Sounded good, until they mentioned the motherboard

The Atom processor is a perfect decent CPU for web browsing, email, showing friend's my holiday snaps, etc. It doesn't need any more performance. It is also cheap with the motherboard and CPU being sold together. But what it needs is a fanless motherboard to go with the fanless CPU to cut the noise down.

a nice profit for someone

"The amount received from selling all allowances immediately would be almost the same as the expected net present value of surrendering them steadily throughout the year."

No it won't be - lots of (probably poor) people will think 'ooh, free cash' and sell their credits straight away...

Then if the credits are genuinely limited, clever people will buy them on the cheap in April, then wait till February or March to sell them at a nice profit as pensioners and the vulnerable start to feel the cold.