In May 2001, Entergy made a voluntary commitment to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions from its power plants at year 2000 levels through 2005.  Entergy dedicated $25 million in supplemental corporate funding for use over a five-year period.

Since making the commitment, Entergy has engaged in a number of actions to reduce or offset their carbon dioxide emissions.  By the end of 2003, they had established 36 internal and 12 external greenhouse gas emission reduction projects; these projects are projected to result in 2 million tons of CO2-equivalent reductions through 2005.  The projects include:

• Restoration of over 600 acres of hardwood forest in northwest Louisiana that is expected to remove an estimated 275,000 tons of CO2 at it matures
• Recovery and use of methane from municipal landfills to generate electricity, creating 50,000 tons of CO2-equivalent reductions
• Establishment of “Entergy’s Sustainable Forestry Plan” to reforest hundreds of acres of company property, Entergy owns over 23,000 acres
• Purchase of Verified Emission Reductions equivalent to 125,000 tons of CO2 from DuPont

Through these projects and other initiatives, Entergy reduced company CO2 emissions from 53.24 million tons in 2000 to 36.8 million tons in 2003.

In December 2004, Entergy exercised an option to buy 1 million CO2 emission reduction credits from Blue Source.  The purchase of credits is the largest purchase of geologic carbon sequestration in the United States.  It will increase Entergy’s carbon credits from 872,363 metric tons to 2,872,363 metric tons by the end of 2005.

As a further support of geologic carbon sequestration, Entergy recently joined the Gulf Coast Carbon Center, a program headed by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas.