Golf is greener at Toshiba Classic

NEWPORT BEACH — Newport Beach-based FirmGreen Energy Inc. is working to make the world greener by using technology that converts hydrocarbons into renewable electricity and bio-fuels for power.

The company’s first major project is at an Ohio landfill. FirmGreen will use its technology to convert gases and solid waste into renewable resources. It plans to eventually take 4,500 cubic feet of polluting gas out of the air per minute, which the company could convert into renewable methanol and compressed natural gas. This amount is the equivalent of removing emissions from more than 103,000 cars or planting over 146,000 acres of forest, according to the company’s projections using an Environmental Protection Agency calculator.

The company is sponsoring the upcoming Toshiba Classic at the Newport Beach Country Club and making it a “carbon neutral” event.

“The tournament is 20,000 people strong…. There’s cars, people flying in on jets…. It causes so much pollution per person,” FirmGreen president Steven Wilburn said. “There’s, of course, electricity and such, but the biggest carbon footprint is in transportation.”

But that doesn’t mean the company or the tournament is banning cars or electricity. The company is donating green credits to the tournament. FirmGreen is still evaluating all activities that could pollute or use nonrenewable sources and will donate enough credits to offset the “carbon footprint.”

But this isn’t the first time the golf tournament has attempted to be eco-friendly. According to FirmGreen spokeswoman Rhonda Howard, Toshiba representatives reported that last year about 25% of its cardboard waste was recycled.

“It’s the right thing to do,” tournament sponsorship sales director Gordon Hanscom said about this year’s partnership with FirmGreen.

The concept of green credits is becoming an international market.

The trading, buying and selling of emissions credits provides an economic incentive for those in areas where emission caps are mandated by law, but the overall goal is to reduce pollution.

“This can be the first visual evidence of how it works and what it can do,” Wilburn said.

In the U.S., the idea of trading, buying or selling credits is voluntary, but the result can be the same — a reduction in pollution, Wilburn said.

“There are no rules or regulations as of now — there’s no mandatory offset,” Wilburn said. “These are just concepts with guidelines.”

FirmGreen’s Ohio landfill plant is slated to be completed by the beginning of next year, but in the meantime the company is allowed to assign the credits it already has in the bank to the tournament.

For more information about FirmGreen Energy Inc., go to www.firmgreen.com .