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Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

nationalobserver.com

61–70 of 183 posts

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#61

Meanwhile China is on track to install as much solar power in the past year as the US has in its entire history . The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Clean energy isn't even some virtuous thing, it's just no-brainer smart energy policy. The only reason for Google to be backpedaling on its pledge is political. It's in a backsliding petrostate and it has to play the political game.

Importing solar panels from China is a security risk. Like when Europe depended on Russian gas... Edit: US has no competitive way to manufacture panels, and with cheap imports, it never develops such industry!

please use a /s for sarcasm like this

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#62
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No alternatives have been tried on a global scale, so I don’t think anyone has the practical evidence you request.

I think a large nation the size of the former Soviet Union or China should be enough to invalidate communism and centrally planned economies if that’s what you’re suggesting.

I guess ask a Chinese person? Like I'm sure many Chinese people aren't happy about the way their state functions, but the vast majority of them live their lives pretty much like we do. I don't know if I would take that as a total invalidation of whatever it is they have over there. Would I prefer a western style system? Definitely, but I'm not sure its so easy to point at China and say "this is an abject failure."

In fact, quite the opposite: most of the poverty reduction in the last 50 years has been in China, for example. Most of the cheap stuff we buy is manufactured there. Being the "factory of the world" doesn't seem like a definitive invalidation of that system.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#63
post #19

I think there's less to this than meets the eye. Previously, on https://sustainability.google/operating-sustainably/ : "We've set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain by 2030." and, in a table later, "Reduce 50% of our combined Scope 1, 2 (market-based), and 3 absolute emissions by 2030. Invest in nature-based and technology-based carbon removal solutions to neutralize our…

They should just pave the mojave with solar panels. Nearly no one lives there and no one wants to live there and it is dead center to western states.

If China can pave mountains, a little desert with caliche should be easy

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Because the US should be doing it domestically, just like China is. The incentive to do is partially based on tariffs, but the incentive hasn't spurred the private sector and supply chain maintainers into action, and a more comprehensive strategy would need to be done. There is no consensus for further subsidies from the national government to spur this productio…

The argument for tariffs on China's panels is that they're dumping. However, really the answer to dumping is to exploit the dumper viciously, buy as much below market rate product of theirs as you can while they bleed money (especially a capital good like solar panels). The US could be driving down the cost of energy nationwide with the dumped power generation equipment. Lower cost energy could then be turbocharging…

Thank you, jesus. Finally someone who understands the dynamics involved here. If you want to build up / protect your domestic industry then there are way to do that, but methods which don't involve also snapping goods sold well below market are crazy to not do so.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#65

Meanwhile China is on track to install as much solar power in the past year as the US has in its entire history . The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Clean energy isn't even some virtuous thing, it's just no-brainer smart energy policy. The only reason for Google to be backpedaling on its pledge is political. It's in a backsliding petrostate and it has to play the political game.

Another very real reason is that GOOGL's top five major institutional shareholders are the same as Exxon's (XOM). Now, what happens to American fossil fuel corporate value if this AI data center boom is built on the back of solar/wind/storage upgrades to the US electrical grid? That would reduce natural gas demand, not increase it.

Another option for powering data centers is small modular nuclear - but again, China is far ahead on that with the helium-cooled pebble-bed model, although it really seems optimized for high-temp industrial process steam generation over electricity at present - so no, cheap safe nuclear power is not coming to the USA anytime soon.

Certainly, Trump's vitriol on wind power and solar power could mean a loss of government contract opportunities for AI-centric firms that promote such energy source - but still, the tariffs on China's monoocrystalline PV panels go back a decade and are just as supported by both political parties, because the major donors to both parties see renewable energy as a threat to their profit margins, be they on the executive or the shareholders side of the equation.

The kerosene lamp manufacturers don't want to be replaced with electric lightbulbs. This kind of monopolistic investor capitalism always stifles innovation and progress - all they see is the losses from collapsing demand for fossil fuels, and if the raw inputs are solar and wind instead of oil and gas, it's harder to collect rents.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#66
post #15

The lesson here is clear, corporations won't do anything that's good for the ecology and survivability of our species unless forced.

If only we could remind them somehow that inevitable migration, famine, and mass death is not as profitable as alternatives.

We could "remind them" by passing laws that made them pay for externalities.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#67
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of an alternative economic system that is more efficient at resource allocation in practice, not just theory?

There are none. But I don't want the economic system to be judged by its ability to do resource allocation. I want my economic system to be judged by its ability to improve metrics of human well being - and not even the median well-being, but the well-being of say the 10% percentile person in society. Sure, resource allocation can be a instrumental to those goals of human well being, but not the directly optimized me…

One issue with capitalism — and every alternative system would have its own variant of this problem — is rent seeking. Players become so powerful within the economic system that they no longer play by the rules, but rather write the rules to their benefit. This allows them to extract value instead of creating value.

This is a run-away positive feedback loop which is kept in check by regular revolt and redistribution of wealth (see eg. the labor movement).

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Because the US should be doing it domestically, just like China is. The incentive to do is partially based on tariffs, but the incentive hasn't spurred the private sector and supply chain maintainers into action, and a more comprehensive strategy would need to be done. There is no consensus for further subsidies from the national government to spur this productio…

The argument for tariffs on China's panels is that they're dumping. However, really the answer to dumping is to exploit the dumper viciously, buy as much below market rate product of theirs as you can while they bleed money (especially a capital good like solar panels). The US could be driving down the cost of energy nationwide with the dumped power generation equipment. Lower cost energy could then be turbocharging…

If you’re really smart, you exploit the cheap solar panels to provide energy for your own solar panel factories.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#69

Meanwhile China is on track to install as much solar power in the past year as the US has in its entire history . The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Clean energy isn't even some virtuous thing, it's just no-brainer smart energy policy. The only reason for Google to be backpedaling on its pledge is political. It's in a backsliding petrostate and it has to play the political game.

> The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Because the US should be doing it domestically, just like China is. The incentive to do is partially based on tariffs, but the incentive hasn't spurred the private sector and supply chain maintainers into action, and a more comprehensive strategy would need to be done. There is no consensus for further subsidies from the national government to spur this productio…

they should, but they aren't... it would easily take a decade to get manufacturing ramped up to China's level, and the work isn't even being planned

this is just a massive self-own at this point

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#70
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there evidence that they are doing this to appease Trump? What if they wanted to do this anyway and recognize that at this time, they can use appeasement as a weaselly way to justify it.

There has been a move to get the FTC to start labeling these net carbon numbers as misleading advertising because it always includes a bunch of purchased offsets unrelated to the company. Further, there have been some real and complicated situations where carbon credits were sold more than the actual amount of offset carbon -- meaning for example BigCorpA and BigCorpB buy the same "green energy infra" credits from pr…

>There has been a move to get the FTC to start labeling these net carbon numbers as misleading advertising because it always includes a bunch of purchased offsets unrelated to the company

Which is good, because carbon offset are a scam.

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