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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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)
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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….
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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.