Origin locks in carbon credits

Adelaide Advertiser
Friday 17/7/2009 Page: 80

Origin Energy has signed a deal to create what could become Australia's largest project to lock up atmospheric carbon using trees. The deal, potentially worth $169 million over 15 years, would use millions of trees in Western Australia's wheat belt. Using so-called biosequestration - storing carbon in plants and the soil to reduce the amount in the air - the plan would generate carbon credits Origin Energy could use to offset any obligations under the Federal Government's proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme.

With CPRS legislation yet to pass Parliament, the move is an indication Origin Energy is readying for new laws that will put a price on carbon emissions. Under the deal with WA based Carbon Conscious, mallee eucalypt seedlings would be planted across cleared lands otherwise unsuited to agriculture. Origin Energy, a large energy retailer, will pay an initial $26 million to Carbon Conscious, to establish the plantings until 2011 and organise licence and management fees.