited number of places wind will work. In the places it will work, the wind is not steady, and it sometimes doesn't show up at peak periods of electrical demand when the additional juice is most needed. Utilities and regional transmission grid operators are wrestling with the issue of how to build a system that can handle the peaks of wind generation, but may sit idle when there's no wind.Wind has even generated its own criticisms on environmental grounds, with charges that the spinning blades mar the landscape and will slice and dice birds. While it's a matter of personal taste, as industrial sites and sights go, it can be argued that windmill farms can be intriguing and dramatic additions rather than detriments. And while the bird-mulching scenario makes wind turbines out to be aerial Cuisinarts, in actuality the blades turn so slowly you can easily count the revolutions per minute. Although, apparently, some birds can't.Wind power is a complicated enough topic in assessing its benefits and costs, without having empty-gesture programs such as purchasable credits muddying the waters - or in this case, more properly, clouding the air.Bill Virgin is a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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