According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the SFO airport has now installed carbon offset purchase kiosks so that you can remove the guilt from your flight. Only one problem. The carbon offsets sold by kiosk sell at a rate that is about 60 times what carbon credits are actually selling for on the market now. There’s no frequent flyer polluter discount either.
Here’s what the kiosk start screen looks like according to the company website:
You can run the kiosk interactively yourself here. Let’s say you chose the “Use Typical Flight Distances” option. This is the screen you’d get:
If I chose the medium range flight at 2000 miles, the cost would be 11.44 for 1869 pounds of CO2 that is estimated to be emitted on my behalf. That works out to about $12.24 per ton of CO2.
Here’s the rub, you can buy a ton of carbon offset on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) for 20 cents. That’s about 60 times less than what you would pay at the SFO kiosk!
Here’s the closing numbers from CCX yesterday:
From CCX: Price and volume reported in metric tons CO2. Change based on previous day’s closing price.
P.T. Barnum would be proud.
UPDATE: Maybe they set the price last year during early planning when carbon was at $7 per ton?
It appears there was a big selloff last Friday, when investors got wind of a major suspension by the UN before it hit the press. On Sept 11th, there were 292,500 transactions (largest in over a month) and the price fell from the previous day closing price of 25 cents:
The Sunday Times has the story:
The legitimacy of the $100 billion (£60 billion) carbon-trading market has been called into question after the world’s largest auditor of clean-energy projects was suspended by United Nations inspectors.
No wonder carbon offsets are falling to 20 cents a ton. Coal is still much more valuable at 40-50 dollars a ton.
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Perhaps someone in the US can help me out. Who prints these carbon indulgences currently? My understanding was that the in the US Gov is still in the ‘design’ process, not at the point of having printed certificates.
As I have said before, I can see even the most ardent planet huggers seeing this for the scam it is before long, if they haven’t already. $$$Trillion ‘fresh air’ markets in London and Chicago, ‘indulgences’ sold from vending machines on every street corner, Mauna Loa rising at the same old rate and temperatures falling regardless.
‘Scam’ will need a new entry in the OED before very long.
philincalifornia (10:11:20) :
(Completely OT question) Are you just ‘a’ ‘philincalifornia’ or did you once reside in England? (north)
Maybe the scam is in getting people to buy nice looking paper certificates?
I wouldn’t go so far as to actually put any money in the machine to find out what it spit out, but any allure it may have could be similar to machnes that squish a penny for a dollar.
philincalifornia (10:11:20) :
(Completely OT question) Are you just ‘a’ ‘philincalifornia’ or did you once reside in England? (north)
————————
I am actually ‘the’ philincalifornia, heh heh heh …. and yes, as I’ve mentioned on here more than once.
Don’t be so quick to send him your money. Send me the equivalent sum in British Pounds, I already have the trees and am just waiting to order the wildlife.
My 60ft Eucalyptus is just crying out for a Koala Bear, they are much cuter and huggable than the American black ones. Oh and also Koalas only eat leaves and CO2 and also read books in their spare time instead of eating all the other wildlife you would be paying for.
Oh, and also the ‘raptors’ he is about to help are Velociraptors, hideously ravenous 7ft high scaley carnivores. Did I mention that both ‘black bears’ and Velociraptors need 400lb of live screaming animal meat per day each that’s a lot of small birds and mammals (a typical Finch weighs only about 25g, young chicks even less).
It wasn’t from here, it was more to do with football (English – with the foot) and a northern (M62 corridor) club.
The only problem, and it’s a big one, is that according to buinessgreen.com, “global revenue at firms providing climate change-related products and services grew by a record 75 per cent during 2008 to $530bn (£324bn), making the fast-growing sector larger than the aerospace and defence industries. ”
Yes. But how much of that “Profit” is due to government subsidies???
Carbon offset kiosk at SFO sells carbon credits at 60 times the market rate
Well the whole carbon bogey / play to the simple peoples guilt / save the world – is a gigantic con.
This only illustrates another way where the general public are being ripped off.
I kind of want to buy a $100 or so of those twenty cent carbon credits. If they go back up to $8, yee ha. If not they will make a nifty group hysteria novelty item in a couple of decades. If the horror of cap n trade comes true, I guess it will take the edge off of owning all of my 4×4 trucks, snowmobiles, chainsaws and outboards.
There is no more real value in Carbon Offset Shares than there was in Credit Default Swaps. What if there was a Market and nobody came?
Vending machine, here vending machine, here boy! Go fetch daddy some greenbacks.
How about some Carbon Offset Trading Insurance?
Dr. Max (11:35:41) :
For fun I made a calculation Sweden – Thailand a month ago: 17,376 km (10,797 miles) 3.8 tonnes CO2 offset price EUR 46.68 = USD 68.71. Takes 80 years with tree planting, but can be done in three years with blue-mussel cultivation. 72 tonnes of mussels yield ten weight percent shells fixing 3.2 tonnes CO2. Gives a bonus of 64 tonnes mussel meat with market price USD 52,532. With oysters the shell yield is doubled.
And the shells last forever dumped in the sea.
Dr. Max, why pay money when nature already takes care of it.
The earth’s biomass now is at a very high level and so is the plankton production in our oceans.
More CO2 provides us with more life on the planet.
The carbon credit market collapse hasn’t hit SF yet…
Carbon credits, the next big sub-prime scam.
Does anyone else here think we need a global extraction of gullibility genes?
No is the short answer. Conditions are different this time – didn’t you get the e-mail.
The carbon markets are where your pension fund should be – what could go wrong?
Live in shame you wicked folk. Make all your donations here to atone for your sins .
http://www.carbonfund.org/Calculators/
I’m surprised no one has linked to this yet: clicky
I’ve already given myself about 687 trillion carbon credits. Good thing they don’t have exponents.
FAO 3X2
Yes again, and on the right side of the Yorkshire/Lancashire border !!!
M White (10:41:44) : “We have a government department called the SFO in Britain. Any guesses. http://www.sfo.gov.uk/”
And you also have HM Revenue & Customs who are increasing the Air Passenger Duty from 1st Nov 2009 for “environmental impact” reasons:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2009/air-passenger-700.htm
The further you fly, the more you pay.
Retired Engineer (13:46:05) : “Laugh now. Wait until SFO or some other green wannabe makes Carbon Credits a mandatory surcharge on your airplane ticket.”
No need to wait. See above.
Comes to something that we have an economy where I can buy carbon indulgences using my Linden Dollars and still think I made a profit. Does anyone else think that the Chinese are having a good laugh at the west right now?
Here Clutz(ette), borrow some more ‘money’ and play fantasy economy II – it’s like real life only it’s all VR OPM.
tallbloke (10:03:21) :
A fool and his money are easily parted.
… has the right of it!
Existence of theses devices is confirmed. I was in FO last weekend, there is one in the departure area for international flights.
Does it have a Kilner bank?
Now that we have established that people don’t want to buy Carbon…. We just have to stop Government from passing laws forcing us to…
With him there rode a gentle PARDONER
Of Rouncivalle (comrades and friends they were),
Who’d come straight from the court of Rome. And he
Would loudly sing “Come hither, love, to me!”
The Summoner bore him a stiff bass staff;
No trumpet ever sounded so by half.
The Pardoner’s hair was as yellow as wax,
But hung as smoothly as a hank of flax;
In little strands the locks ran from his head
Till over both his shoulders they were spread
And thinly lay, one here, another there.
In jolly spirit, he chose not to wear
His hood but kept it packed away. He rode
(Or so he thought) all in the latest mode;
But for a cap his long loose hair was bare.
Such glaring eyes he had, just like a hare!
A veronica was sewn upon his cap. 685
He had his bag before him in his lap,
Brimming with pardons hot from Rome. He’d speak
In voice as dainty as a goat’s. From cheek
To cheek he had no beard and never would,
So smooth his face you’d think he’d shaved it good.
I think he was a gelding or a mare.
But speaking of his craft, Berwick to Ware
There was no pardoner could take his place.
– The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Michael D Smith (10:19:32) :
Where can I buy one of these machines? That’s what I call profit margin, AWESOME!!!
I don’t think I’ve ever quoted myself here, but after posting that previous message and thinking about how valuable such a golden goose machine could be, it occurred to me that such a network of machines, selling overpriced carbon credits, could actually be the mechanism for finally getting AGW into court. Someone would feel hoodwinked by their guilty conscience’s decision to support a CO2 tariff / offset, and find out it was sold on an exchange for virtually nothing, and the profits went into MY POCKET. I am falling in love with this idea, WOW!!!
Consider me the first documented case ever of a skeptic turning into an alarmist. It’s over folks, signing out, buying machines now. Hmm, which bank to choose. CO2 is BAAAAD! Yaaaaayyyyy!
This whole thing is a rip-off on top of a rip-off.
MikeW (10:37:10) :
I agree with MikeW 110%. [Okay, 100%.]
If something costs $1, 60X less will be negative $59. Such a deal, I’ll take a dozen.
People don’t have trouble with smaller amounts, e.g. a 20% off sale or “buy one, get another for half off.”
I fear this may be a major part of my developing curmudgeonly ways, ans some of it is coming from reading here and continually being reminded that precision is important.
What does “1X more” mean? 100% more? 2X?
How about “I need 10X the fuel to reach California”? “I need 10X more fuel to reach California”?
There ought to be a Monty Python skit built around that.