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Correct me if I'm wrong but even the original plan only covered carbon footprint of Shell's operations? Which I presume are pretty much a minor fraction of the

Correct me if I'm wrong but even the original plan only covered carbon footprint of Shell's operations? Which I presume are pretty much a minor fraction of the carbon footprint of their products and kinda makes the whole exercise a PR campaign. Even when it would cover pipeline leaks and the like it's still nowhere near their total impact.

fluoridation 3y ago
Were you expecting Shell to increase the efficiency of every existing internal combustion engine?
- Aachen 3y ago
  It's what I wondered at the headline as well. Sounded ambitious, but with how much profit they make it's not immediately obvious whether it's infeasible, especially if you can convince a government to then be exempt from a part of the fuel taxes because you don't have to pay for the pollution aspect
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    It sounds not just infeasible, but comically infeasible. For the sake of argument, let's assume that it's easy to improve ICEs in general by 5%. You still have to apply that upgrade to all the existing engine designs, ideally as drop-in replacements, and then swap all those engines in the wild.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      I assume the biggest polluters are not cars but big industrial operations or shipping. That seems like a smaller perhaps even realistic number of sites to target for some amount of efficiency gains. Especially if margins are too low in these industries for them to invest in their own efficiency.
    - Aachen 3y ago
      I was rather thinking of buying a tree seed that magically absolved you of a few tons of CO2, never mind that most don't grow to maturity, that it takes a century, and that after that century it falls over and releases that CO2 again. With that kind of math, you can make jet flights fully offset for something like 2% added ticket cost. Just look at the greenhouse gas compensation airliners offer for an example of what Shell could reasonably have been up to. I may also have had a classmate that worked at Shell and put on a really good show of how they're not all evil but also spending <insert objectively huge number> on good things. The last strand of that is severed now at least...
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  Idk, we could illustrate this a bit with: "hey, we are in the business of murder, we switched from machine guns to sniper rifles, our murder is now much less wasteful (in terms of bullets used)". That is not to say you are wrong, it was maybe just that when a fossil fuel company tells you it's reducing it's carbon impact then the whole premise is going to be cynical at best.
closewith 3y ago
I wonder what the percentage is. Refining alone is ludicrously energy-intensive, plus end-to-end transport costs.
konschubert 3y ago
It’s ridiculous.

fluoridation 3y ago

Were you expecting Shell to increase the efficiency of every existing internal combustion engine?

Aachen 3y ago
It's what I wondered at the headline as well. Sounded ambitious, but with how much profit they make it's not immediately obvious whether it's infeasible, especially if you can convince a government to then be exempt from a part of the fuel taxes because you don't have to pay for the pollution aspect
- fluoridation 3y ago
  It sounds not just infeasible, but comically infeasible. For the sake of argument, let's assume that it's easy to improve ICEs in general by 5%. You still have to apply that upgrade to all the existing engine designs, ideally as drop-in replacements, and then swap all those engines in the wild.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    I assume the biggest polluters are not cars but big industrial operations or shipping. That seems like a smaller perhaps even realistic number of sites to target for some amount of efficiency gains. Especially if margins are too low in these industries for them to invest in their own efficiency.
  - Aachen 3y ago
    I was rather thinking of buying a tree seed that magically absolved you of a few tons of CO2, never mind that most don't grow to maturity, that it takes a century, and that after that century it falls over and releases that CO2 again. With that kind of math, you can make jet flights fully offset for something like 2% added ticket cost. Just look at the greenhouse gas compensation airliners offer for an example of what Shell could reasonably have been up to. I may also have had a classmate that worked at Shell and put on a really good show of how they're not all evil but also spending <insert objectively huge number> on good things. The last strand of that is severed now at least...
jnsaff2 3y ago
Idk, we could illustrate this a bit with: "hey, we are in the business of murder, we switched from machine guns to sniper rifles, our murder is now much less wasteful (in terms of bullets used)". That is not to say you are wrong, it was maybe just that when a fossil fuel company tells you it's reducing it's carbon impact then the whole premise is going to be cynical at best.

closewith 3y ago

I wonder what the percentage is. Refining alone is ludicrously energy-intensive, plus end-to-end transport costs.

konschubert 3y ago

It’s ridiculous.