Michael Giberson
In a post titled “The $100 Billion Windfall: Why Utilities Love Cap-and-Trade“, Environment Capital notes the release of a new study by Point Carbon, financed by the WWF, which sought to estimate the “potential and scale of windfall profits in the power sector in selected countries (UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland) during the second phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which runs from 2008 to 2012.” Point Carbon provides an estimate of between 23 and 71 billion Euros, depending on assumptions.
We should be clear here. It isn’t the cap-and-trade that utilities love, its the multi-billion Euro windfall.
(NOTE: Rich Sweeney at Common Tragedies also comments on the Point Carbon study and Environmental Capital post.