101–110 of 183 posts
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cap and trade is a perfectly sound strategy for reducing carbon emissions, and carbon offsets are valid part of the 'trade.' There's the potential for fraud, but fraud can happen anywhere and there's nothing special about carbon offsets that makes them entirely fraudulent. The market and regulators have already been accounting for this through third party verification. Now, if you are a fossil fuel megacorp and want…
> there's nothing special about carbon offsets that makes them entirely fraudulent The problem is that what gets exchanged in the marked is a certificate but the purpose of the market is to create a positive externality. This means the buyers and sellers don't have an inventive to be honest. The buyer of the carbon credits doesn't actually need the carbon to be captured. They just want a certificate for X credits, so…
EX: zero death from Covid, oh, we fck the next generation with isolation and screen.
I singular objective like that make you blind, it become a god you sacrifice everything else to.
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…
carbon-free energy on every grid where they operate also sounds like a significantly more ambitious goal than net-zero across the company, because it means actual reduction in emissions, rather than relying on offsets. if it's a serious committment to being carbon-free, i think this sounds like a positive change. if it's a moonshot that they have no real intention of actually meeting, then it's a lot less impressive.…
If I emit 5g of CO2 but purchase similar in offsets - the offsets have to achieve a reduction of 5g unless something like a scam is going on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
As a rule, if you're tempted to begin any sentence with "they should just..." -- don't. Electrical signal attenuation increases with the square of the distance, so you'll lose ~95% of the power to heat loss in the wires if you try to power Seattle from solar in Nevada -- not very eco-friendly, you'd agree? Also the extreme heat destroys solar panels. Also, dust. Also the permitting of stuff across state lines is so t…
Power transmission lines at 60Hz primarily have ohmic losses, which are linear with length of the conductor.
Interesting fact - Power transmission lines are long enough that the capacitive and inductive effects do matter a little bit, even though it's only 60Hz. That's why spacing between conductors is important. 3-phase lines will also rotate the order of conductors every so often to keep the average spacing between all pairs of lines similar.
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Who would want to? Solar power is cheaper than any alternative, so long as you’re allowed to use it.
Solar power is much more expensive if the power must adhere to some number of 9's of reliability. Often data centers need to run at three nines of availability (ie: 99.9) and at that level of availability the price of solar power is many multiples of conventional power due to the cost of batteries and over provisioning.
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Not a week goes by without another news of one of their latest transgressions. At this point, news like this isn't a sign of something worsening over there. It's just them carrying on with their mission to subvert each safeguard in the pursuit of that little bit extra profit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
As a rule, if you're tempted to begin any sentence with "they should just..." -- don't. Electrical signal attenuation increases with the square of the distance, so you'll lose ~95% of the power to heat loss in the wires if you try to power Seattle from solar in Nevada -- not very eco-friendly, you'd agree? Also the extreme heat destroys solar panels. Also, dust. Also the permitting of stuff across state lines is so t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
carbon-free energy on every grid where they operate also sounds like a significantly more ambitious goal than net-zero across the company, because it means actual reduction in emissions, rather than relying on offsets. if it's a serious committment to being carbon-free, i think this sounds like a positive change. if it's a moonshot that they have no real intention of actually meeting, then it's a lot less impressive.…
What’s the real difference? Don’t offsets also do the same thing? If I emit 5g of CO2 but purchase similar in offsets - the offsets have to achieve a reduction of 5g unless something like a scam is going on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could "remind them" by passing laws that made them pay for externalities.
Like, uniquely among all other industries? You don't think the petrochemical industry, for example, needs to pay for its larger externalities?