Buyers and sellers meet once. The price is wherever they agree.
Carbonado
Carbon atom, four bonds · your guide to the market
Our plant is short. Somewhere else a cleaner plant beat its target and earned credits it does not need. The auction puts them in one room.
Every buyer says how many allowances they want and the most they would pay. Every seller says how many they offer and the least they would take. Sort the bids high to low, the offers low to high, and the price lands where the two lines cross.
Nobody sets this price. Not the regulator, not me. That is why PromETS never shows you one before the first auction has run.
Demand steps down, supply steps up. Everyone left of the crossing trades at one clearing price.
Carbonado says:
Remember this
The carbon price is discovered, not announced. It sums up how hard everyone else finds cutting.
In the game: In Easy Mode the auction runs once a year. From year two you see "Last year's auction $X" as a hint.
