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.
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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 @ur momisugly
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.