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EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

reuters.com

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Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#181

Post by protontypes »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #14

Gas is included because the German """green""" party has heavily lobbied for it. The Belgians """greens""" announced that its okay for them to use gas, because overall, in Europe, other countries will offset it. Greenpeace lobbies for it because they, themselves, sell gas. Nuclear had to be defended tooth and nail for over a year, with active rejection from the Germans for its inclusion in that list. Green parties ac…

This is the untruth. The German Green Party has never done this. The current Green government has clearly opposed it. The Green government in Austria also opposes it.

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/taxonomieverordnung-bundes...

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#182

Post by heartbeats »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #158
tsimionescu wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we have maybe 10 years at best to make sure there will still be livable conditions for humans on most of the world's land area 100 years from now, worrying about radiation that could kill people thousands of years from now is simply absurd.

What led us to climate change is going for short-term benefit and leaving the problems to the future. We shouldn't repeat that mistake even though we'll be long gone by the time the problems come to light. And really we're already too late to prevent most of climate change. Especially because we won't replace fossil with nuclear in 10 years time.

> What led us to climate change is going for short-term benefit and leaving the problems to the future. We shouldn't repeat that mistake even though we'll be long gone by the time the problems come to light.

That's how anything works, though. You replace the giant bleeding wound with a bandaid, and then you take it off and there's a scab, and then the scab goes away and you have a scar. It's always about replacing something with a lesser problem. For the past few years people have been trying to replace fossils with imaginary clean power, and it hasn't exactly gone great.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#183

Post by xcambar »

heartbeats wrote: post #178
hammock wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did "green" get co-opted to mean low CO2 emissions? It wasn't that long ago we used to worry about whether fuel was renewable or not, and about particulate pollution, acid rain, habitat destruction and other environmental externalities in general, not just CO2. This global warming-driven definition of "green" ignores all of that.

Because we have specific environmental problems right now, that are quite serious and worth focusing on? You do this stuff because you want to accomplish something. If animals go extinct, that is obviously unfortunate, but it pales in comparison to the prospect that we do so. The EU isn't trying to accomplish some type of perfect environmental justice, they're trying to keep the world habitable.

> If animals go extinct, that is obviously unfortunate, but it pales in comparison to the prospect that we do so.

I agree with the global sentiment of your comment, but let's not forget that animal extinction is 1/ well on its way and 2/ a direct precursor of human extinction.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#184

Post by matsemann »

jeeeb wrote: post #73
nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

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.

Intuitively 270g per kWh seemed high to me, but to put it in perspective a Tesla model 3 does about 100km per 11.9~14.9kWh (according to Google). So taking the larger estimate (and ignoring transmission etc losses) at 270g/KWh that gives emissions of around 41g/km. Comparatively though my 2021 Camry hybrid has emissions of 96g/km. So, assuming the plants are primarily being used to level out variable renewable produc…

All very high numbers. The key to solving climate change isn't to do as before, just slightly more efficient. Electric cars won't solve anything, especially not if they are indirectly powered by fossil fuels.

Make cities walkable, bikeable and public transportable. That will have far bigger impact than people buying new electric cars.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#185

Post by matsemann »

inter_netuser wrote: post #108
nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

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?

We in Norway have at least deluded ourself into believing that our oil and gas are cleaner than other countries', and we therefore should keep pumping fossil fuels out of the ground because it's better that we do it than someone else.. Smh

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#186

Post by donkarma »

protontypes wrote: post #181
ohgodplsno wrote: post #14

Gas is included because the German """green""" party has heavily lobbied for it. The Belgians """greens""" announced that its okay for them to use gas, because overall, in Europe, other countries will offset it. Greenpeace lobbies for it because they, themselves, sell gas. Nuclear had to be defended tooth and nail for over a year, with active rejection from the Germans for its inclusion in that list. Green parties ac…

This is the untruth. The German Green Party has never done this. The current Green government has clearly opposed it. The Green government in Austria also opposes it. https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/taxonomieverordnung-bundes...

funny how germany just decided to close half of their nuclear plants because they're scared of Chernobyl or something

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#187

Post by xcambar »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #115
AQuantized wrote: post #63

Nuclear investments desperately need to be recognized as green so you don't have oxymoronic policies similar to Germany's current plan where you're decommissioning nuclear to become more "green" yet producing much more carbon dioxide.

The "green" movement to squash nuclear going back to the 60s was the best investment the fossil fuel industry has ever made.

I'm really curious in reading more about this. If you have some resources, don't hesitate to share.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#188

Post by yongjik »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #146
jevoten wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about instead of "radiation bad", we look at more objective metrics, like deaths/CO2 per kWh: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy And instead of comparing nuclear to a magical zero-pollution/emission, flawlessly safe, always-available power source, we should compare it to what it actually gets replaced with.

If you include the deaths that nuclear waste will cause during the tens of thousands of years it remains radioactive it wouldn't be so positive. But of course we can't look into the future. But we do know safe storage for such durations is not yet figured out. It's externalising the problem to the future. Just like CO2, but on a much longer timeframe. Still not very ethical though IMO.

Those "millions of years" comments always seem rather out of place, considering that the Earth naturally contains enough radioactive elements that literally kept it warm for 4.6 billion years. (And they come with several billion years of half-lives.)

When you see volcanoes, earthquakes, and hot springs in action, that's the power of radiation. All of it.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#189

Post by Swenrekcah »

mulmen wrote: post #104
throwaway894345 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now nuclear is the only green energy that is suitable for base load generation apart from hydro, and it takes a long time to build new nuclear plants, so I’m okay with a bridge solution that dramatically reduces emissions even if it doesn’t bring them to zero. The alternative is a dependency on much less green fossil fuel plants when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Intelligent people shouldn’t…

It’s not ok to call gas “green”. Period. If gas is necessary then build it, but don’t claim it is green.

The point is that gas is not green, but it’s a whole lot greener than many alternatives.

Replacing a large coal plant with gas is much better for our future than opening a same size solar plant (and not closing the coal plant).

Of course greener still would have been to build a solar plant instead of the gas plant. But solar is intermittent and coal isn’t so that wouldn’t be sufficient.

All of this is true so long as the gas plants are treated as temporary solutions and this does that.

I guess technically it could have been labelled ‘purple’ and a new rule made that all allowances made for ‘green’ also apply to ‘purple’ but honestly that sounds to me more likely to be abused in the future.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#190

Post by onethought »

arcticbull wrote: post #169
hammock wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did "green" get co-opted to mean low CO2 emissions? It wasn't that long ago we used to worry about whether fuel was renewable or not, and about particulate pollution, acid rain, habitat destruction and other environmental externalities in general, not just CO2. This global warming-driven definition of "green" ignores all of that.

> It wasn't that long ago we used to worry about whether fuel was renewable or not, and about pollution and other environmental externalities in general, not just CO2. These are the same thing in common parlance. High CO2 emission plants are fossil fuel driven, and those are of course non-renewable. Wind, solar and nuclear are renewable, sustainable and low CO2. Nuclear in particular also produces very little waste a…

Nuclear is not renewable… right? Ie there is a finite amount of nuclear material on earth and it’s not overly abundant either.

Am I missing something?

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