Utilities eager to tell customers about their commitment to the environment now have new tools that quantify the green benefits of wood poles and crossarms.
The Technical Bulletin Calculating Carbon in Wood Utility Poles and Crossarms details how to determine the amount of carbon sequestered in a utility's inventory of wood utility poles and crossarms.
This is done using the Excel-based Wood Utility Pole & Crossarm Calculator, which calculates the volume and mass of the wood, as well as the mass of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere for a utility's inventory of wood utility poles and crossarms. An online version of the calculator is also available.
Utilities can find out how much carbon by entering their inventory of poles and crossarms. The number of utility poles can be entered using pull-down selections for the class and length based on the standard ANSI pole sizes. Crossarm data is entered by its actual dimensions. Up to 30 different sizes of poles and crossarms can be entered.
Once entered, the results can be entered into an online EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator that converts carbon data into real world examples of the environmental benefits, such as miles driven by an automobile or barrels of oil consumed.
Download the calculator and review the technical bulletin in the Wood Pole Online Technical Library.
