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Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

theguardian.com

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Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#271

Post by namanyayg »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #239
namanyayg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big oil downvoted this. Jokes aside, I really don't see the reason for downvotes. Oil made our world what it is; but any company who still focuses on its profits while knowing alternatives exist that are better for the planet, and parallelly spending billions in PR, is downright evil. I'd even say it's much more evil than Facebook's or Google's privacy issues that HN bashes every week.

Well, I'd say it's a bit funny to call something evil when a lot of people would die if it disappeared tomorrow. It's very easy to criticise the costs of modern life when the 'evil' is displaced onto someone else. But the truth is, it's a much more morally grey area than we like to admit. And it's hard to opt out of this 'system', but not impossible - I'm sure the Amish would take converts, but not many people want t…

I see where you're going with this, but I disagree. Normal people want cars and planes and phones sure. But they don't really have any voice or choice in how the manufacturing is done, and they always want the cheapest options. Most don't even know what environmental issues the products or services they consume result in. They are intentionally deceived, kept uneducated, and lied to via sold media outlets and false advertising.

Thus, it is responsibility of the powers that be to move in the direction which research suggests is the best for humanity's and the earth's long term existence.

Politicians are supposed to do that via taxes and subsidies to promote environment-friendly options. But, the US has shown that it's easy for a old, selfish, and dumb politicians to sway the masses with false promises and grandiose oration. And the politicians, given that they have less than 20 years remaining on this earth, are happy to fill their pockets with more money than they can use rather than giving a fuck about the future.

Secondly, the oil companies are supposed to have some sense and care for humanity and not continue choosing options that damage the earth but instead should have started shifting to environmental friendly options when they became aware of the consequences of burning oil. But, again, they are happy to forget it all in return for some extra profits. Maybe it's because they know that if they stop selling oil, some other competitor will start. But if the top oil companies actually worked with the government to get oil restricted and promote renewables, they could actually have made a difference and at least taken a step in the right direction. But they didn't even try.

It's really futile to share blame with the consumers, the world we live in does not give the average person any choice. And the average person is too damn tired with working a meaningless 8h+commute/day to even think or learn about these issues. The blame lies fully with the powers on top.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#272

Post by birksherty »

heurisko wrote: post #187
dougmwne wrote: post #165

There is a heck of a lot of this that goes on within the energy and environment community where I have been involved for a decade. Tragedy of the Commons basically means that individual responsibility is a complete dead-end to solve any kind of shared resource issue. We've known this formally within economics for 200 years. Government, law and enforcement is the only solution, whether we're talking a city park or the…

> I should guiltily stop having children The unintended consequence is that only the conscientious people take themselves out of the gene pool, which is counterproductive.

What is exactly counterproductive? These children will suffer the consequences in coming years, better they don't have to.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#273

Post by relax88 »

epistasis wrote: post #255
relax88 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say petroleum products are a requirement for modern life, what I mean is that more than 80% of the energy driving modern society comes from fossil fuels. It probably doesn’t have to be that way, but it is. You definitely can’t say that for cigarettes. I think that you raise a valid point, but also that you’re far too optimistic about renewables. The people of HN are indeed very tech focused, and I believe that…

I didn't say anything about nuclear here... but since you brought up the subject, I think it's a perfect illustration of how misaligned perception and reality are on the subject. The "physical limits" of renewables are not limits to our current energy use or even an order of magnitude more. Similarly, the amount of materials is still far far far less than what is required with fossil fuels. And the amount of material…

Solar has more than 15x the materials throughput per energy generated:

https://www.energy.gov/quadrennial-technology-review-0

Solar produces 4x more carbon than Nuclear:

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/

The value of variable renewables declines with increased deployment:

https://neon.energy/Hirth-2013-Market-Value-Renewables-Solar...

Wind and solar combines receive 94x the US Federal subsidies and Fossiel fuels receives 2x (per TWh of generation):

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/

There is also the fact that most wind farms use about 400x more land per TWh generation, and solar is about 150x. You can compare solar plants to nuclear on Wikipedia.

Then you’ve got the countless real world examples of where nuclear plants get shut down and the per capita emissions of that area shoot up, despite a bunch of politicians talking about renewables and clean energy (Vermont, California, etc.)

Nuclear isn’t hype. Look at France vs Germany for a great real world example of why nuclear is the better technology.

You talk about 50 years under delivering, but there have hardly been any nuclear plants even built in the last 50 years in the West, mostly due to public opposition to a technology that kills less people than wind farms.

If it’s so expensive why are places like Bangladesh, India, and China making massive investments in new reactors?

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#274

Post by epistasis »

relax88 wrote: post #273
epistasis wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say anything about nuclear here... but since you brought up the subject, I think it's a perfect illustration of how misaligned perception and reality are on the subject. The "physical limits" of renewables are not limits to our current energy use or even an order of magnitude more. Similarly, the amount of materials is still far far far less than what is required with fossil fuels. And the amount of material…

Solar has more than 15x the materials throughput per energy generated: https://www.energy.gov/quadrennial-technology-review-0 Solar produces 4x more carbon than Nuclear: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ The value of variable renewables declines with increased deployment: https://neon.energy/Hirth-2013-Market-Value-Renewables-Solar... Wind and solar combines receive 94x the US Federal subsidies and Fossiel fuels re…

Aside: What I find remarkable is that any talk of renewables ends up in a debate about nuclear. Talking about oil and fossil fuel never makes people say "yeah but what about nuclear?" No, it's only discussion of renewables that makes nuclear supporters come out of the woodwork... very odd behavior for people that claim to be concerned about emissions.

Back your main comment: These are all statistics without any significance for deployment of the technology.

For example, 15x material means.... what exactly? Is 15x more material bad somehow? Sure doesn't seem like it. The amount of material that goes into solar panels is not a fundamental constraint on their use.

When wind power "uses" land it does not require exclusive use of the land. That same land will be used for other purposes without impact. Similarly, the amount of land we need to use solar is vanishingly small.

> Look at France and Germany for a great real world example...

For France, I have looked, never found the cost numbers. I do know the Mesmer plan never reached fruition, and that only about a third of the planned reactors were built. I used to cite CANDU as a potential success too, but then somebody who knew better pointed me to the financial numbers...

Bangladesh and India are building new reactors because of corruption, the same reason that they build completely uneconomical new coal plants. China is building a few nuclear reactors, as part of a "try everything" approach, but they are building only a minuscule amount of nuclear compared to renewables, because nuclear is mostly hype, and renewables mostly deliver. Remember that even a construction power house like China, when building France's EPR design, ended up with a build that took twice as long as expected.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#275

Post by relax88 »

epistasis wrote: post #274
relax88 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar has more than 15x the materials throughput per energy generated: https://www.energy.gov/quadrennial-technology-review-0 Solar produces 4x more carbon than Nuclear: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ The value of variable renewables declines with increased deployment: https://neon.energy/Hirth-2013-Market-Value-Renewables-Solar... Wind and solar combines receive 94x the US Federal subsidies and Fossiel fuels re…

Aside: What I find remarkable is that any talk of renewables ends up in a debate about nuclear. Talking about oil and fossil fuel never makes people say "yeah but what about nuclear?" No, it's only discussion of renewables that makes nuclear supporters come out of the woodwork... very odd behavior for people that claim to be concerned about emissions. Back your main comment: These are all statistics without any signi…

I brought up nuclear because I felt that your original comment above was overly optimistic about what is possible with renewables.

People bring up nuclear because it’s the only high density low carbon energy source we have. Splitting atoms produces orders of magnitude more energy than gathering sunlight. Our current reactor designs are incredibly inefficient. The ceiling of what is possible with nuclear is much higher.

If you want to preserve the environment higher power density typically means less impact.

We’ve gone from burning wood, to coal, to petroleum, to nuclear, and then took a huge step backwards on nuclear because of Cold War fears and Chernobyl. Renewables are great but nuclear is the only high power density option that can keep up with our insatiable demand for more energy in a way that doesn’t require converting vast swaths of land into wind and solar farms.

If you think that wind turbines and solar farms don’t have a negative impact on the environment you haven’t been paying attention.

Wind farms impact on insect populations for example is another new area of research and it doesn’t look very good.

15x material throughput means you have to mine/produce/transport/refine/smelt/forge 15x more materials, which means more environmental impacts for the lifecycle of those materials.

A single ACR-1000 reactor can produce more output than the 14000 acre Bhadla Solar Park in India for example, and it will last 4-5x longer.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#276

Post by daveFNbuck »

qeternity wrote: post #136
simfree wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50+ years of manufacturers spending on R&D for internal combustion engines could have been spent on improving electric powertrain technology. Think about how many engineer's have spent their entire lives optimizing ICE powertrains, with all this tech actively harming us with smog shortening our lifespans, acid rain and climate change.

> 50+ years of manufacturers spending on R&D for internal combustion engines could have been spent on improving electric powertrain technology. You're missing the point. This didn't happen because it wasn't economical. You're just wishing for fanciful things. You might as well just wish that CO2 weren't a GHG. Consumer demand forced R&D into ICE instead of electric.

A large part of why it wasn't economical is that no one was being charged for the economic costs of carbon emissions. If combustion didn't have this massive subsidy, it wouldn't have been the more economical choice for so long.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#278

Post by epistasis »

fomine3 wrote: post #270
epistasis wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem there though? If it's not burned, for energy, then it's not causing emissions. The one emitting use case you talk about is fertilizer, and the switch from the Haber process to using electrolyzed hydrogen is already starting. It will require a decade or more of tech development to make it cheaper than existing processes, most likely, but it's almost certain to happen as we scale industrial electroly…

Because you said that: >> Petroleum products are a requirement for modern life. > This is the most insidious and false lie that is spread. Even if all energies become renewables, maybe some oil based products are still requirement (but not a big problem).

There are alternatives for plastics too, from plant sources.

Modern life does not require that we get these end services from petroleum, it's just how we currently achieve the end goal.

Blurring this distinction between the way things are currently and what is possible is a very effective FUD technique. I want to be very clear that I'm not claiming the original poster meant to spread FUD, consciously or unconsciously, I don't know their mind. But it is definitely a persistent tactic among the fossil fuel propaganda that we are immersed in.

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#279

Post by marcusverus »

ggggtez wrote: post #139
marcusverus wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like tobacco companies, oil companies have actively lied and lobbied to maintain demand and obstruct coordinated effort of exactly the kind you describe as necessary. They are not passive actors simply responding to demand as they find it. These really aren't very similar. Big Tobacco's lies were the only thing propping up the tobacco industry. As soon as the truth became clear, their industry was absolutely crushe…

Arguably the only thing propping up the oil industry is lies as well... If it wasn't for the big lie that Climate Change isn't real, then the USA would have never left the Paris Accord, and would have much stricter Climate goals already in place. So yes, lies and lobbying are propping up big oil.

The US is still on a path to meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, so I'm not sure how this makes any sense.

source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-agreement-united-states-c...

Re: Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed

#280

Post by marcusverus »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #231
fallingknife wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As soon as the truth became clear, their industry was absolutely crushed Gonna have to disagree with you on that one... https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PM

Seriously, not sure what they're talking about. Many tobacco companies have exceptional dividends. If they're going to continue to supply their wares, I want a little piece of the pie in my portfolio.

Yeah, after looking at some data, my characterization of the tobacco companies getting crushed is probably not accurate. I knew that tobacco use has been in stark decline, but the data show that it has been a steady decline over many decades (down ~60% over ~60 years), and not a stark, immediately like I had (mis)remembered.

The specific impact of the big tobacco trials on the tobacco industry at large is still a mystery to me, though. I'd still like to see some data for the entire domestic tobacco industry's revenues (I searched, but I did not find anything) going back to the ~50s, so that we could see the impact of the very public lawsuits, the big settlement, and the implementation of warning labels. The Phillip Morris stock ticker you linked isn't very helpful in determining that impact, as it only goes back to 2008.

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