Prometheus: A Free Carbon Market Simulator for Learning Emissions Trading
Prometheus is a free, browser-based carbon market simulator. It lets you run an emissions trading system, trade allowances against AI-driven firms, and watch a carbon price form in real time. You learn the market by trading in it, not by reading about it.
What is a carbon market simulator?
A carbon market simulator is a tool that recreates the mechanics of an emissions trading system so you can practise inside it without real financial stakes. You take on the role of a regulated firm: you receive an emissions allocation, you trade allowances with other participants, you decide whether to abate or buy, and you settle your compliance obligation at the end of each period. A good simulator reproduces the parts that matter, including the matching of buy and sell orders, the cost of cutting emissions, and the pressure of a compliance deadline.
Why use a simulator to learn emissions trading?
Emissions trading is hard to understand from a diagram. The price of an allowance depends on how every firm responds to its own abatement costs, its allocation, and its expectations about the future. That feedback is difficult to follow on paper and obvious the moment you trade it.
A simulator gives you a safe place to build that intuition. Government officials, regulators, industry managers, students, and researchers can test strategies, see how a carbon price responds to scarcity, and make mistakes before any of it counts. This is why market simulations are a standard part of capacity building when a country designs or launches a new trading scheme.
What can you do in Prometheus?
Prometheus runs a continuous double-auction market, the same order-matching structure used by real exchanges and trading systems. Inside a game you can:
- Trade allowances live against AI firms with different trading personalities, from aggressive to patient.
- Decide between abating and buying, using a marginal abatement cost curve drawn from realistic technology cost bands.
- Play in intensity mode or absolute mode, the two main families of carbon market design.
- Configure sectors, allocation methodology (benchmarking, grandparenting, or a hybrid glide path), and compliance settings.
- Track a carbon profit and loss as the market moves, and surrender allowances during a compliance window.
The design is grounded in real policy, including India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, so the behaviour you see reflects how an intensity-based market actually works.
Who is Prometheus for?
Prometheus is built for anyone who needs to understand how a carbon market behaves: policymakers and regulators designing or stress-testing rules, industry teams preparing for compliance, students and researchers studying market design, and trainers who want a hands-on exercise rather than a slide deck.
How is Prometheus different?
Most carbon market simulators are closed. They run as facilitator-led workshops or sit behind institutional access, which makes them hard to reach if you simply want to see how a market behaves. Prometheus runs in your browser, anyone can start a game, and the mechanics are visible rather than hidden. It is free to use.
Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus free? Yes. Prometheus runs in the browser and is free to use.
Do I need a finance or trading background? No. The professional mode suits people already familiar with emissions trading, and a simpler learning mode is in development for people who are new to it.
Does Prometheus use real carbon market data? The market design and cost structures are grounded in real emissions trading systems, with particular attention to India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme and other intensity-based markets.
Can I use Prometheus for training or demonstrations? Yes. If you would like a walkthrough or help running it as a training exercise, email hipromets@gmail.com.