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EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

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61–70 of 149 posts

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#61

This is the collision between imperfect (but working) versus perfect (but not working). It's more important to get emissions down now than to aim for a perfect standard that no one has yet reached, and doesn't appear reachable any time soon. The emissions matter, not the goals of activist NGOs. This cuts emissions, that's why it qualified. Results > ideology.

Even if gas leaks were not a thing, this pulls away resources from greener technologies. If we start building gas power plants it’ll take almost 50 years before they can be retired, and emitting even reduced CO2 for 50 years is not an option we have. Counterintuitively it may be better to keep burning coal for 20 more years in old plants and then switch to fully renewable (or nuclear)

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#62

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

Green Parties the world over are anti-nuclear and have been since the 80s. Considering how much harm to the environment has come by the hand of green parties, I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies.

Greenpeace in particular came about in opposition to nuclear weapons, hence the "peace" part in their name, and why they were the subject of a terrorist attack by the French government which sank the first Rainbow Warrior. People keep forgetting about the long shadow of mutual assured destruction and nuclear proliferation. This is why nobody wants to let the world's 8th largest CO2 emitting country build even a single nuclear reactor.

(https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by... )

People who wish to allege secret funding or influence should supply some evidence. Currently the only evidence I'm aware of is the infiltration of UK environmentalists by notorious communists the, er, Metropolitan Police.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green Parties the world over are anti-nuclear and have been since the 80s. Considering how much harm to the environment has come by the hand of green parties, I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies.

Dunno about parties, but multiple eco-focused organisations are paid at least in part by oil & gas. Greenpeace actually founded a gas-providing energy utility in Germany (Greenpeace Energy, recently renamed Green Planet Energy to… avoid headlines about Greenpeace selling gas, despite those headlines being true). Other orgs got more direct funding from oil & gas players e.g. FoEI was literally founded with an oil baro…

Sorry but that's a lot of hogwash. The green parties mostly came from, or were closely associated with, the anti-war movements. Anti nuclear and green overlap to a large degree due to (a) the close link between nuclsar power and nuclear weapons, and (b) at least in Europe also the fallout of Chernobyl, which is now barely remembered but at the time was gigantic - e.g. enormous amounts of food had to be scrapped, people had to keep their windows closed for months, etc.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#65
post #13

We can’t just ignore the fact that a carbon problem will not be solved by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. We have half a dozen sources of carbon free energy. The EU is right here. Including gas power in the green book is laughable.

> he EU is right here. Including gas power in the green book is laughable. The EU is the one considering including it...

You should read the article. The EU administration and most countries don't want to include it but some countries (FR, PL, CZ) want to do so. The EU however has to find a position that bridges these views in order for the legislation to pass through both ttje European Parliament and the Council (=27 governments). The result is likely either a compromise in the middle (s.g. phase-out clauses) or a pay-off of some kind (e.g. additional funding programme for the countries most affected by the ban).

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#66
post #35

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

Part of the issues of nuclear remain the high costs, hairy security situation in many countries and very limited ability to adapt to demand. This is both in the night-and-day cycle meaning but also in the "we need more power in 10-years" meaning, since nuclear power plants take forever to build. Saying that all our problems could have been solved by nuclear is not close to the truth, especially regarding climate chan…

It’s impossible to say, but it’s highly likely that an alternate history where we went much more strongly into nuclear power would have yielded far more active investment and development of variations on reactors than we have today. We could be much further along the fast or thorium (or something newer) reactor timeline for instance, or have more advances in safety and speed of setup that don’t exist without much larger demand. We also could’ve irradiated much more of the Earth if things had gone wrong, but ultimately I don’t think you can use the problems of nuclear today against someone who wishes we’d been all in on nuclear for the past 50 years.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#67

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

Yesterday in Berlin pro-nuclear climate activists got attacked by the no-nuclear climate mob…

"attacked"

Disclaimer first: Me = Pro nuclear.

But if you try to take over a mainly also anti-nuclear demonstration with your messaging and stir up "the mob" with that, you probably should not call somebody taking away your "Nuclear against climate-change" sign an "attack by a no-nuclear climate mob"

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#68

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

I used to think nuclear was the way forward, and I kind of still do, but it's understandable why it isn't prevalent. It's all about magnitude of loss/failure. Traditional power plants are much safer and failure isn't nearly as catastrophic as with nuclear. If a nuclear plant fails, look at what can happen - you can lose an entire city indefinitely - Chernobyl. The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power.

> The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power.

This isn't true. Fossil fuels kill much, much more people per Kwh than nuclear [1]. But much like airplanes vs car accidents, fossil fuels kill constantly and widespread in small amounts, while nuclear kills very rarely in high amounts.

[1] https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM?t=376

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#69
"There is absolutely no health justification for such a regulation,"

"The whole proceeding against an industry that has made invaluable contributions to the American economy for more than fifty years is the worst example of fanaticism since the New England witch hunts in the Seventeenth Century."

"no person has ever been found having an identifiable toxic effect from the amount of lead in the atmosphere today."

"Tetraethyl lead had saved the American economy billions. It made the modern automobile, the entire car-centric structure of American life, possible. A phase-down would emasculate car engines, cause octane numbers to plummet, and waste crude oil. They might as well burn the money of the American people."

Larry Blanchard, Ethyl’s executive vice president

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno about parties, but multiple eco-focused organisations are paid at least in part by oil & gas. Greenpeace actually founded a gas-providing energy utility in Germany (Greenpeace Energy, recently renamed Green Planet Energy to… avoid headlines about Greenpeace selling gas, despite those headlines being true). Other orgs got more direct funding from oil & gas players e.g. FoEI was literally founded with an oil baro…

Sorry but that's a lot of hogwash. The green parties mostly came from, or were closely associated with, the anti-war movements. Anti nuclear and green overlap to a large degree due to (a) the close link between nuclsar power and nuclear weapons, and (b) at least in Europe also the fallout of Chernobyl, which is now barely remembered but at the time was gigantic - e.g. enormous amounts of food had to be scrapped, peop…

Are you claiming that the parent posters comments about funding are false? You don’t actually address them.
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