CARMA 101: Quick Tips to Get You Started
We set out to make CARMA.org an intuitive and easy-to-use (dare we say fun?) source of information. Although the database behind CARMA is massive, all of the information can be searched, sorted, parsed, and downloaded with just a few clicks or keystrokes. Here are 5 quick tips on how to do just that, ranging from the basics to the advanced.
1) Play with the maps: Every map in CARMA contains interactive, color-coded icons. Click on them to see basic information about the entity in question and a link to a more detailed page. The maps on the Homepage or the Plant, Company, and Region overview pages are a great place to start browsing.
2) Start close to home: Dive into CARMA by searching for your hometown or place of residence. Use the Search Box at the top of any page to enter the name. If nothing comes up, try a larger town nearby. U.S. residents can also search by zip code to identify the company providing their power.
3) Dig Deeper: CARMA’s powerful tool for slicing and dicing the data is known as Dig Deeper, and it can be accessed from almost any page. Once there, you can select from nested lists to “dig” into the data. To see all power plants in the United States, for example, select: By Country => United States => View all power plants. The resulting list (over 9,000 plants) can be sorted any way you like by clicking on the column headings. Clicking the Toggle Data button on the left side will reveal all available data for 2000, 2007, and the future.
4) Find planned plants: Once you’re in Dig Deeper, you’ll notice toggle buttons for Past, Present, and Future in the top-right corner. If you select Future, your list will be sorted by power and CO2 emissions figures for — you guessed it — the future. This will often reveal “planned” plants that are not yet in operation. They are clearly identified by the word “Planned” after the plant’s name.
5) Check out the bottom line: Nearly any serious attempt to limit greenhouse gas emissions will require that a price be assigned to carbon — be it through traditional taxes or cap-and-trade programs. Some countries already have such systems in place, and a number of bills currently in the U.S. Congress would have similar effects. Once carbon is priced, carbon-intensive companies will face an added cost that cleaner competitors will not — a cost that could impact their financial bottom line. CARMA includes links to financial information for hundreds of companies that allow you to do the math for yourself. For example, if you assume a relatively low carbon charge of $10 per ton of CO2, then a company emitting 10 million tons would face an effective “carbon bill” of $100 million. Clicking on a company’s stock symbol in CARMA allows you compare this potential bill against a company’s current profits. Like much of the data in CARMA, the results are often startling.
And, of course, all of the data you come across in CARMA can be freely downloaded for further analysis. Links on the right side of many pages and at the bottom of Dig Deeper let you download a data file that can opened in Excel or other statistical programs. If you have any problems or questions, let us know.
Is there any information on the power plant at the CFS Alert on Ellesmere Island?