Carbon Calculator

Utilities eager to tell customers about their commitment to the environment now have a new tool that quantifies the green benefits of wood poles and crossarms.

The Technical Bulletin Calculating Carbon in Wood Utility Poles and Crossarms details how to calculate the amount of carbon sequestered in a utility's inventory of wood utility poles and crossarms. The calculations take into account of the volume and mass of the wood, as well as the mass of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere while the wood is in service.

The Wood Utility Pole & Crossarm Calculator is available in an online version or as a downloadable Excel-based calculator. It 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.

The calculator allows utilities to determine the amount of carbon residing in 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 can be entered.

The calculator automatically determines the total volume and mass of the wood, the mass of carbon in Imperial and metric tons and the mass of carbon dioxide removed by using wood. The data can be entered into the online  EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator that can convert carbon data into real world examples of the environmental benefits, such as miles driven by an automobile or barrels of oil consumed.

Click here to download the calculator and Technical Bulletin.