[Pen-l] More "Cap and Evade"

[Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle@xxxxxxx>]

The Wall Street Journal (7/23/08) has another Page 1 story on the UN program to cap emissions in the rich countries by buying credits from "less developed" nations.  It begins:

PAGE ONE

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French Firm Cashes In 
Under U.N. Warming Program

By CHARLES FORELLE
July 23, 2008; Page A1

ONSAN, South Korea -- A French chemical maker is reaping a potential billion-dollar windfall under a United Nations program intended to spur climate-friendly investment in the developing world, highlighting the challenges of using market forces to tackle global warming.

The company, Rhodia SA, manufactures hundreds of tons a day of adipic acid, an ingredient in nylon, at its factory here. But the real money is in what it doesn't make.

The payday, which could amount to more than $1 billion over seven years, comes from destroying nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, an unwanted byproduct and potent greenhouse gas. It's Rhodia's single most profitable business world-wide. Last year, destroying nitrous oxide here and at a similar plant in Brazil generated €189 million ($300.5 million) in sales of pollution "credits."

<snip>

The investment in the Korean plant will cost about $15 million with, the story says, a payday that could come to over a billion in seven years.

Gene Coyle

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