Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment • Hacker News Board

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#161

Post by Beltiras » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #55

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…

To your sequestration comment. No one is saying don't plant trees. Fuck yeah, plant all the trees! But that won't wont be enough. Sequestration will get better, but one of the big things it helps with is locality. CO2 isn't homogenously spread across the globe. It also doesn't spread very well. Concentrations vary drastically over the year and so do plants' ability to capture carbon. Carbon can build up in certain re…

Trees will actually do the trick. I looked for an international business that would plant a 1000 trees for me which would offset my entire carbon footprint for my entire life. Didn't find anything except a local one in Iceland [1] in Icelandic only (good luck with Google Translate).

I can offset my footprint for 800$/year and I think it's going to be my New Years resolution. No more carbon from me.

Finding land and planning trees for it should be a global business. There are a lot of people like me with disposable income that would invest in something like that.

[1] https://kolvidur.is

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#162

Post by ar0 » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #151

ar0 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you do not have to wait for Google: You can just start searching using Ecosia ( https://www.ecosia.org/ ) which use their revenue to plant trees around the world and are also a "negative emissions" operation. (Yes, the results are not as good as Google's, but for me they are good enough in the vast majority of searches, and for the remaining I can still hop over to Google.)

They should add a button "Try this search on Google instead" at the bottom of the first page, then I would probably try them. Otherwise it's too much of a hassle, especially on mobile, tbh.

You can add "#g" to any search and it will directly redirect to Google (similar to DuckDuckGo's shebangs). This works very well on Desktop, but I agree that it's a bit of a hassle on mobile...

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#163

Post by lyian » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #159

abalone wrote: post #117

Just to summarize (warm up those downvotes...): * “almost certainly more” than 84% of stripe’s emissions will not be sequestered because it’s “financially infeasible” * no mention of stripe’s actual carbon footprint * talk of startups and trillion dollar industry “by the end of the century” but no mention of government intervention / green new deal to turn the tide in the next decade before it’s too late Verdict: fre…

> We need massive mobilization at the federal level to hit the necessary emissions reductions within the next 12 years if we are to avoid a catastrophic rise in temperature. That doesn’t really make sense IMHO, global warming isn’t a US problem, it’s a worldwide issue. Let’s say the US becomes a benevolent dictatorship with the mission to reduce CO2 emissions by any mean necessary (and is somehow successful), you sti…

I don't think you need to go to war for that. The EU is aware of global warming and is taking actions to lessen their emission even tho it is still to slow. The most important part is to reduce the overwhelming consumption of the western world and then teaching and investing in the developing countries to prevent them to have the same habits we have/had.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#164

Post by SpeakMouthWords » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #131

chrdlu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals matter too! Netflix made had $5.8B in revenue from small $10-20 subscription users! Today, for $20 a month you can offset your own carbon footprint! This matters because the more resources that goes into fighting climate change allows innovation. Even by generating more demand for carbon credits and offsetting, new businesses can thrive and grow by fighting climate change! I've been super obsessed with ht…

Way less than $20 a month in a lot of the world too. Americans have a footprint twice as high as Brits, even.

Cars and air-con are the main offenders there, right?

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#165

Post by Ma8ee » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

itcrowd wrote: post #3

This is an amazing pledge and very powerful statement. However, I am not 100% convinced morally of CCS solutions. The main counter argument being that CCS technology enables the status quo of fossil fuel burning to continue. On the other hand, there are some heavy industries (steel production?) that do not have any alternatives to coal burning in order to operate and CCS can offset the carbon footprint in these indus…

SSAB and LKAB are experimenting with burning hydrogen instead of coal for steelproduction.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#166

Post by hugoromano » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:48 AM UTC

Our normal state should be doing good for the planet, and not bragging for doing the right thing. For starters, Stripe staff should fly far less, invest in remote working, or research how to make payments with the lowest carbon footprint. Cash is the baseline. I hope that there isn’t an hidden agenda of carbon credits as a business.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#167

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:52 AM UTC

hugoromano wrote: post #166

Our normal state should be doing good for the planet, and not bragging for doing the right thing. For starters, Stripe staff should fly far less, invest in remote working, or research how to make payments with the lowest carbon footprint. Cash is the baseline. I hope that there isn’t an hidden agenda of carbon credits as a business.

Should. Doesn't mean it's possible.

When the market doesn't favor doing the right thing, companies trying to do it die quickly, outcompeted by those who don't care. That's one reason why this has to be a gradual process, involving carbon credits and companies bragging about doing a bit of the right thing, and hopefully having that bragging be positively received.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#168

Post by semi-extrinsic » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 11:21 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #160

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the benefits of pyrolysis versus steam methane reforming (SMR)? My immediate thought would be that you leave energy on the table, and that storage at scale is harder when the end result is graphite. Moreover, SMR is proven technology at very large scale.

One advantage is that it produces high-purity graphite, which is a moderately expensive commodity, used for electronics manufacturing (especially power components in batteries), structural carbon composites, and machine lubricants. The percentage of carbon captured is also damn near 100% - quite a bit better than gaseous carbon capture techniques I've heard of. You do leave quite a lot of energy on the table (losing…

Aha, so it's targeting "CCU". Then OK, I can maybe see there is a point initially, but not at anything near the scale we need.

Global graphite production from mining is at 1 megatonne/year, while synthetic is a few hundred kilotonnes/year. We need CCS to operate at tens of gigatonnes per year, that's four orders of magnitude beyond all the graphite the world needs.

This is the problem with anything CCU - there just aren't viable options with consumption at the gigatonne scale.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#169

Post by azernik » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 11:41 AM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #168

azernik wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage is that it produces high-purity graphite, which is a moderately expensive commodity, used for electronics manufacturing (especially power components in batteries), structural carbon composites, and machine lubricants. The percentage of carbon captured is also damn near 100% - quite a bit better than gaseous carbon capture techniques I've heard of. You do leave quite a lot of energy on the table (losing…

Aha, so it's targeting "CCU". Then OK, I can maybe see there is a point initially, but not at anything near the scale we need. Global graphite production from mining is at 1 megatonne/year, while synthetic is a few hundred kilotonnes/year. We need CCS to operate at tens of gigatonnes per year, that's four orders of magnitude beyond all the graphite the world needs. This is the problem with anything CCU - there just a…

I'd imagine extra graphite is pretty easy to store, though?

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#170

Post by mononcqc » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 11:44 AM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #159

abalone wrote: post #117

Just to summarize (warm up those downvotes...): * “almost certainly more” than 84% of stripe’s emissions will not be sequestered because it’s “financially infeasible” * no mention of stripe’s actual carbon footprint * talk of startups and trillion dollar industry “by the end of the century” but no mention of government intervention / green new deal to turn the tide in the next decade before it’s too late Verdict: fre…

> We need massive mobilization at the federal level to hit the necessary emissions reductions within the next 12 years if we are to avoid a catastrophic rise in temperature. That doesn’t really make sense IMHO, global warming isn’t a US problem, it’s a worldwide issue. Let’s say the US becomes a benevolent dictatorship with the mission to reduce CO2 emissions by any mean necessary (and is somehow successful), you sti…

You do your part, other countries try to do the same, and various means and strategies are implemented and shared globally.

This “but we can’t fix it all alone, it’s a global issue” thinking mode has to go. All contributions are important in reducing the speed of warming, whether your neighbour participates or not.

Interestingly, the longer you wait, the more you can expect people with more extreme agendas to pop up around the globe because they will see the point in coercion to save the world. Early investment at a massive scale is worth it.