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Tampa Electric Lowers Emissions By 20%

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By RUSSELL RAY, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 25, 2008

TAMPA - Tampa Electric said Thursday that it has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, a milestone that took 10 years and $1.2 billion to achieve.

By joining the Chicago Climate Exchange, a trading system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in 2004, Tampa Electric agreed to lower its emissions to at least 4 percent below the average during 1998-2001.

The utility, which provides power to more than 660,000 customers, easily surpassed that mark after making improvements to its Big Bend and Bay Side power plants.

The Big Bend plant has been equipped with new catalytic-reduction technology, which controls emissions of nitrogen oxide. Emissions of nitrogen oxide have been reduced by 59 percent and emissions of sulfur dioxide are down 91 percent compared with 1998 levels. Nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide are the primary causes of smog and acid rain.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the company's power plants are now near 1990 levels, said Byron Burrows, air programs manager for the utility.

The Big Bend plant, deemed by environmentalists as one of the dirtiest power plants in the nation, produced 11.7 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006.

"Upon enrolling in Chicago Climate Exchange, Tampa Electric took bold and practical action to help build an international carbon reduction market at a time when leadership in this area was rare," climate exchange chairman and CEO Richard Sandor said in a statement.

Reporter Russell Ray can be reached at (813) 259-7870 or rray@tampatrib.com.

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