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Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

bbc.com

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Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#301

Post by ohthehugemanate »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #247
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #109

There's a really good explanation of different loopholes in calculating carbon emissions in the Microsoft carbon target announcement from last year[1]. Eg do you count secondary services your employees use, like food services or emissions from their commute? Do you count partner services, like shipping providers for physical product? These, along with your direct emissions, are categorized into three "scopes" of emis…

Reminds me of “I, Pencil”. Here’s Milton Friedman’s 2 minute video about it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws The sheer number of vendors google has makes it nearly impossible to be 100% carbon neutral.

If microsoft can do it, why not google? They have a vendor qualification process that includes a carbon assessment. Internal POs to the given vendor incur an extra "tax" based on the cost to remove (or offset, in Google's case) the calculated amount of carbon.

Large vendors already offer the estimated carbon emissions of an order, and they certainly do when Microsoft or Google ask them to.

Aside: the moral high bar MS sets here is being "net zero", which is quite different than carbon neutral.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#302

Post by icebraining »

boogies wrote: post #152
djsumdog wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a ton of the "clean" power isn't clean. Solar needs to have standby fossil plants that keep at idle or else you get brownouts. Those high end molten salt solar plans take natural gas to startup. Most "wood chip" plants burn the same fast growing trees used by paper mills. CO2 is a stupid thing to focus on. There are so many other forms of pollution that are so much worse. Factory cities in China that have lakes o…

> But a ton of the "clean" power isn't clean. Emphasis on a ton — not all. Nuclear basically is. And as of this millennium at the latest it’s been safe. The nuclear deaths in the US add up to a grand total of 0 (zero). That’s better than eg. wind can say — at least one turbine has burst into flame during maintenance, forcing the workers to choose between burning or leaping to death. Google’s Ivanpah solar plant has a…

> don’t believe

Didn't, in thirteen years ago, when that survey was conducted.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#303

Post by djsumdog »

shadowgovt wrote: post #166
boogies wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a ton of the "clean" power isn't clean. Emphasis on a ton — not all. Nuclear basically is. And as of this millennium at the latest it’s been safe. The nuclear deaths in the US add up to a grand total of 0 (zero). That’s better than eg. wind can say — at least one turbine has burst into flame during maintenance, forcing the workers to choose between burning or leaping to death. Google’s Ivanpah solar plant has a…

Both Fukushima and Chernobyl raise serious questions about the safety of nuclear power, unfortunately. > And of course CO₂ danger is exaggerated, most scientists from the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) don’t believe there will be catastrophic effects of global warming (including from more potent greenhouse gasses like methane) in the ne…

> Have they looked into what's going on in the west coast of the US right now?

Despite the current fires, wildfires are down and have been for decades. A lot of the current wild fires stem from reducing the number of controlled burns we use to do.

Also there is quite a significant amount of arson:

https://archive.is/GWLYq, https://archive.is/cFPbd, https://archive.is/xHiFO, https://archive.is/mhKtG, https://archive.is/US23e, https://archive.is/JyfJe, https://archive.is/owMeD, https://archive.is/rl2cm (and there are a ton more)

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#304

Post by ohthehugemanate »

paul_f wrote: post #259
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #109

There's a really good explanation of different loopholes in calculating carbon emissions in the Microsoft carbon target announcement from last year[1]. Eg do you count secondary services your employees use, like food services or emissions from their commute? Do you count partner services, like shipping providers for physical product? These, along with your direct emissions, are categorized into three "scopes" of emis…

Sorry, buts carbon offsets are utter BS. Google has a 500,000 square foot office in Los Angeles. The City of Los Angeles gets 20% of its electricity from a coal plant in Utah. Power is fungible, you cannot select the source for your power if on the city's grid. Therefore, Google's electricity comes from burning coal. Seriously, you cannot just cut a deal with the building next door and say, I'll give you a bunch of c…

Right, that's what microsoft (nicely) says in the blog post, too. Read it! I promise it's interesting.

That's even their reasoning for targeting "net zero" instead. They are actually paying to have carbon removed from the atmosphere, and funding companies who are trying to make that cheaper.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#305

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #301
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of “I, Pencil”. Here’s Milton Friedman’s 2 minute video about it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws The sheer number of vendors google has makes it nearly impossible to be 100% carbon neutral.

If microsoft can do it, why not google? They have a vendor qualification process that includes a carbon assessment. Internal POs to the given vendor incur an extra "tax" based on the cost to remove (or offset, in Google's case) the calculated amount of carbon. Large vendors already offer the estimated carbon emissions of an order, and they certainly do when Microsoft or Google ask them to. Aside: the moral high bar M…

> If microsoft can do it, why not google?

If you watch the two minute video or read the 5-page essay “I, Pencil”, you will see why.

The vendors’ vendors’ vendor is not in the loop. They will not know that the raw materials they are mining in a 3rd world nation are being consumed ultimately by google.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#306

Post by freeone3000 »

seppel wrote: post #258
freeone3000 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement is too bold -- the price of a CO2 offset is not a constant. As the easy methods become exhausted, we'll have to move to more expensive methods, yes. But currently there's still an absolute glut of fairly-cheap CO2 reduction methods that just aren't being done, or wouldn't be done without the offset pricing, so it's still a net benefit to do them.

> the price of a CO2 offset is not a constant. Well asymptocially it is. And then the real intersting stuff happens, because economy becomes aligned. > But currently there's still an absolute glut of fairly-cheap CO2 reduction methods that just aren't being done, or wouldn't be done without the offset pricing, so it's still a net benefit to do them. There also is a net harm if people get the wrong impression of what…

What is the "real cost" of a loaf of bread? It doesn't make sense to talk of things as if they have an absolute inherent dollar value, as both the cost to produce these things and the relative utility of dollars both change. The asymptotic bound assumes current technology and current dollar values, which are both going to change in the tens of years involved.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#307

Post by boogies »

icebraining wrote: post #302
boogies wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a ton of the "clean" power isn't clean. Emphasis on a ton — not all. Nuclear basically is. And as of this millennium at the latest it’s been safe. The nuclear deaths in the US add up to a grand total of 0 (zero). That’s better than eg. wind can say — at least one turbine has burst into flame during maintenance, forcing the workers to choose between burning or leaping to death. Google’s Ivanpah solar plant has a…

> don’t believe Didn't, in thirteen years ago, when that survey was conducted.

Please do provide a more recent survey of comparable experts if it’s possible.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#309

Post by irrational »

bobthepanda wrote: post #229
irrational wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to remove all the carbon Microsoft has ever produced Does this include all carbon produced by all devices that have run MS OSes? All servers, computers, mobile devices, gaming platforms, etc.?

How would one even begin to track that?

I assume MS has records of how many licenses they've sold (not much they can do about pirated software). They could come up with an estimate of how long a particular OS was probably used on average and calculate how man licenses were sold times how long they were used and then convert that amount of energy use into carbon credits. It's not perfect, but probably good enough.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#310

Post by shadowgovt »

djsumdog wrote: post #303
shadowgovt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Fukushima and Chernobyl raise serious questions about the safety of nuclear power, unfortunately. > And of course CO₂ danger is exaggerated, most scientists from the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) don’t believe there will be catastrophic effects of global warming (including from more potent greenhouse gasses like methane) in the ne…

> Have they looked into what's going on in the west coast of the US right now? Despite the current fires, wildfires are down and have been for decades. A lot of the current wild fires stem from reducing the number of controlled burns we use to do. Also there is quite a significant amount of arson: https://archive.is/GWLYq , https://archive.is/cFPbd , https://archive.is/xHiFO , https://archive.is/mhKtG , https://archi…

> wildfires are down

14 of the 20 worst wildfires have occurred in the past 15 years, and the size of fire season is growing.

https://laist.com/2019/10/28/california-fires-explained-why-...

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