As far as I know, they haven’t been auctioned off in this country yet, but are there any predictions for what they will cost?
Thanks,
Rob
It’s a very difficult question to answer. When I have a project run economic trending, based on our emissions compliance/legislation folks assumptions we assume everything from $1/ton to $200/ton. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme is currently seeing them run about 11.95 Euro per tonne of CO2 (spot). See here: http://www.climatecorp.com/pool.htm
Many believe that the US is most likely to start out at somewhere between $5 and $25 per ton, but I can’t point to a cite, that’s what my emissions experts tell me. These folks seem to think it will be about $13.70 in 2012.
It is nearly impossible even to begin to estimate what emissions permits will cost, until the number of permits issued is known. This, balanced against the amount “required” (i.e. the actual amount of emissions in the traded sector) will determine the cost. But it will be extremely sensitive to even small changes in either supply or demand.
While Una is correct that EUAs are currently trading in the range of €10 to €12, they were above €25 just a few months ago, and have collapsed in value mainly due to a difference of only a few percent in expected economic growth rate. In the first phase of the trading scheme (NAP1) the traded price was extremely volatile, at first driven very high by speculative trades, and later collapsing to zero.
Having said all that, one very tenuous basis for guessing a post-2013 price (at least in Europe) is to assume that the carbon price will be low enough so as to allow coal-fired power plant to be in merit, at least in winter, while being high enough to allow gas-fired plant to be in merit, at least in summer. I don’t know how well this would transfer to the US market(s).