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Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

bloomberg.com

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Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#251

Post by hkt »

vel0city wrote: post #161
hkt wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steel and concrete aren't necessary for the most part: other materials that don't emit (or even actively sequester) carbon are available and have been for a long, long time. It doesn't even preclude building densely either: just look at cross laminated timber.

We're going to build bridges and trains and rails and roads and ships out of cross laminated timber? And yes, you can build pretty tall structures out of CLT, but there's still smaller than what you can build with steel and concrete. The tallest one built that I know of is 25 stories. But at least 6 or so of those floors are all concrete+steel, and it still uses concrete+steel emergency stairwells. https://www.fs.usd…

For foundations, lime stabilised soil has been used in civil engineering projects for a very, very long time:

https://www.geoengineer.org/education/ground-improvement/lim...

As for the rest, I was referring to buildings. I don't think anything is so worthy of being built that wrecking the environment is a fair trade. Railways are an honourable exception, since they displace (far more wasteful) cars. Light rail is especially good for this.

The fact is that we need to question what we build, as well as the materials used to build it.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#252

Post by xenadu02 »

The whole world suffers from an extremely deep lack of vision.

Why does a utility like PG&E fight so hard to hurt solar installation? If I were CEO I'd buy or start a foundry to make solar panels. Then I'd start an installation and service org. People need energy, why should I care where they get it so long as they get it from me? The grid isn't going away so stop trying so desperately to protect that revenue stream.

Why can't oil companies do the same sort of thing? If Shell were smart they'd be making and selling wind turbines, solar panels, inverters, batteries, etc. Use your stupid lobbing arm to get subsidies passed that make the electric utilities pay part of the cost of these products. Instead they're just giving those markets away because they don't know how to do anything beyond oil and jealously try to protect every scrap of oil revenue.

Even ATT focused so much on long-distance revenue and milking people for tiny data pipes they let cable companies and new ISPs waltz in and takeover huge chunks of what had literally been their monopoly business. Bell labs invented VoIP and could have owned that space... but they didn't dare threaten long-distance revenues. Then a few years later competitors evicerated those revenue streams anyway.

It all comes down to a lack of vision and a focus on protecting existing revenue streams. I guess my brain just doesn't work that way. I see change as inevitable so I'd rather try to own a piece of the new market than worry about protecting the old one.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#253

Post by cannabis_sam »

The same way that you wouldn’t accept your elderly relatives trying to burn down the house you both happen to live in, every fossil fuel based company should be nationalized and shutdown as quickly as possible, while reducing the impact on society’s poorest who depend on that type of energy.

No, wait, private ownership and corporate freedom have actually been proven to be the pinnacle of human economic organizing, so please hand back the lighter and petrol to your demented grandparents and their delusions ideas.

Unfortunately, the people running and investing in these companies will be long dead when their decisions come back to bite us all in the ass.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#254

Post by kwhitefoot »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #108
datavirtue wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EV crutch is getting really old. With current tech it is not a solution. Not even remotely. It's great. I love the idea too. I would rather we stop driving around machines that belch out dangerous toxins but a mass migration to EVs will be disastrous. The manufacturers are going hybrid...which is a sensible transition. It should get people used to the freedom of producing/collecting their own energy. Hopefully th…

Disastrous? It's already happened. 38% of new cars in the largest car market in the world are EV's.

In Norway (I know it's a small market) it's over 80%. Over 20% of cars on the road are pure electric EVs.

https://elbil.no/om-elbil/elbilstatistikk/elbilbestand/

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#255

Post by kwhitefoot »

prmoustache wrote: post #240
btilly wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Norway, about 90% of new sales are EVs. They aren't a third world country. https://insideevs.com/news/675163/norway-plugin-car-sales-ju... The USA was at 14% last year and could hit 18% this year. https://insideevs.com/news/675163/norway-plugin-car-sales-ju...

that was a typo, I meant first world countries.

Still not negligible.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#256

Post by akamaka »

fwungy wrote: post #68

The rising BRICS dominate hydrocarbons and they aren't giving them up, selling or using. We should be focused on mitigation strategies and superior technology that wins conversion based on market forces and not government mandates and long term subsidies. The Green Suicide of the West isn't going to help climate change, and will probably make it worse.

> The rising BRICS dominate hydrocarbons and they aren't giving them up, selling or using.

Surely you’re looking at the wrong statistics. Brazil is a leader in renewable energy, with fossil fuel use already on the decline for the last decade.

China is the world’s largest producer of solar and wind power products, and their renewable energy ramp up has only been slowed down by the rest of the world buying up half their output.

The risk to western economies is that they are too slow to transition away from fossil fuels and suffer from their dependence on ever more expensive oil and gas.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#257

Post by robnado »

IKantRead wrote: post #247
robnado wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without modern fertilizers which heavily rely on fossil fuels to produce, roughly half of the world population cannot be fed. Further, agriculture becomes much more labor intensive and we pretty much revert to the past where the majority of the population on earth were farmers. If you don't know how to farm effectively using past methods, you probably also get added to the "cannot be fed" list. That is a substantial…

> I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this. Oh, much worse. First off we, fertilizer or no, we're already facing crop failures in the US [0] and will continue to face even more extreme crop failures [1]. Even if we had unlimited fertilizer we've already signed up for massive famine. But if you really want to talk about the unmitigated climate change path, which is what happen…

Sounds like the classic trolley problem where your choice is to pull a lever and immediately kill half the world's population because 100 million kilometres away, the entirety of life on earth is comfortably resting on the train tracks. You're saying, let's pull that lever. I'm saying, let's organize a project to move the trolley tracks since we have ample time to do so. Sure some people will get hit by the trolley as it races by while the track is still being moved, but it sure beats killing 4 billion people in one fell swoop.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#258

Post by aaomidi »

huthuthike wrote: post #43
aaomidi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile companies with “climate pledges” forcing RTO. Even when society wants to shift, the ones in charge say no. We should have had a governmental mandate requiring companies over a certain size to allow WFH and justify why they can’t do it if they really can’t.

I fully agree with you but governments aren't exactly the ally on this one. Local and state governments in particular are losing out on tax revenue due to WFH. Lower attendance in offices (often in city centers) means less spending in those areas, so lower sales tax revenue. (I think New York City is projecting around $4500 less spending per worker annually.) Depreciating corporate property values means lower propert…

Oh definitely I know they’re not the allies. I’m just hoping and dreaming.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#259

Post by AnthonyMouse »

UncleMeat wrote: post #219
jackmott42 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no regulation proposed, or method proposed, to substantively reduce how much co2 is emitted when you burn fossil fuels for power. That is why this problem is so hard. You can't put a filter in place like you can for heavy metals or particulates. There is no solution other than switching to nuclear/solar/wind/etc

And those solutions can be enforced by regulation. But when you get regulation like generation shifting, corporations and the political right wing collude to say that the regulations are unconstitutional.

> But when you get regulation like generation shifting, corporations and the political right wing collude to say that the regulations are unconstitutional.

The argument wasn't that they're unconstitutional, it's that they weren't authorized by Congress. To have the law you have to actually pass the law.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#260

Post by btilly »

prmoustache wrote: post #240
btilly wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Norway, about 90% of new sales are EVs. They aren't a third world country. https://insideevs.com/news/675163/norway-plugin-car-sales-ju... The USA was at 14% last year and could hit 18% this year. https://insideevs.com/news/675163/norway-plugin-car-sales-ju...

that was a typo, I meant first world countries.

So China is first world?

Though I do admit, electric is less compelling where the electric grid is unreliable.

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