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I'll wait to celebrate until a credible source estimates total emissions impact of this fuel. Sadly, there's a lot of "green cons" going on right now. For year

I'll wait to celebrate until a credible source estimates total emissions impact of this fuel. Sadly, there's a lot of "green cons" going on right now. For years, America has been cutting down its own mature hardwood forests to feed power plants in the UK and Europe on the extremely questionable theory that these forests qualify as a renewable energy source. Con men administrators and officials are wrecking our environment and society to pad their CVs with wins on fake metrics. It's happening everywhere and we need to get wise.

errcorrectcode 5y ago
Greenwashing. For another example, "Biodegradable" plastics were mostly a big con.
boppo1 5y ago
I was just trying to dig up a bookmark on your example but couldn't find it. You don't have an article handy, do you?
- civilized 5y ago
  Here's one: https://www.whqr.org/local/2021-10-26/green-energy-or-greenwashing-the-wood-pellet-industry-is-the-target-of-fierce-debate https://www.whqr.org/local/2021-10-26/green-energy-or-greenw... Basically, the idea behind turning forests into pellets is "we'll eventually grow more trees to compensate and recapture the CO2". But you can say the same thing about burning fossil fuels or anything else! It's insane to think that cutting down trees is somehow special in this regard. The problem with planting more trees is the same no matter how you're putting CO2 into the air: it takes decades for the trees to grow, and in the meantime all that CO2 you emitted is in the atmosphere warming the planet. And let's not forget that burning pellets emits more CO2 than fossil fuels: > According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, burning wood generates 1.5 times the CO2 of coal and 3 times the CO2 of natural gas to create the same amount of energy. It's absolutely batty, and our Ministers of Greenwashing are exploiting it to the hilt.
  - boppo1 5y ago
    Thanks for this! Also, I found the article I was thinking of: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/us/american-south-biomass-energy-invs/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/us/american-south-bi...
    - civilized 5y ago
      This is so utterly batshit insane. How did the EU convince themselves that cutting trees down is fine because more will be planted? Why not just leave the trees up and plant new ones??
      - freemint 5y ago
        Because tree planting space is limited.
dredmorbius 5y ago
So long as the carbon is sourced from the biosphere (preferably extracted from seawater or air), and the energy feeding that is carbon-neutral (solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, ...) then the net use cycle is carbon-neutral. There are use cases other than automobiles which would benefit by petroleum-analogue fuels, most especially aircraft and marine shipping, though also some overland freight (trains, trucks), remote off-grid applications, and some portable tools and equipment. Batteries suit some but not all of these cases. Yes, there's a huge efficiency loss, but the win is in storage, portability, energy density, safety, and on-demand availability. Round-trip recovery would likely be ~15--25%, mostly through hydrolysis losses (~40--50%) and Carnot efficiency (only 25--50% of heat energy produces useful mechanical energy). Those are givens, again, the question is the trade-off and capabilities gained. There's well over 50 years of research into these technologies. I've summarised and collected this in earlier comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21517357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21517357

errcorrectcode 5y ago

Greenwashing. For another example, "Biodegradable" plastics were mostly a big con.

boppo1 5y ago

I was just trying to dig up a bookmark on your example but couldn't find it. You don't have an article handy, do you?

civilized 5y ago
Here's one: https://www.whqr.org/local/2021-10-26/green-energy-or-greenwashing-the-wood-pellet-industry-is-the-target-of-fierce-debate https://www.whqr.org/local/2021-10-26/green-energy-or-greenw... Basically, the idea behind turning forests into pellets is "we'll eventually grow more trees to compensate and recapture the CO2". But you can say the same thing about burning fossil fuels or anything else! It's insane to think that cutting down trees is somehow special in this regard. The problem with planting more trees is the same no matter how you're putting CO2 into the air: it takes decades for the trees to grow, and in the meantime all that CO2 you emitted is in the atmosphere warming the planet. And let's not forget that burning pellets emits more CO2 than fossil fuels: > According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, burning wood generates 1.5 times the CO2 of coal and 3 times the CO2 of natural gas to create the same amount of energy. It's absolutely batty, and our Ministers of Greenwashing are exploiting it to the hilt.
- boppo1 5y ago
  Thanks for this! Also, I found the article I was thinking of: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/us/american-south-biomass-energy-invs/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/us/american-south-bi...
  - civilized 5y ago
    This is so utterly batshit insane. How did the EU convince themselves that cutting trees down is fine because more will be planted? Why not just leave the trees up and plant new ones??
    - freemint 5y ago
      Because tree planting space is limited.

dredmorbius 5y ago

So long as the carbon is sourced from the biosphere (preferably extracted from seawater or air), and the energy feeding that is carbon-neutral (solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, ...) then the net use cycle is carbon-neutral. There are use cases other than automobiles which would benefit by petroleum-analogue fuels, most especially aircraft and marine shipping, though also some overland freight (trains, trucks), remote off-grid applications, and some portable tools and equipment. Batteries suit some but not all of these cases. Yes, there's a huge efficiency loss, but the win is in storage, portability, energy density, safety, and on-demand availability. Round-trip recovery would likely be ~15--25%, mostly through hydrolysis losses (~40--50%) and Carnot efficiency (only 25--50% of heat energy produces useful mechanical energy). Those are givens, again, the question is the trade-off and capabilities gained. There's well over 50 years of research into these technologies. I've summarised and collected this in earlier comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21517357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21517357