CO2 Reduction Documentary Wins Award

Washington, D.C.—A documentary co-produced by Prairie Public Broadcasting (Fargo, N.D.) and the Plains CO₂Reduction (PCOR) Partnership with support from the U.S. Department of Energy has received a 2012 Platinum Best of Show Aurora Award—the highest honor awarded—in the nature/environment documentary category.Global Energy and Carbon: Tracking Our Footprint demonstrates global energy use by average families in industrialized, emerging, and developing economies and explores carbon management options that ensure adequate energy access for the world's growing population. Documentaries such as this are important outreach tools for informing the public about efforts conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy to mitigate greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The 30-minute documentary premiered on Prairie Public Television in October 2010, and has been broadcast more than 100 times in 30 different states. It is the fifth in a series of documentaries produced by the PCOR Partnership and Prairie Public Broadcasting and joins the growing list of award winners, including Out of the Air—Into the Soil, which won a 2009 Gold Aurora Award and 15th Annual Communicator Award, and Nature in the Balance: CO2 Sequestration, which won a 2006 Bronze Telly Award.

Led by the Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota, PCOR is one of seven partnerships in the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Initiative, which is funded by the Office of Fossil Energy's Carbon Storage Program and managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The initiative was launched in 2003 to determine which of numerous carbon storage approaches are best suited for different regions of the country. Since its formation, PCOR has included more than 100 public and private partners and covers all or part of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin and four Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

The Aurora Awards are an international competition designed to recognize film and video excellence. Entrants are judged by panels of working film and video professionals, mostly previous award winners.

Source: DOE