Gore’s grand experiment has flatlined.
As we reported almost two weeks ago, the Gore and Pachauri advised Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX) has closed. Closing price? A nickel per ton of CO2.
Here’s the final day closing page for posterity:
A 16 lb bag of charcoal briquettes is worth more than a ton of CO2. About 220x more.
Here’s more on the story:
Carbon Trade Ends on Quiet Death of Chicago Climate Exchange
Republican mid-term election joy deals financial uncertainty among green investors as the Chicago Climate Exchange announces the end of U.S. carbon trading.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on October 21, 2010 that it will cease carbon trading this year. However, Steve Milloy reporting on Pajamasmedia.com (November 6, 2010) finds this huge story strangely unreported by the mainstream media.
To some key analysts the collapse of the CCX appears to show that international carbon trading is “dying a quiet death.” Yet Milloy finds that such a major business failure has drawn no interest at all from the mainstream media. Milloy noted that a “Nexis search conducted a week after CCX’s announcement revealed no news articles published about its demise.”
Not until November 02, 2010 had the story even been picked up briefly and that was by Chicagobusiness.com (Crain’s). Reporter, Paul Merrion appeared to find some comfort that while CCX will cease all trading of new emission allowances at the end of the year, “it will continue trading carbon offsets generated by projects that consume greenhouse gases, such as planting trees.”
Collapse is Personal Setback for U.S. President
Barack Obama was a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX. Professor Richard Sandor, of Northwestern University had started the business with $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation enthusiastically endorsed by Obama. When founded in November 2000, CCX’s carbon trading market was predicted to grow anywhere between $500 billion and $10 trillion. Fortunately before its collapse Sandor was able to net $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake when CCX was sold.
Failure of European Climate Market May Follow
Milloy writes, “although the trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, the CCX was intended to be the hub of the mandatory carbon trading established by a cap-and-trade law. Trading carbon was, “the only purpose for which it was founded.” But with their resurgence after the mid-terms the Republicans have now put a new cohort of global warming skeptics into the corridors of power.
Unlike the American voluntary scheme, the European cousin of the CCX, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), continues to trade due to the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol. But the future of the ECX will be in doubt unless a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol is introduced. That treaty expires in 2012. But the ineffectual Copenhagen Climate Conference (2009) exposed an inability among international politicians to agree on climate change. If this stalement persists then the European ECX may likely suffer the same fate as Chicago’s CCX.
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Don’t go popping the champagne corks just yet.
The big money behind the Green movement trying to get this shifted over to the UN.
Global taxes anyone?
Another victory for Free Markets in the war between Freedom and Socialism.
There is a moral to the story but as Gore and Patchy are in it……perhaps not this time!
This is not a war between socialism and freedom it is a war between totalitarians (from the [fake] left AND from the [fake] right {control both sides of the argument}) and the honest citizens of the world. Those at the top, be they pretending to be from the left or right, (wink, wink, nod, nodding all the way to the bank) have the common goal of total control. End the war between the left and right; it is as fake as carbon credits. It is nothing other than a new divide and conquer. A strategy that works because we are so easily led by our false leaders on “both” sides. Get out of their box.
ZT says:
November 8, 2010 at 10:51 am
Whose $98.5 million was it that Prof. Sandor trousered?
Yours of course, in that increase in your utility bills among many other things as food, even water that usually takes power to pump. You will be paying for his $98.5 million and a lot of other’s pocketed millions for a long, long time if not for the rest of your life. Just send him a big thank you.
Is there a final ritual… do we have to drive a stake through the CCX heart or something? Last thing I want to see is some sort of cheesy sequel.
What hath one election wrought!
R. de Haan says:
November 8, 2010 at 9:25 am
The EU has plans to blackmail the world into carbon trading.
Every foreign airline with slots on European Airports will have to compensate it’s carbon emissions from 2012.
If the airlines refused to fly into the EU for two weeks, how long do you think that little scheme would work? For starters, how would the watermelons get to their conferences in Bali?
It’s a shame there is no English equivalent, but for the Dutch speakers out there the following expression perfectly describes the dull/apathetic decline of the CCX. The expression in Dutch is “doffe berusting” and it fits perfectly.
This is a cynical expression used to describe projects that should never have been and die a very quiet death often required to save face for those that were involved in the first place. An apathetic or lethargic demise into obscurity. It has a cynical melancholy which seems appropriate in this case.
Not to worry, in the People’s Republic Of California, Cap and Trade (OR is that Cap and TAX?) is coming real soon:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/capandtrade.htm
So, how much did Al Gore make before his ponzie scheme collapsed?
“R. Shearer says:
November 8, 2010 at 11:48 am”
His (Family) wealth was, largely, derived from…..oil (Oxy).
“Dan in California says:
November 8, 2010 at 4:37 pm”
This is already happening in Australia. Last quater my power bill was about AU$180. This quater it went up to AU$199 with less power consumption.
Maybe they should sell their CO2 to the paintball crowd… these guys pay $30 per 20 ounce canister of the stuff: http://www.rlairgunsupply.com/cart/products/Spyder_CO2_Canister_20_oz_Tank_Full-78-16.html
Scipio says:
November 8, 2010 at 10:37 pm
“So, how much did Al Gore make before his ponzie scheme collapsed?”
I asked that same question above and later on had a little google time to look into it. I couldn’t find a hard number for Al’s take but it seems it was in the millions and it seems it wasn’t just one or two million. I’m strictly guessing here but I’d say in the $10-20 million range.
The king of Karbon still going strong:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-04/sandor-bullish-on-market-response-to-china-india-environment-challenges.html
A cap-and-trade market in China may be in place by 2020 and could be functioning by 2013 to 2015, Sandor said at a climate change forum in Hong Kong today. He helped found London-based Climate Exchange Plc in 2003, agreeing to sell his stake in the company in April to Intercontinental Exchange Inc.
“Irony of ironies, there’s a better understanding of cap and trade in Beijing than in Washington,” Sandor said. “In a Communist economy, the need to do it is very, very high.”
Not really ironic. 1 party state does state control. Not really communist either fyi.
[Next time please trim all of the extra header, ads, etc from a quote. I did it this time. Thanks…. bl57~mod]
Jimbo says:
November 8, 2010 at 9:46 am
If the EU goes it alone then expect a steady trickle of heavy industry to India and China.
=============================================================
If the EU goes it alone then expect the steady trickle of heavy industry to India and China to become a raging torrent.
There, fixed it for you.
Anthony, thanks for providing this news! I haven’t heard PEEP about this in the local Chicago media news outlets, although they have fawned over CCX in the past.
I passed this along to Ron May and his “May Report” newsletter, he’ll make sure the story gets circulated.
Alas, CCX, I barely knew ye….
Not much of the Dutch (I can’t speak for other members ) support the ever growing interference of Brussels. More and more are becoming aware that the EU is becoming a political monster which costs more and more and interferes with our local legislation more and more.
To implement cap & trade now could lead to a point where the underbelly of the people could start to speak out more loudly.
The Dutch people voted against the , formerly know as , European bill of rights before but got it pushed true anyway by the former government.
Glad fully the current government isn’t too keen on Europe either. Minister Leers got his share today for signing the Brussels treaty on allowing Albanians and Bosnians to travel without visa and the recent government isn’t keen on climate regulations either.
Elections next year could be key to what happens.
Great. Now, can we have a judge’s ruling to kill off Cap&Crash in California?
Well, the California economy is not going to withstand our own version of cap and tax.
On a drive to Florida I watched the price of Gasoline drop from about $3.75 to $2.89 with the typical “mark up” for California being about 1/2 buck a gallon. Now make that more like a buck, or $2 … and watch all the north / south traffic shift over to Nevada…
As it is, I held off buying gas to the station located just feet over the line in Arizona. And I fill up there on the way back. If I did this with any frequency, I’d get a second tank added…
Next time I do this drive, I intend to just shoot up 80 to Nevada and take it from there ( I usually go down to I-10 in L.A. then turn left…) and if I do it right, I can limit it to one tank of gas in California.
And per the folks saying the California economy is doing OK, we’ve got an official unemployment rate near 14% , and actual rate closer to 20%, and unemployment rates among the young and unskilled running closer to 50%. That is not healthy.
Further, I’m in Florida in part to investigate costs of land, housing and the availability of work. It’s a lot cheaper, a lot more comfortable, and a lot more “active” than California. So as more folks start doing that, California will continue to have “issues”.
Now, just to put a bit more salt on that wound… Last time we had Governor Moonbeam in charge, he stopped building most anything but especially stopped building freeways. Think he’s going to be investing a lot in “shovel ready projects”?
The process is a long and slow one, and folks are holding their breath and hoping that the economy picks up. But “Hope is not a strategy”, and certainly not a strategy “we can believe in”…
California has always survived by moving to the next great bubble. From the gold rush to the silicon rush. But this time there isn’t much of a new “rush” to work with… and the green jobs myth is not going to cut it. Government make work programs have never found the next leap forward…
At best, I think we can get a “Dead Cat Bounce” out of it. Think of it as a good time to bail…
They’re doing so already. Check this out:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/235981-energy-update-coal-use-starting-to-dominate
PS: Here’s another pro-coal article from that site:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/236160-5-timely-valuations-in-coal-production