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How many years before this plant becomes carbon neutral itself? I can bet that this is another waste of money and natural resources that will not help the envir

by 6d6b73 4y ago

How many years before this plant becomes carbon neutral itself? I can bet that this is another waste of money and natural resources that will not help the environment.

pengaru 4y ago
TFA makes it pretty clear that the energy source is geothermal.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > TFA makes it pretty clear that the energy source is geothermal. Is it more likely that when this plant switches on, other people will just make do with that much less electricity, or that when this plant switches on, electricity production will go up?
  - pengaru 4y ago
    AIUI Iceland has excess geothermal energy resources vs. their needs.
- 6d6b73 4y ago
  Thats not the point. To design ,build and operate this plant you first need to use a lot of energy, tools and resources that are not carbon neutral. Before this plant is even operational it will be carbon negative.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    Interestingly if they produced everything used in the plant local to Iceland, at least in terms of energy used it would basically be 100% geothermal sourced.
    - 6d6b73 4y ago
      But they won't be able to. Industrial controllers, motors, computers are not made in Iceland. These items alone need a lot of CO2 to be made.
cinntaile 4y ago
It shouldn't take that long, probably not even a year. It's basically 80 shipping containers filled with fans.
- Alupis 4y ago
  It's a lot more than just shipping containers. All the way down to the minerals being extracted from the earth. Nobody thinks about this... which is why we have all these smug EV drivers everywhere thinking they are net zero emissions. Mining is dirty. Transporting raw material, smelting, transporting, forging, transporting, forming/shaping/fabricating/transporting again, etc... finally moving the finished products to the destination for final installation. Nothing is "carbon neutral". It's a made up term to make people feel good about themselves.
  - danans 4y ago
    > Nothing is "carbon neutral". That's pretty false on it's face. Some building products, like cellulose insulation and cork are actually carbon negative. Even among carbon positive products, some are much less CO2 intensive over their lifetimes than others. EVs have far lower lifetime emissions than ICEs even if they have slightly higher embodied CO2 of production [1], and EVs can be dispatched to only charge using renewables, thereby reducing lifetime emissions even more. 1. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l...
    - Alupis 4y ago
      How do you think cork, using one of your examples, is processed into building materials and transported to the construction site? Hint, it's not carbon neutral.
      - danans 4y ago
        Unless you grow, raise, or hunt all your food under your own physical power, eating isn't carbon neutral either. And doing that isn't scalable anyways. We are going to build no matter what, just like we are going to eat. It's pointless to argue that nothing is carbon neutral when some ways of living have significantly lower carbon intensity than others. Therefore it makes sense (assuming one takes climate change seriously) to go about our lives in the least carbon intensive ways that are possible for us economically. So for someone who it works for practically, an EV can result in much lower lifetime CO2 emissions than an ICE, and using cork or similarly low CO2 insulation can result in lower lifetime CO2 than using fiberglass.

by 6d6b73 4y ago

How many years before this plant becomes carbon neutral itself? I can bet that this is another waste of money and natural resources that will not help the environment.

pengaru 4y ago

TFA makes it pretty clear that the energy source is geothermal.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> TFA makes it pretty clear that the energy source is geothermal. Is it more likely that when this plant switches on, other people will just make do with that much less electricity, or that when this plant switches on, electricity production will go up?
- pengaru 4y ago
  AIUI Iceland has excess geothermal energy resources vs. their needs.
6d6b73 4y ago
Thats not the point. To design ,build and operate this plant you first need to use a lot of energy, tools and resources that are not carbon neutral. Before this plant is even operational it will be carbon negative.
- pengaru 4y ago
  Interestingly if they produced everything used in the plant local to Iceland, at least in terms of energy used it would basically be 100% geothermal sourced.
  - 6d6b73 4y ago
    But they won't be able to. Industrial controllers, motors, computers are not made in Iceland. These items alone need a lot of CO2 to be made.

cinntaile 4y ago

It shouldn't take that long, probably not even a year. It's basically 80 shipping containers filled with fans.

Alupis 4y ago
It's a lot more than just shipping containers. All the way down to the minerals being extracted from the earth. Nobody thinks about this... which is why we have all these smug EV drivers everywhere thinking they are net zero emissions. Mining is dirty. Transporting raw material, smelting, transporting, forging, transporting, forming/shaping/fabricating/transporting again, etc... finally moving the finished products to the destination for final installation. Nothing is "carbon neutral". It's a made up term to make people feel good about themselves.
- danans 4y ago
  > Nothing is "carbon neutral". That's pretty false on it's face. Some building products, like cellulose insulation and cork are actually carbon negative. Even among carbon positive products, some are much less CO2 intensive over their lifetimes than others. EVs have far lower lifetime emissions than ICEs even if they have slightly higher embodied CO2 of production [1], and EVs can be dispatched to only charge using renewables, thereby reducing lifetime emissions even more. 1. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l...
  - Alupis 4y ago
    How do you think cork, using one of your examples, is processed into building materials and transported to the construction site? Hint, it's not carbon neutral.
    - danans 4y ago
      Unless you grow, raise, or hunt all your food under your own physical power, eating isn't carbon neutral either. And doing that isn't scalable anyways. We are going to build no matter what, just like we are going to eat. It's pointless to argue that nothing is carbon neutral when some ways of living have significantly lower carbon intensity than others. Therefore it makes sense (assuming one takes climate change seriously) to go about our lives in the least carbon intensive ways that are possible for us economically. So for someone who it works for practically, an EV can result in much lower lifetime CO2 emissions than an ICE, and using cork or similarly low CO2 insulation can result in lower lifetime CO2 than using fiberglass.