Chicago Climate Futures Exchange

Richard Sandor, credited with creating the Treasury futures in 1977, now is excited about the emissions futures product:
``I'm more excited about this complex than I was 30 years
ago for interest-rate futures,'' said Sandor, who started U.S.
Treasury futures at the Chicago Board of Trade in 1977. About
$266 trillion in interest-rate contracts traded on exchanges
globally in the third quarter, according to the Bank for
International Settlements.

As for volume, I was wondering about the actual speculator and investor volume, hoping that the underlying would only be a base, where the rest of the market might grow to hugely exponential values.
``We'd be really happy if we were doing 2,000'' contracts a
day, or 12.6 million tons worth of pollution a year, Sandor said.
Eventually trading in the futures may grow to about 10 times the
underlying cash market, he said.