I wrote a few weeks ago that The only lower price than today’s closing price on a ton of carbon is ZERO. That’s true now more than ever. See the chart below from yesterday’s close of the Chicago Climate Exchange:
And it’s still crashing. Last week the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced that they were scrapping the existing carbon trading program, and focusing on a new one that deals with directly sold carbon offsets rather than open trading.
Of course, anybody with a lick of business sense could see this coming a mile away, especially after there were deep employee cuts in mid August all while the price of a ton of Carbon Dioxide continued to plummet.
According to Steve Milloy’s Green Hell Blog:
CCX was sold earlier this year for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-listed IntercontinentalExchange (Symbol: ICE), an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. ICE also acquired the European Climate Exchange as part of the transaction. The ECX remains open to accommodate the Kyoto Protocol-required carbon trading among EU nations. The sale of CCX to ICE allowed climateers like Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and Goldman Sachs to cash out of investments in CCX.
At its founding in November 2000, some estimated that the size of CCX’s carbon trading market could reach $500 billion.
$500 billion trading thin air? Sure, yep, you betcha. Do you think there will be any confidence in buying carbon offsets directly when the free market runs from carbon trading like they are vacating a burning house?
A bag of charcoal BBQ briquettes is worth far more than a ton of carbon dioxide right now. Stock up, you might be able to sell them to some unsuspecting dupe a briquette at a time just so long as you provide a certificate to go with each one.
Slight correction. “Plugged nickel”. As in “shot through by a bullet”, I believe.
IanM
REPLY: Well where I come from, it had to do with metal punch out plugs used in vending machines. – Anthony
how the mighty Liars have fallen!
Kyoto has ruined Aussie farmers lives.
Worth zero, huh? Seems like a good time to corner the market. Practically anyone can afford zero, even me. 🙂
If only Jonathon Swift was alive today, this is the stuff of dreams for a great satirist.
5 cents is essentially zero since it won’t be priced at zero. The increment appears to be 5 cents.
A phrase from a brilliant book called Babi Yar, which the authors grandfather used often and so do I now.
“It’s not worth a pound of smoke”
It could almost have been invented to describe Carbon Trading.
Lousy science, lousy economics.
Reality can be very sobering.
Actually, the biggest tell is in the zero volume. This means the market is dead dead and dead. The 5 cent closing price is a fiction as there were no buyers or sellers.
Some clarification, please. Who is IntercontinentalExchange (Symbol: ICE)? Where did they get $600 million to buy up CCX? Who is it, exactly, that bailed Algore out of his bad investment? Why is ICE stock (the company, not the carbon instruments) not bankrupt? I am not an investment banker or high roller and do not run with Al’s crowd, so these things confuse me.
I nearly fell out of my chair when I read this BBC report by Susan Watts concerning the record salmon run in the Fraser River, British Columbia. Apparently a record number of salmon has been returning to their spawning grounds entirely to the puzzlement of all. It would seem that an est. 34 million are chasing their way to the headwaters compared with a paltry million last year.
The article leaves one in no doubt (given the sweeping scientific based fishing controls of the past decades ) that an explanation is needed given the dire accounts of those studying the salmon stocks.
This leads to a series of questions by Watts which reveal her own sense of unease about the reliability of the research and conclusions about fish stocks and oceans generally and, perhaps by extension, the certainties derived from scientific authority.
It may not be the ‘climb down’ moment, but feels like unease has replaced a certainty.
I cite:
“All the more vital then that scientists strive for as complete a picture as possible to explain why so many salmon returned this year, and so few last year, or they risk a loss in confidence until no-one is listening to apocalyptic warnings of threats to the wealth of our oceans.”
and,
“We cook up all manner of models and explanations and the rule in that world of research is publish now because your correlation is going to fail next year,” he says
Judge for yourself.
PS Global warming gets a single mention, but the scientist suggests this salmon run is like a cold winter ie. weather, and not climate, and should not be taken out of context given the overall picture.
PPS. There will be a lot of happy bears on the Upper Fraser this autumn.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11619320
Perhaps people like James Hansen should have 100% of their 401K invested in the “Carbon Financial Instruments” – LOL!
Yet, they don’t give up-as in the definition of insanity..
Mark Twain would’ve had a field day,with this too…
Well . . . 5 cents a ton.
Now that is an Inconvenient Truth.
Very inconvenient for the Ec0-Grifters and AGW Ponzi Schemers who had planned to fleece the gullible.
Too bad I didn’t short the market.. Oh wait. That wouldn’t have worked either since you have to short AFTER a sale.
I would rather debate Al Gore anyway. He was willing to take on Palin, I wonder if I could talk him into it one day?
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
Ian L. McQueen says:
October 26, 2010 at 9:37 am
Slight correction. “Plugged nickel”. As in “shot through by a bullet”, I believe.
IanM
REPLY: Well where I come from, it had to do with metal punch out plugs used in vending machines. – Antho
The punch outs never worked for me!
http://www.garvinindustries.com/Images/TB-135.jpg
I’m waiting for it to go down to $ -0.05 a ton before I get in.
“If I had only a nickel for every ton of carbon traded, I would be a rich man.”
– Al Gore (November 2000)
“Dang it!”
– Al Gore (October 2010)
Didn’t Al Gore say he offset his carbon foot print by buying carbon rights?
I’ll bet he’s a happy camper now though. On the one hand his travels is super cheap but the company he owns that he buys his travel rights from probably isn’t faring to well. So better sit tight. :p
Fred says:
October 26, 2010 at 10:06 am
“Very inconvenient for the Ec0-Grifters and AGW Ponzi Schemers who had planned to fleece the gullible.”
Well, someone got $600 million, and someone lost $600 million.
Maybe Mr. Gore was on the receiving end? I hope not.
regarding the $600 million – I’d bet good money that if we could track it to it’s source, we’ll find that it’s ALL borrowed money, and borrowed by some European Govm’t who’s ministers have a direct financial stake in the success of the venture.
AND when it goes bad and none of the notes are paid, which of course will happen, the players will disappear and keep their profits while the losses get dumped on the unsuspecting taxpayers of the EU.
This entire business is scams wrapped in scams, riding on the back of the biggest scam of all.
Next credit card commercial!
One ton of CO2 indulgences, 5 cents.
The cost of a carbon trading exchange, $600,000,000.
Having the world watch the alarmist profiteers take a bath in the air/indulgences scheme………….priceless!
I thought burning charcoal releases carbon monoxide, not the dreaded ghg carbon dioxide. I’m confused.
My 30 second take on the board of ICE is that nobody except the chairman has a clue about the energy industry
http://ir.theice.com/directors.cfm
Clinton and Blair people in there by the looks of it.
Hey at five cents a ton, you could lkely make a profit selling it to Coca Cola.
Closer look shows the first guy listed may have some real energy sector experience. The rest have mostly ‘public service’ backgrounds. Red flag for me if I was looking at this as an investor.
RHG, There is a story in Canada that the large numbers of salmon are due to Alaskan volcanoes. These put more nutrients into the sea at the right time. More nutrients, more phytoplankton, more salmon.
Clean energies anyone? …Buy one windmill and take three for the same price!…..now, if you are a politician, then we can talk, ya know…50%?, and you don’t have to worry, you just make a reference to the Un’s Agenda 21…..
Jim Cripwell says:
October 26, 2010 at 11:35 am
….or perhaps they are after that Suzuki guy up there… 🙂
From Climate to Climaterium: The Rise and Fall of Global Warming!
Frank K. says:
October 26, 2010 at 10:04 am
Perhaps people like James Hansen should have 100% of their 401K invested in the “Carbon Financial Instruments” – LOL!
Frank.
You are closer to the truth with your statement, Here is
Here is a delightful/sad story of the UK public broadcaster – BBC – AGW propaganda service.
BBC INVESTED MOST OF THE PENSION FUND IN GREEN PROJECTS; NOW THE FUND IS IN SERIOUS DEFICIT, CONFLICT OF INTEREST FOUND!
The BBC, prime proponents of warming theory, or AGW, has heavily invested its pension fund in the theory, and thus has had a major non-Scientific reason for their bias. As revealed this weekend in The Express:
The BBC £8billion pension fund is likely to come under close scrutiny over its commitment to promote a low-carbon economy while struggling to reverse an estimated £2billion deficit.
Concerns are growing that BBC journalists and their bosses regard disputed scientific theory that climate change is caused by mankind as “mainstream” while huge sums of employees’ money is invested in companies whose success depends on the theory being widely accepted.
The BBC is the only media organization in Britain whose pension fund is a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which has more than 50 members across Europe.
The IIGCC is an interesting group.
The IIGCC is a forum for collaboration on climate change for European investors. The group’s objective is to catalyse greater investment in a low carbon economy by bringing investors together to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors. The group currently has over 50 members, including some of the largest pension funds and asset managers in Europe, and represents assets of around €4 trillion.
Conflict of Interest???
The Chairman of IIGCC investment group is Peter Dunscombe, who also happens to be the BBC’s Head of Pensions Investment.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/156703/-8bn-BBC-eco-bias-
Just a little Fact Check . . . . Your half right. . . but I just got Vitol from Google
This is the Chart you mention . . .
Chicago Climate Excange
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/
BUTT . . .
Vitol buys 8.5 mln U.N. CO2 credits from Asian projects
Reuters – 3 hours ago
The carbon credits, called certified emissions reductions (CERs), come from a portfolio of hydropower and wind projects in Vietnam and Laos, Vitol said in a …
laurie
Douglas DC says “Mark Twain would’ve had a field day,with this too…”
Indeed he would.
It was Twain, of course, who said “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” In his day, nobody was stupid enough to try.
Jim Cripwell says:
October 26, 2010 at 11:35 am
“RHG, There is a story in Canada that the large numbers of salmon are due to Alaskan volcanoes. These put more nutrients into the sea at the right time. More nutrients, more phytoplankton, more salmon.”
Indeed. Here’s the story:
Is B.C.’s sockeye boom a one-off? (Mark Hume – Globe & Mail – October 24, 2010)
When the Cohen Commission inquiry into the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River opens evidentiary hearings Monday in Vancouver, it will be haunted by an unexpected, stunning turn of events on the waterfront.
After Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen to head a judicial inquiry into last year’s collapse of sockeye stocks – the fish came back. And they came back in bigger numbers than anyone had seen in almost 100 years.
Relevant excerpt:
Relying on research done by Roberta Hamme, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, Dr. Parsons speculates that the eruption of the Kasatochi volcano fertilized the sea, and stimulated the growth of the salmon, leading to higher survival rates.
Ms. Hamme, in a paper published in the science journal, Geophysical Research Letters, reports that a shower of iron-rich ash fell on the Gulf of Alaska after the eruption.
Read more here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/is-bcs-sockeye-boom-a-one-off/article1771042/
Thank you Ted Gray for the info. Where will this lead I wonder.
THE WORLD CLIMATE SUMMIT
Strangely, this year it’s going to be somewhere hot:
“The UNEP Finance Initiative and partners, including the World Bank, the UN Global Compact, the Carbon Disclosure Project and many others, have come together to launch the inaugural World Climate Summit, 4-5 December, 2010 at The Ritz-Carlton, Cancun, Mexico, in parallel to the UNFCCCCOP 16 conference.
“As the first founding partner of the WCS and the conference’s main focal point on finance, investment and insurance, the UNEP Finance Initiative is supported by a large coalition of financial institutions and investors, both UNEP FI Signatories as well as numerous climate change networks such as IIGCC, IGCC, INCR, the PRI, ClimateWise and FELABAN.”
Visit the conference’s website http://www.wclimate.com/World_Climate_Summit/HOME.html
See the Press Release http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/events/2010/cancun/wcs_press.pdf
Media Coverage http://www.unepfi.org/media/inthenews/2010/cancun/index.html
… Notice THERE’S NOT A SINGLE SCIENTIST THERE! … “the conference’s main focal point on finance, investment and insurance, the UNEP Finance Initiative is supported by a large coalition of financial institutions and investors … ”
And to think they get all upset when we don’t believe them!
When the final scientific truth is revealed we will want to pay the power companies for each ton of CO2 that they put into the atmosphere.
A CO2 enriched atmosphere will help solve the world food shortage because it will boost the growth of food plants. CO2 in the food that plants live on.
Wait a minute, directly sold offsets makes it a closed exchange like the Baltic Dry Index but the Baltic Dry Index reflects contracts for real goods and services.
They aren’t authorized to sell offsets directly. It would interfere with State powers and interstate commerce. Did the Fed buy the Chicago Climate Exchange?
I’d be really surprised if carbon trading doesn’t take hold in the US.
And I just found out that here in California, the government not only is using AB32 to help spark a national and then international global warming effort, they are trying to get CA hooked into a REDD scheme where we’d pay foreign countries money each year to store our carbon.
I bet prop 23 would get a boost if people knew that AB32 could end up being used to transfer some of their wealth via higher energy costs to other nations.
George E. Smith : Hey at five cents a ton, you could lkely make a profit selling it to Coca Cola.
Aren’t you buying the lack of emissions? I think all you get, is a piece of paper from someone that says for $0.05 they emitted/will emit 1 less ton than they have a right to; or perhaps that they have taken some action that removes 1 ton of C from the atmosphere.
Otherwise, sign me up for the coke deal… That would be arbitrage at its finest, provided you can overcome the transaction fees;)
Suzanne
October 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Jim Cripwell
October 26, 2010 at 11:35 am
##
Interesting theory but wrong. It seems to be just some eco-spin to explain away the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality by relegating the reality to a special outlier that can be safely ignored. I have not read the study, but from what I have seen, it completely ignores the know life cycle of salmon. Salmon go through 7, 11 year and multi-decadal cycles. What ever happened in 2008 will not have any affect on returning salmon for quite a while if ever. And anyway, it is not the number of salmon that return to spawn, but the number of fry that survive to breading age.
To think that the US is one of the only countries in the world where we naturally soak in more CO2 then we exhale so to speak. After taking into consideration all things, this is the truth…but then we have this stuff coming out…
So, now we can guess with lower uncertainty about why Skipper left old Al baby. The betting guess is it was because Al baby spent his entire allowance from Skipper’s rich family for the next 10 years on the US Carbon Trading Futures market.
John
If you’d like to vote Yes or No on Prop 23, here’s the latest LA Times Poll:
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/10/big-oil-companies-vs-the-global-warming-law.html
“Actually, the biggest tell is in the zero volume. This means the market is dead dead and dead. The 5 cent closing price is a fiction as there were no buyers or sellers.”
Actually it says nothing about sellers. Just no buyers. What a surprise!
There’s no longer a legitimate scientific problem when Wall Street invents a solution.
Okay. NOW is when I buy.
I can get a lifetime of carbon indulgences for… nothing. You get what you pay for.
“Well where I come from, it had to do with metal punch out plugs used in vending machines.”
I know those as slugs, hadn’t realized they were the plugged nickel.
With all scandals at ECX, I suppose ICE saw CCX as a cheap source of valid carbon credits. Since EXC is mandated by treaty, ICE can unload the CCX assets at a profit.
“When the final scientific truth is revealed we will want to pay the power companies for each ton of CO2 that they put into the atmosphere.
A CO2 enriched atmosphere will help solve the world food shortage because it will boost the growth of food plants. CO2 in the food that plants live on.”
So at these prices I could buy enough CO2 for the rest of my life, and that of the next, oh, 2-5 generations of my family for what I have in my pocket.
What a deal!
*(skips off to bank to withdraw cash 2.50 GBP)…
James Cameron should have an easy time buying carbon offsets for his CO2 indulgent living. While he may use the same carbon footprint as a small country in Africa, for a few hundred bucks he can buy his offsets.
At present pricing, CO2 for a flight from LAX to LHR that equates to 12.5 cents per passenger (for 2.52 tonnes) or if you prefer you could always go to JP Morgan Climate Care 🙂 and pay a more guilt respectable lot of £18.90($30) and watch your money disappear into the financial abyss. JP only marks up to from 5 cents to $12/tonne. (A mark up of only 24,000 %)
Kate says:
October 26, 2010 at 12:30 pm
“THE WORLD CLIMATE SUMMIT
Strangely, this year its going to be somewhere hot:”
Well, you don’t expect them to hold a conference like that in, say, Cleveland in the middle of December! :^)
How much per ton are they selling the actual certificates for. Could be a good deal for winter fuel.
Maybe they can try changing the units.
Megaton
Gigaton
Terraton
nah still be 5 cents
A plug for the real definition:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/260800.html
IanM
You would have thought that those convinced by global warming theory would be snapping up these bargains.
Maybe they would not want to be accused of insider dealing, using their specialist knowledge to take unfair financial advantage.
Or maybe they realise it all sucks.
Soros et al, Gore, and Goldman Sachs have suffered a serious hair cut. I wish them the worst.
Another fractional reserve banking scam comes to its logical conclusion.
Federal Reserve Notes are next.
RHG:
“I nearly fell out of my chair when I read this BBC report by Susan Watts concerning the record salmon run in the Fraser River, British Columbia. ”
I saw the report on BBC Newsnight tonight. It was something of a revelation in questioning the accepted conclusions of scientists, that perhaps they may not be right, that perhaps their data was incomplete, and that their computer models of salmon levels were wrong.
Although it did make the comment later on that one year’s results should not be taken as indicative of a trend, comparing this to global warming where one cooler winter did not indicate a failure of the AGW hypothesis.
I had hoped that the ‘scepticism’ shown against accepted fisheries science might be a recognition by BBC that other areas of science may also be subject to valid doubts, especially when the facts outweighed the hypothetical models.
Still, it is intriguing that BBC felt motivated to bring up global warming not as an influential factor in fish stocks, but as a comparison of the respective sciences.
Is there anyway to set up a company to buy offsets at $0.05 on CCX in the US and sell them on the EU’s ICE for €13/ton?
I mean my US co2 offset is just as good as your EU co2 offset.
Anyone know of any other commodity that can be bought in one regional market and marked up by a multiple of 260 in another, please let us know.
IIRC, the price of CO2 at the European Climate Exchange is tens of dollars per ton CO2.
The huge difference between EU and Chicago is beyond my understanding.
Someone in the know please teach me about this enigma….
Buy a climate share today (5 cents cheap), frame it, and make a Christmas present out of it.
Or hang it in your den as a souveneir talking piece.
It’ll soon be going the route of bell bottoms and Mulligans. Passing Fad.
Leave us not forget that there was another politician involved in the genesis of CCX, no less than Our Beloved Emperor, Obama the First (May He Be The Last and May He Not Last). While sitting on the BOD of the Joyce Foundation in Chicago he funneled nearly a million dollars in grants to help get CCX off the launch pad.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9629
Besides Algore, our old buddy Maurice Strong was also prominent investor in CCX.
One does have to wonder exactly how ICE expects to recoup it’s $600 million investment off what would appear to be basically a nonfunctioning nameplate at this point, and what it’s investors think of this use of their funds. Hopefully they remembered to secure rights to the internet domain name in the acquisition. It would seem to be the only possibly monetizable asset left in CCX.
‘L. Bowser says:
October 26, 2010 at 1:38 pm
George E. Smith : Hey at five cents a ton, you could lkely make a profit selling it to Coca Cola.’
See ‘kramer says:
October 26, 2010 at 1:20 pm
And I just found out that here in California, the government not only is using AB32 to help spark a national and then international global warming effort, they are trying to get CA hooked into a REDD scheme where we’d pay foreign countries money each year to store our carbon.’
I live in Ohio. I think Ohio qualifies as a Foreign County in the eyes of California. We could start a company, bottle co2 sell it to soda guys, then the co2 is stored in humans. That sounds better than co2 offsetting walnut trees that sprout up from the squirrels doing their thing in my yard.
Hi Mr. Watts,
I just purchased a 2002 ford Think neighbor. I read your article about your EV, and was wondering if you can give me a few pointers for this vehicle. The ford think vehicle I purchased have no battery, I was wondering if you can point me to the right direction? I still have many questions, and would really appreciate your guidance. Please help.
Sincerely,
Will
A bag of charcoal BBQ briquettes is worth far more than a ton of carbon dioxide right now. Stock up, you might be able to sell them to some unsuspecting dupe a briquette at a time just so long as you provide a certificate to go with each one.
==============================
But don’t forget Propane, a cleaner burning option than charcoal, and delicious for your burgers.
Hank Hill
Arlen, TX
Plugged nickels have a history
I’ll bet Al Gore is licking his wounds right now.
No wonder he doesn’t show his face in public these days….
I gotta admit…his face in public….OR him licking his wounds…are sights that I would pay NOT to have to see.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Carbon credits are just a scheme to transfer wealth. However the market probably collapsed when we ran our national debt up so high that investors doubted whether there is any wealth left to transfer. All those nations that signed up now rue the day they did.
Ted Gray @
October 26, 2010 at 11:55 am
Thanks for the link on the BBC Ted. I am still laughing, especially as Anthony has “Carbon Fools Day” up! LMAO!!
@Alfred Ledner Gray. When the curtain’s pulled back it suddenly all makes sense.
Funny how people that ‘Should’ve know better’ have been taken in by the CCX, AGW and un-biased scientist’s.
I’m going off grind soon hopefully by breading thousands of hamster’s and attaching there wheels to an alternator. Anyone want to invest? only problem is I can’t seem to find out how much CO2 a hamster produce’s but i know the studies out there somewhere as it falls into the AGW grant range.
You know what? If there is a taxpayer component to the CCX buyout/bailout, well this is something that a new Congress could sink its teeth into.
We are talking about the Enron/Madoff major leagues now. Wouldn’t it be perfect if this unbelievable brazen scam is the vehicle to massive prison terms!
Fantasies of perp walks dancing through my head.
I suspect you have nailed it on the head. Here’s to our European friends busting this thing wide open. After the Greece fleece and raised retirement age the words Powder Keg comes to mind.
To Lubos, and all the EU members from New Europe ;-), you’re not going to take this lying down are you?
Shevva says: (October 27, 2010 at 1:11 am) …by breeding thousands of hamster’s and attaching there wheels to an alternator.
Effectively converting hamster food to biofuel, Shevva? Shame!
Have been unable to resist the lure of the chase since Anthony’s headline to this topic was questioned.
My conclusion is that this head, “US Carbon trading – not worth a plug nickel” should have a hyphen to read: “plug-nickel”.
The plug in the headline is, as Anthony notes, a: “…metal punch out plugs used in vending machines.”
The plugged nickel we old timers remembered is more exotic:
“…focusing on a new one that deals with directly sold carbon offsets rather than open trading.”
Here’s a couple of tips to save the planet: The high-polluting corporates can go buy up businesses that have a low carbon footprint & run them as shelf-company carbon offset receptacles…or lease a few hundred hectares of Amazonian rainforest.
Somehow these prices remind me of the time back in 1954 when Cheerios included imitation Confederate money with each box of cereal. At the prices quoted above, they could just about afford using the real thing.
Offset projects are not being screen traded. They are receiving more than $0.05 a metric ton. Prices vary from $1 to $5 for CCX projects. For VCS traded they are in $10 – $20 range.
Love the graph..! In the same way that CO2 levels follow global warming (oh, yes it does – those nice climate scientists all say so) – I reckon that interest in the myth of global warming pretty much follows the same line….
Do I have this correctly? People & businesses are supposed to volutarilly (for now) pay a fee according to their “carbon” emissions for given activities to a bunch of guys that will scim their considerable fees off the top and then direct the remaining money to people that have supposedly cut their (projected?) emissions accordingly. Of course in this whole process no CO2 emissions (innocuous as they are) have been cut. What a scam?
When the epitaph for the CAGW scam is finally written. It should go down as a bigger scam than prohibition era alcohol boot-legging.
Do you really doubt Global Warming/Climate Change (as I sit in 70 degree weather in late October)
Eric Taub says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:37 am
Do you really doubt Global Warming/Climate Change (as I sit in 70 degree weather in late October)
————————————————————-
Are you kidding? First where are you located? In Northern Nevada the temps are presently running 10 F degrees lower than ‘normal’. Based on this am I too extrapolate an impending ice age?
Please remember that charcoal, elemental Carbon, if sequestered in top soil, is equal to more than 3.67 times the weight of CO2, so that’s $0.18
Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.
Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,
Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration (= to 1 Ton CO2e) + Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels = to 1MWh exported electricity, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.
Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw;
“Feed the Soil Not the Plants” becomes;
“Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !”.
Free Carbon Condominiums with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.
Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.
Microbes like to sit down when they eat.
By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders & Kingdoms of life.
Recent NATURE STUDY;
Sustainable bio char to mitigate global climate change
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1/n5/full/ncomms1053.html
tokyoboy says:
October 26, 2010 at 5:09 pm
IIRC, the price of CO2 at the European Climate Exchange is tens of dollars per ton CO2.
The huge difference between EU and Chicago is beyond my understanding.
Someone in the know please teach me about this enigma….
============================================
I’ve been told that Chicago contracts are known to have a poor design (don’t know the details tough), and thats the reason why investors and speculators stay away from them, hence the near zero value. As a consequence, their prices should not be interpreted as a measure of how the market values carbon emissions.
The EU has had Cap&Trade for years now , it is gradually evolving into a carbon tax.
Cap&Trade worked like a painless charm for NOX & SOX, Carbon has taken a longer learning curve and we have the EU efforts & mistakes to help us.
A Tax&Dividend system, the dividend to the consumers pockets, to empower choice is my choice for a pain less transition.
To me, in the long run, the final arbiter / accountancy / measure of sustainability will be soil carbon content. Once this royal road is constructed, traffic cops ( Carbon Board ) in place, the truth of land-management and Biochar systems will be self-evident.
A dream I’ve had for years is to base the coming carbon economy firmly on the foundation of top soils. My read of the agronomic history of civilization shows that the Kayopo Amazon Indians and the Egyptians were the only ones to maintain fertility for the long haul, millennium scales. Egypt has now forsaken their geologic advantage by building the Aswan dam, and are stuck, with the rest of us, in the soil C mining, NPK rat race to the bottom. The meta-analysis of Syn-N and soil Carbon content show our dilemma;
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/jeq/articles/38/6/2295
The Agricultural Soil Carbon Standard is in final review by the AMS branch at USDA. Both Congressional Ag Committees have asked for expansion of Soil Carbon Standard to ISO status.
Read over the work so far;
http://www.novecta.com/documents/Carbon-Standard.pdf
Whole systems solutions based on building soil carbon take a while to filter through one’s mind to see the manifold benefits. The “Eyes Glaze Over” microbial complexity, labile vs. recalcitrant carbon, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) etc, all conspire to slow peoples comprehension .
Once thought through however, the elemental carbon nature of biochar understood, soil’s reduced GHG emissions, the local economic stimulus perceived, then can be added that beyond rectifying the Carbon Cycle, biochar systems serve the same healing function for the Nitrogen & Phosphorous Cycles, Toxicity in Soils & Sediments and cut the carbon foot print of livestock by 1/2 with a 5%Char feed ration.
The production of fossil fuel free ammonia & char (SynGest, http://www.syngest.com/ ) and the 52% conservation of NH3 in composting with chars, are just the newest pathways for the highest value use of biomass.