Anyone for a very green auction?

By Dan Estabrook - September 23, 2008 The nation's first carbon auction will happen this week -- good news for those of you who want to keep global warming in check.  For three hours on Thursday, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative  will sell carbon credits in the first of a series of quarterly auctions, all of which will take place online. The governors of New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have created a coalition known as RGGI, or Reggie.  This "cap-and-trade" program has been labeled the model for all future programs. How does it work? RGGI caps the total amount of carbon that power plants across the states at 188 million tons.  Power suppliers must pay for the amount of carbon they release and RGGI will provide a market-based auction and trading system where suppliers can buy, sell and trade emissions allowances.  Both the cost and diminishing availability of credits over the next several years should incentivize power generators to cut carbon emissions to maintain lower costs. The auction participants are preselected, so sorry to those of you who wanted to purchase credits.  The starting minimum bid will be $1.86 per ton.  The only downfall for consumers might be suppliers passing higher costs onto them if the bid per tonnage goes sky high during the auctions.  But while the participants are pre-approved, investors and public interest groups may also participate. You can read more here. Via MSNBC