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Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

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Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#121

Post by notatoad »

simianwords wrote: post #111
foota wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these offsets are of dubious quality. E.g., I think some of these offsets are from _not_ doing something that you might have otherwise done, but maybe you wouldn't have done that thing regardless.

Interesting. Maybe the offset should be the expected value of co2 that would not be emitted after accounting for probability. It doesn’t seem like a scam fundamentally.

i think that's exactly it, it's not fundamentally a scam, but it's not as simple as 1:1 "5g in, 5g out" because there's always some formula to calculate how much carbon has been "saved" by the company selling the offsets taking whatever actions they are taking. which gives the companies selling offsets a financial motive to maximize that calculation, and in some cases does lead to outright scams.

the classic example is landowners selling offsets for the mature forests on their land - that's good! and incentivising the preservation of forests is good! but that forest already existed, and has existed for hundreds of years, so does it really make sense that some company can count it against their carbon emissions and claim to be "net zero" just because they paid a landowner to not cut it down?

it makes the whole concept of offsets less of an overall pure good than emitters simply not emitting carbon in the first place, because that is actually a very simple and clear calculation.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#122

Post by colechristensen »

notatoad wrote: post #77
gjm11 wrote: 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…

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.…

It's going to happen anyway for at least a large portion of every day simply because it's cheaper. Electricity is a sizable chunk of the cost to operate a datacenter and at least while the sun is up, solar is significantly cheaper than any other energy source. Grid scale battery overnights is cheaper but less so obviously.

You don't need climate pledges when the thing you're pledging to do saves you substantial amounts of money, and we really don't need quite so much climate moralizing when now the transition to carbon free electricity seems obvious, inevitable, and imminent because of direct immediate cost.

Now the question is just how can we accelerate this a little without creating false economies or distorting the market too much, just a small incentive here and penalty there along with funding for big projects to make them happen earlier.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#123

Post by deelowe »

mullingitover wrote: post #47
gjm11 wrote: 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…

> There's more hedging around it now This is reasonable, it's a nearly impossible goal to achieve. Meanwhile: "Amazon meets 100% renewable energy goal 7 years early"[1] [1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-renew...

Carbon offsets are not the same as being carbon neutral.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#124

Post by colechristensen »

foota wrote: post #109
simianwords wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some of these offsets are of dubious quality. E.g., I think some of these offsets are from _not_ doing something that you might have otherwise done, but maybe you wouldn't have done that thing regardless.

Some of those "avoided" things can be as dumb as having a parcel of forested land that you didn't chop down. Those trees were already there and claims that they might not have otherwise been without a little credit money are questionable.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#125

Post by IshKebab »

notatoad wrote: post #77
gjm11 wrote: 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…

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.…

> 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 emission

Not necessarily. In the UK the market for zero-emission electricity is separated from the actual electricity itself. So you basically sell the "greenness" of the electricity separately from the electricity itself. Customers who want green electricity buy the electricity, and buy some "greenness" (called a REGO).

It does make sense, and a lot of people claim it's some kind of scam when it really isn't... But it does make the relationship between the consumption and production of green energy more complex.

For example, suppose 10% of power comes from green energy, but only 5% of people care about it remotely. The market value of a REGO is basically zero. Even if the number of people who care about green energy doubles to 10%, there's still perfect supply so the market value is still zero and it won't have any effect on green energy production. That isn't quite the case but it doesn't seem far off - I couldn't find up-to-date numbers but it seems like the market price of REGOs is on the order of £5-15/MWh, which is very low. Probably because the UK's energy mix is actually very green these days.

No idea how common this system is in other countries.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#126

Post by easygenes »

dwedge wrote: post #87
downrightmike wrote: post #63

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

Paving deserts with black heat absorbers that are only 10-20% efficient in converting that energy to electricity could well end up affecting climate more than burning coal would

Definitely not. At global scale, the offset effects of solar installations outweigh albedo effects on the order of about 30x. [0][1]

  [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01619-w.pdf
  [1] https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Net_Radiative_Forcing_from_Widespread_Deployment_of_Photovoltaics/2871685

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#127

Post by vizzier »

Aurornis wrote: post #105
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Electrical signal attenuation increases with the square of the distance 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 mind boggles at how many little bits of information like this keep our world running smoothly...

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#128

Post by Ardon »

glenstein wrote: post #113
dwedge wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paving deserts with black heat absorbers that are only 10-20% efficient in converting that energy to electricity could well end up affecting climate more than burning coal would

1% from a Dyson Sphere would be a better energy return than 100% efficiency from any conventional energy sorce. Similarly, 20% from solar is competitive with 60% from nuclear, 50% from coal, and is easily better than 100% from my neighbor Dan riding a bicycle powered electricity generator. You can't cite efficiency percentages in a vacuum to imply they are a better or worse than alternatives, because those aren't per…

The solar panels would overheat (and lose efficiency), since ~80% of the solar energy hitting it is absorbed as (mostly) heat.

Generating solar energy in deserts is often done with a mirror based heating system for this reason.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#129

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

boringg wrote: post #46
mullingitover wrote: post #7

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.

I mean lets not use China as the example here - they are doing it to reduce their air pollution and use the highly subsidized solar pv arrays. They are are the dominant users of coal in concert with solar. They need to ramp up their energy production to match demand and they front-loaded their solar production with massive subsidized capital from the government. In the case of geo-politics if the US wanted to install…

reducing air pollution in the US is good too.

30-40 years of cheap, CO2 free energy sounds pretty good to me.

Re: Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

#130

Post by shaftway »

jampa wrote: post #119
simianwords wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Carbon offsetting is like saying to your husband or spouse: ‘I’m going to cheat, but I’ll buy you a diamond ring.’" Sometimes, the carbon offsets are from projects that would be built anyway, and there is a lot of sketchiness all around. It might be better than nothing or it might empower companies to pollute more and then say, "Look, we are offsetting all this!"

I like how your example still involves moving carbon around.
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