Delaware Makes $2M on Cap and Trade and the World Still Has Not Come to an End

Sacré bleu! Cap and trade, you say??

Yes — as we’ve previously reported (here and here), Delaware has been part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Imitative since September 2008. This program, you’ll recall:

10 states in the northeast banded together to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in the region and installed their own version of a cap and trade program. Every power plant in the area needs to buy allowances to emit greenhouse gasses. Allowances are sold on auction quarterly. At some point, the number of allowances on the market get scaled back — increasing the price of the allowance and sending a signal to the plant that it may be cheaper to reduce their emissions.

The NJ reports today that the State of Delaware made $2M in the latest auction round of emission allowances. Total amount of allowances sold on March 10th, yielded $87,956,944.56 for investment in the clean energy economy for the 10 states participating in this initiative.

Each state participating uses its share of the proceeds to invest in clean energy or conservation programs. For Delaware, 65% of the proceeds go to the SEU; 15% to weatherization programs for low-income residents; 10% for greenhouse gas reduction efforts and 5% for fuel assistance programs. (No idea what happens to the remaining 5%). In addition, companies who provide clean energy services to these power plants or who are in the weatherization and efficiency business report job increases as a result of the RGGI program:

The workforce at the Center for Ecological Technology, a company that conducts RGGI-funded efficiency work on behalf of electric utilities in New England, has doubled over the last year, from 50 to 100 full-time employees, according to Laura Dubester, the company’s Co-Director. New positions range from field technicians and quality control personnel to IT and customer service specialists.

The program is still flawed (as we wrote back in September) by it’s relatively modest goals and a structure that still supports too many credits — depressing the prices and unlikely resulting in the kind of aggressive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions needed. I’m hoping that someone is studying this to really assess its impact on emissions. But this is still a good look at how cap and trade works (including its financial benefits) and certainly not one of the regulated plants under this program is going out of business any time soon.