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DAC? Trees? Which sequester CO2 underground? Hey, by all means, I think eventually its inevitable that carbon outputs become a commodity that people want to buy

DAC? Trees? Which sequester CO2 underground? Hey, by all means, I think eventually its inevitable that carbon outputs become a commodity that people want to buy for industrial uses. As it stands, there are natural processes that do a good job of this already, there is a lot of reforestation in areas everyone was worried about not long ago. To your point on fuel production, even if you are powering this with solar, you again have an issue with areas that work with solar, and those solar panels are only marginally better than fossil fuels over their lifetime, its not some magic bullet. Its nuclear or bust, I'd buy it for 10c on the $ if you said it was backed up by nuclear because at least we are having a serious conversation; solar is only useful as a hedge against environmentalist policy causing an unstable grid -> me.

voisin 3y ago
> those solar panels are only marginally better than fossil fuels over their lifetime Source?
- Geisterde 3y ago
  I was a nuclear operator for 6 years and I've been managing 140MWs since, I've spent almost a decade looking at the cost/benefit of solar, EVs, battery tech, I've looked at where the minerals are mined and how, I've looked at where and how they are processed, how the real cost stacks up against what the consumer sees. I'm not going to go digging for sources because I've seen enough of it for my own purposes. They give a marginal benefit, if they are operated in the long term they are in the green, if they are operated in the short you are in the red. The government should not be providing incentives but I'll happily capitalize on them, I've had 4 EVs and I'm waiting on permits for my solar; these techs could compete at some level with ICE today without the incentives, but they wouldn't won outright, they will likely never compete with nuclear.
PaulHoule 3y ago
Reforestation and aforrestation are fraught. See https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/study-carbon-offsets-arent-doing-their-job-overstate-impact/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/study-carbon-offsets... and https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2023/abandon-idea-great-green-walls https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2023/abandon-id... The basic problem is that if take a flight that last 12 hours, somebody has to maintain an area in forest for 10,000 years and there is no amount of money that is fair compensation for that. There was the case of a nature preserve in Pennsylvania that got carbon credits although they already had a conservation easement and that is in an honest part of the world, go South and you will face tropical gangsters: on the web site mongabay the most common story seems to be some people in Indonesia cut a forest that they weren't supposed to cut down and the government did nothing about it. On top of that there are places where forests aren't really the climax ecosystem and planting trees could do more harm than good. Protecting the Amazon rainforest, for instance, is a goal that is worthy in an d of itself and it has a complex relationship with the ecosystem that is to the southwest of itself as the line between those areas seems likely to shift north because of nonlocal effects. A carbon offset based on DAC is entirely different, here you take a 12 hour flight and over the course of 12 hours they can measure a certain amount of CO2 going into the ground the same way the gas company can measure gas going into you house -- there still are questions of whether or not the CO2 will really stay underground for 10,000 but it is not like "nature based" solutions where the answer is just plain "no". I am all for nuclear, if you look at what I post you can see I am a fan. At best it is the thin edge of a long wedge as the only country that can build nuclear reactors on an n-th of a kind basis is Russia and they are doing the best they can with the war in Ukraine to kill off that business. You can't blame the failed project in South Carolina or the late project in Georgia on anti-nuclear actvists but rather in difficulties building the first AP1000 reactors. Somehow we have to get to the place where we promise to build one in three years and maybe build it three and half and not nine.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  I'm not referring to reforestation projects, I'm referring to natural growth of forests, that out of they way... Yes, for nuclear I will buy the argument, on the cheap though, because ultimately someone has to pay for it. I return to my point, there will someday be a market for carbon emissions as a commodity, today it is fictitious.

voisin 3y ago

> those solar panels are only marginally better than fossil fuels over their lifetime Source?

Geisterde 3y ago
I was a nuclear operator for 6 years and I've been managing 140MWs since, I've spent almost a decade looking at the cost/benefit of solar, EVs, battery tech, I've looked at where the minerals are mined and how, I've looked at where and how they are processed, how the real cost stacks up against what the consumer sees. I'm not going to go digging for sources because I've seen enough of it for my own purposes. They give a marginal benefit, if they are operated in the long term they are in the green, if they are operated in the short you are in the red. The government should not be providing incentives but I'll happily capitalize on them, I've had 4 EVs and I'm waiting on permits for my solar; these techs could compete at some level with ICE today without the incentives, but they wouldn't won outright, they will likely never compete with nuclear.

PaulHoule 3y ago

Reforestation and aforrestation are fraught. See https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/study-carbon-offsets-arent-doing-their-job-overstate-impact/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/study-carbon-offsets... and https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2023/abandon-idea-great-green-walls https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2023/abandon-id... The basic problem is that if take a flight that last 12 hours, somebody has to maintain an area in forest for 10,000 years and there is no amount of money that is fair compensation for that. There was the case of a nature preserve in Pennsylvania that got carbon credits although they already had a conservation easement and that is in an honest part of the world, go South and you will face tropical gangsters: on the web site mongabay the most common story seems to be some people in Indonesia cut a forest that they weren't supposed to cut down and the government did nothing about it. On top of that there are places where forests aren't really the climax ecosystem and planting trees could do more harm than good. Protecting the Amazon rainforest, for instance, is a goal that is worthy in an d of itself and it has a complex relationship with the ecosystem that is to the southwest of itself as the line between those areas seems likely to shift north because of nonlocal effects. A carbon offset based on DAC is entirely different, here you take a 12 hour flight and over the course of 12 hours they can measure a certain amount of CO2 going into the ground the same way the gas company can measure gas going into you house -- there still are questions of whether or not the CO2 will really stay underground for 10,000 but it is not like "nature based" solutions where the answer is just plain "no". I am all for nuclear, if you look at what I post you can see I am a fan. At best it is the thin edge of a long wedge as the only country that can build nuclear reactors on an n-th of a kind basis is Russia and they are doing the best they can with the war in Ukraine to kill off that business. You can't blame the failed project in South Carolina or the late project in Georgia on anti-nuclear actvists but rather in difficulties building the first AP1000 reactors. Somehow we have to get to the place where we promise to build one in three years and maybe build it three and half and not nine.

Geisterde 3y ago
I'm not referring to reforestation projects, I'm referring to natural growth of forests, that out of they way... Yes, for nuclear I will buy the argument, on the cheap though, because ultimately someone has to pay for it. I return to my point, there will someday be a market for carbon emissions as a commodity, today it is fictitious.