Tonnes of hot air up for grabs as Greens head for Waterford
The 20,000 tonnes of carbon emissions – unused by the now strangled Waterford Crystal – are being offered for sale across Europe by asset valuers and auctioneers McKays.
“It’s a first for us, we’ve never sold anything like this before, and we’ve sold just about everything, from sewing machines and forklifts, to helicopters,” says Dublin-based Robert McKay, selling the air over the ether of online tender.
The current recession and flood of company liquidation and asset sales sees his 30-year old sales company “working flat out right now”, admits Mr McKay.
As he turns to selling air – well, CO2 emissions – he says they are monitored here by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and traded on European markets. They currently have a value around €13 per tonne, but like other assets and gasses, values rise and fall.
On current values, the sale of the Waterford glass plant’s airy asset may see around €260,000 paid: that’s about the value of a good Waterford semi-detached house.
The hot air/carbon offset is the least tangible of the once-proud Waterford Crystal’s many assets, now all being disposed of after 200 years of company history.
Last month McKays held two successful online auctions of former Waterford Crystal assets and products for receiver David Carson of Deloitte, from glass cutting equipment to a 9/11 memorial in crystal and a 6ft crystal glass fountain.
Hundreds of jobs have been lost to Waterford and the economy, with glass production transferred to Eastern Germany by new owners KPS Capital.
The 36-acre Kilbarry Waterford Wedgwood plant went up for sale earlier this year, guiding €10 to €20 million.
As the Greens go to Waterford, they will mark the global event, Earth Hour, tomorrow night at 8.30pm by switching off lights at the Tower Hotel convention venue. Unfortunately, the lights at Kilbarry are already off. Lots of carbon saved there.
