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Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

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Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#61

Post by harryh »

maximente wrote: post #45
tlb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't some intrinsic moral sin to burning carbon. There are just practical problems with having too much in the atmosphere. If you can remove carbon, especially if you can also convert it back into fuel, that solves the problem. (Carbon isn't the only emission from burning coal -- it contains sulfur and thorium too. But these can also be mitigated with some expense. And if you're converting CO2 directly to fuel…

no, this is too simplistic. extracting carbon from the ground is neither free nor reversable so this analogy isn't appropriate here. even if one could turn it back into whatever it's original form was (impossible to do without additional energy due to thermodyamics/entropy), the site of extraction is way worse for the wear.

No one cares about the "worse for the wear" problems of digging holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia. The whole problem is the CO2 that ends up in our air on the other end of the process.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#62

Post by mikeg8 »

lkschubert8 wrote: post #46
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #14

It's a small step in the grand scheme of things... But it's a huge step (and commitment) coming from a single company. I can honestly say that no company the size of Stripe has even come close to being this "cool" (in a good way, not in a superficial sense) on so many things: company culture, remote-ok, perks, and now environment. At least from my point of view. Kudos. Lots of kudos. Keep the good work, guys. As a si…

Am I mistaken in thinking that afforestation is technically a carbon sequestration strategy?

No, you are not. Trees naturally capture carbon in the form of wood. I noticed that distinction too in the post and assume they meant "modern" carbon sequestration engineered by humans.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#63

Post by esotericn »

ajross wrote: post #35
doctorpangloss wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just buy oil and not burn it. Far simpler than CCS.

That does nothing to reduce consumption. Oil isn't zero sum. If you make the market less efficient prices will rise a bit, but production numbers will still match demand. Fracking taught us this. If you want a simple solution, buy a farm and bury the output. Simpler than storing a bunch of oil, even. But not very effective relative to land use.

What's with this obsession with burying it?

You can plant trees and build things with them above ground.

The house I'm sitting in right now is a literal carbon storage unit.

Just don't burn it.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#64

Post by est31 »

surfmike wrote: post #20
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #14

It's a small step in the grand scheme of things... But it's a huge step (and commitment) coming from a single company. I can honestly say that no company the size of Stripe has even come close to being this "cool" (in a good way, not in a superficial sense) on so many things: company culture, remote-ok, perks, and now environment. At least from my point of view. Kudos. Lots of kudos. Keep the good work, guys. As a si…

Don’t you then need to worry about enforcement mechanisms to keep those trees from getting cut down? If they’re all harvested after say n decades, there’s no net effect on climate.

Forests have evolved into recycling ecosystems. When a tree dies naturally, it gets decomposed by various fungi and other organisms which, over time, release the stored CO2 back into the atmosphere. So the CO2 is released one way or another. What matters is that the living tree stores CO2 in its wood. Cutting and replanting might even increase the amount of stored CO2 because any wood that's used in the building industry is wood that doesn't decompose for decades to come. Wood you cut down to burn right thereafter probably reduces the storage capacity, but it's not zero due to the living trees!

Forests used to be real carbon sinks meaning that trees would just die without decomposing, because life hasn't figured out yet how to decompose it. This is how coal was formed around the globe.

Maybe some better technology to sequester CO2 emerges. But planting trees is a good approach for the start. If we want to slow down climate change, the CO2 sequestration industry will have to become huge within the next decades.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#65

Post by mikeg8 »

alkibiades wrote: post #22
brunoTbear wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got downvotes, I hope because your tone isn't super productive, not because HN doesn't like the realist viewpoint you're taking.

i think it’s the second. IMO if the people who run the company want to donate to charity, they can use their own money.

Well as they own they company, it technically is their money. I think the bigger point you're missing is how our society's corporate leadership needs to shift their mentality and follow along with Stripe. Solving this problem isn't the sole responsibility of philanthropic individuals.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#66

Post by mikeg8 »

Bravo to Stripe's continued leadership and exemplification of what a modern corporation can and should be. The CCS area I've been most fascinated by recently is listed as their first area of interest: natural carbon sinks via land management practices.

I've been reading a little more about mob-stalked, heavily mobile grazing techniques (rotating cows/buffalo/ruminants daily) which increases the grass productivity per acre, thus capuring more carbon in the grass --> soil. If anyone knows of any resources/studies comparing the carbon sequestration of grasslands, which have incredible biomass cycles over several decades, vs managed forests which do not see the same level of biomass turnover, I would love to see them.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#67

Post by beambot »

maximente wrote: post #45
tlb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't some intrinsic moral sin to burning carbon. There are just practical problems with having too much in the atmosphere. If you can remove carbon, especially if you can also convert it back into fuel, that solves the problem. (Carbon isn't the only emission from burning coal -- it contains sulfur and thorium too. But these can also be mitigated with some expense. And if you're converting CO2 directly to fuel…

no, this is too simplistic. extracting carbon from the ground is neither free nor reversable so this analogy isn't appropriate here. even if one could turn it back into whatever it's original form was (impossible to do without additional energy due to thermodyamics/entropy), the site of extraction is way worse for the wear.

Extracting carbon from ground isn't the only option: https://www.prometheusfuels.com/

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#69

Post by superflit »

alkibiades wrote: post #22
brunoTbear wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got downvotes, I hope because your tone isn't super productive, not because HN doesn't like the realist viewpoint you're taking.

i think it’s the second. IMO if the people who run the company want to donate to charity, they can use their own money.

You are right. Any investor should be aware that it may lose or gain wealth from this actions.

As customer I will take a lower fee instead of that and then I will choose whatever I will do with a lower fee.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#70

Post by ncallaway »

keithnz wrote: post #52
brunoTbear wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrapass seems to say my CO2 emissions from flying so far this year are going to come in around 13 metric tons. At $1000 per ton this isn't feasible. At $100 I'd think about it. At $10 it's not a question that I'd buy it. At $1000 per ton I'd change my air spending habits. At $100 per ton built into the price per flight I would probably take the same trips. tl;dr: get this price down an order of magnitude and I'm in…

so, the average total carbon emission per person is 4.5 tons, and your flying alone is 13? Isn't it better that you/we change your/our air spending habits? I don't believe that we can offset our carbon footprint fast enough with carbon sinks while still maintaing the same levels of carbon emission. Reality of course is that if there is significant upfront economic costs then very few people are going to buy into the…

If you add the cost of $100 per ton to the price of the plane ticket, you would see some amount of travel reduction naturally.

What travel reduction we would have would, at that point, pay for the appropriate sequestration.

Honestly, it sounds like we should just require everyone to buy 100% sequestration for their carbon production (priced into the goods and services). Add a phase in over, say 10 years to.

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