131–140 of 451 posts
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The argument would be that if you didn’t provide that out market forces would force us into renewables more quickly.
Surely any support available to projects that replace higher-emissions facilities with lower-emissions facilities would still be available if the lower-emissions facility is a zero-emissions facility, right?
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> it's eligible to receive funding/tax status [...] That's literally the entire problem.
Why is it a problem to give funding or tax advantages to projects that actively reduce emissions?
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> People are going to notice this and call bullshit on that. And they will be right. If it emits carbon it isn't green, it really is that simple. By giving themselves this loophole the EU is undermining the market forces that will make green energy viable. We don't need to find economical energy sources anymore. We need to dump money into green energy now and last month and a decade ago. The price doesn't matter, jus…
> And they will be right. If it emits carbon it isn't green, it really is that simple. Then we have no green energy sources at all, which makes it sort of useless as a description. Manufacturing and installation of the energy source always has to be included. For something with as short of a life as solar panels, the manufacturing, transport, installation, and disposal is a critical piece in the CO2 emissions that ha…
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> If it emits carbon it isn't green, it really is that simple. Producing solar emits CO2 over the full lifecycle. Even during the generation and maintenance phase, it’s above zero. There’s no zero until we remove CO2 from the environment. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56487.pdf Should we stop using solar until we find the zero-CO2 tech? Obviously not. And obviously we need net-0 asap, but it’s not “really that s…
You're conflating CO2 from logistics and CO2 from electricity production. Logistics can be entirely converted to electrical in a decade with no special sauce needed.
Perfect is the enemy of the good. We need net-0 but if you only have a binary 0-not-0 ideal we’ll leave a lot of intermediate options off the table. A Tesla isn’t net-0 but it’s better than a gas truck.
I’m arguing against oversimplification, because if we want to take that to extremes we have no net-0 options right now. We need to build them. Every KG of CO2 we don’t emit now is one less we need to bury in decades to come. So do a Manhattan Project on emissions but make easily-adopted changes in the near term.
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It’s not ok to call gas “green”. Period. If gas is necessary then build it, but don’t claim it is green.
> If gas is necessary then build it, but don’t claim it is green Green is a spectrum, and a subjective one at that. Even if we limit ourselves to CO2 emissions, an absolutist stance eliminates solar and wind for the emissions in their erection.
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> And they will be right. If it emits carbon it isn't green, it really is that simple. Then we have no green energy sources at all, which makes it sort of useless as a description. Manufacturing and installation of the energy source always has to be included. For something with as short of a life as solar panels, the manufacturing, transport, installation, and disposal is a critical piece in the CO2 emissions that ha…
Oh please. Compare the CO2 emissions of a solar plant with those of a gas plant. Normalize for MWH produced. How many orders of magnitude is the difference?
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Oh please. Compare the CO2 emissions of a solar plant with those of a gas plant. Normalize for MWH produced. How many orders of magnitude is the difference?
If you’re asking someone to compare numbers, then it wasn’t really as simple as you originally stated
The argument that solar emits carbon is counting the carbon emitted in construction and plant operation. That is such a minute amount of carbon in comparison to the energy produced by a gas plant in generating power that it isn’t even worth talking about for the purposes of classifying gas as “green”.
Getting the construction and logistics of anything carbon neutral is orthogonal to the carbon emissions in the production of power.
Bringing up construction CO2 is a red herring at best. I asked for numbers to illustrate how ridiculous the argument is.
For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.
what's low carbon gases?
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The argument would be that if you didn’t provide that out market forces would force us into renewables more quickly.
Surely any support available to projects that replace higher-emissions facilities with lower-emissions facilities would still be available if the lower-emissions facility is a zero-emissions facility, right?
So sure, net you might achieve a reduction. However, that could mean that after 30 years you aren’t as decarbonized if the investments in natural gas prevented nuclear and renewable build out.
I don’t know if that’s the actual case, but my prior based on how the FF industry operates leads me to believe that to be a reason natural gas is being framed in this way. Sure, it only covers construction before 2030. However these plants easily last 50+ years and inflation means that a nuclear plant starting in 2031 will have a much harder time competing with a natural gas plant making its economics worse. I’m always open to having my mind changed with data and a compelling counterargument, but I’m more sympathetic to the position that’s extremely concerned with natural gas being included.
The emissions limit should probably be 10x lower than what was set to allow natural gas.
If this is a jobs thing to provide an off ramp for the industry, I’m more sympathetic to that as long as we’re honest and transparent that that’s why we’re doing it (the political and economic ramifications are just as important as the goal of decarbonization). Just don’t spit in my face and tell me it’s raining.
There needs to be clearer terminology and labels for “green”, “sustainable”, “renewable”, “climate neutral” energy. I’d also like to throw in “democratic” in the mix. Because energy and foreign policy can’t be separated. The EU energy mix is going to be geopolitically very important in coming years. We also need to make it very clear what the goals are for each kind and where the tradeoffs are. I think right now the…
> independent of eastern natural gas. It's interesting how trade relationships that are centuries old, are now seen in a negative context solely on a foreign policy basis that's often dictated from across the Atlantic. Particularly when they go completely contrary to the other stated goal; Climate change. Western Europe has been dependent on Eastern Europe's resources for a very long time, as Siberia is the largest c…
If Germany used more nuclear, then more houses would probably start heating with electricity (or at least newly built houses), like in France.