We won't know until Monday how much Maryland and other states got in this week's auction of carbon-dioxide pollution allowances.  But some experts are saying the launch of the nation's first mandatory program to regulate carbon dioxide already has been a success, no matter how much revenue it raises.

Power plant owners and others bid electronically on Thursday for the rights to emit 12.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in the 10 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that are partcipating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Inititative.  The group had specified a minimum bid of $1.86 per ton.  The auction is part of a multi-state effort to combat global warming by curtailing power plant emissions of the chief gas linked with rising temperatures.

Some observers have wondered if the upheaval in the financial markets would dampen interest in the carbon auction.  Monday may tell.  But Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow with Resources for the Future, says the sale already has proven its worth.

"It's pretty heroic that they've done it in the first place," said Burtraw, who was among a group of experts commissioned by Maryland to review the potential impact of the auction.  Many thought it impossible, Burtraw pointed out, that a group of states could collaborate on something this complex and untried without support from the federal government in Washington.   The Bush administration, worried about the economic impact, had refused to regulate carbon dioxide until a Supreme Court ruling that it had the power and obligation to do so.

Burtraw, an economist, said he thought the carbon auction scheme was well designed and is a good model for a national plan to regulate climate-changing pollution from power plants.  The revenues from the auction are used by government to promote energy efficiency among consumers.

Even if Monday reveals there was some glitch in this initial bidding, Burtraw said, the auction already has influenced regulators in Europe, where there's been a market for carbon-dioxide allowances since 2005.

Europeans have been giving away their carbon pollution allowances for free, rather than selling them off.  And indeed, when they started, the Europeans gave away far more than industries were actually emitting - so many more that their allowances were virtually worthless to anyone holding them. But some in Europe had doubted that industries would willingly bid for the allowances, so the launch of the U.S. auction has largely overcome those fears.

"The heads of the EU have spun around with what RGGI has done here," Burtraw said. 

Malachy Hargadon's head wasn't exactly spinning when reached at his office in Washington.  But the environment counselor for the European Commission's delegation to the United States acknowledged that the U.S. decision to sell off its carbon pollution allowances, rather than give them away, has impressed him and his colleagues in Europe. 

"We learned that there are advantages to moving to auctions for allowances," Hargadon said.

European nations may well put up for bid the next batch of carbon allowances that they're due to issue in 2013, he said.  They could yield quite a lot of revenue, if so - Hargadon said allowances have been trading recently in Europe for about 25 Euros a ton.  A Euro is worth about $1.46 US.