Isn't the origin of the CO2 kind of important? I mean we can get all worked up about how much is being blown up the chimney, but the source has to be taken into account.
I could be completely wrong here, but surely pulling coal out of the ground and burning it is essentially adding new CO2 into the atmosphere. Growing plant matter and burning that is only releasing the CO2 that was pulled from the atmosphere to grow it in the first place.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 16:15,
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Ehhh you're not completely wrong.
But still very wrong, imhho...
Over geological time your statement about plant matter holds true for fossil fuels. They're only releasing the carbon that was pulled from the atmosphere in the first place, and over geological time, they too are 'carbon neutral'.
But the world ecosystem has evolved to depend on the climate that existed post-fuel fossilisation and pre-1800s. Adding greenhouse gases to that mix is suicide, we have already done irreversible damage to the planet, so now anything that does not remove greenhouse gas simply adds to our problems.
The source of the biomass for Drax is North America. This is insane and only adds to the environmental catastrophe. Drax's claims that they're going to be carbon-negative by 2030 reads to me like cynical corporate lies, but I hope I'm wrong about that.
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brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:09,
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I'm not talking about geological time though. I'm talking about over the lifetime of the power plant - which is the only timescale that's relevant to this.
The transport of the fuel is important, but if there's a way of offsetting that (and the plant operators seem to think they can) then I see no reason why it can't be carbon neutral.
Of course we all know the best option for low-carbon power generation would be nuclear, but we can't have that can we?
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:22,
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I expect that the only way they can make this business model 'carbon neutral' by 2030 is to buy carbon credits from Elon Musk, or use some other creative accountancy trick.
Otherwise, as far as I can tell, they need, within 5.5 years, to create a sustainable fleet of carbon neutral vehicles (and associated carbon neutral supply chains, which nobody has yet managed to do) to transport millions of tonnes of carbon neutrally produced North American woodchips (ditto), to be burned at their plant in Yorkshire where they will have designed and built, carbon neutrally (ditto), a fully closed-cycle, carbon-sequestering, carbon-negative furnace (ditto).
I really hope they can, but realistically this is an environmental disaster hiding behind corporate greenwashing PR bullshit. Go nuclear now!
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brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 19:32,
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fossil fuels will never form again
So there is no cyclic method for them to sequester co2. Unlike plants.
This is the point
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simbosan liked your link on, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 18:06,
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They could
if we burn all the fossil fuels. Oxygen-producing life will eventually evolve again and the cycle will repeat. I guess the expansion of the sun puts a hard time limit on this kind of thing, but we could probably get 4-8 cycles in, I reckon.
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brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 18:21,
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no it won't
The global conditions will never occur again
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simbosan liked your link on, Sat 10 Aug 2024, 7:02,
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Mr Mould gotcha
But TLDR; we now have bacteria/fungi that can break down lignin, but those bugs didn't exist when woody plants first appeared, so the wood wasn't broken down and it fossilised.
Bugs will eat the lignin now, so no more coal ever again.
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simbosan liked your link on, Sun 11 Aug 2024, 9:32,
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And these lignin-eaters are all high temperature extremophiles?
They'd all survive the Venusification of the Earth?
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brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Sun 11 Aug 2024, 15:00,
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It’s only atmospheric carbon neutral when the mature trees that have been slashed and burned have been fully replaced. A process that could take decades.
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wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:38,
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