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Would you rather we'd burn peat (which is also sequestered carbon) instead? Because that's what we used to do. We need to stay warm in winter one way or another
by renhanxue 2y ago
Would you rather we'd burn peat (which is also sequestered carbon) instead? Because that's what we used to do. We need to stay warm in winter one way or another.
In the 1950's we thought that in the future we'd have nuclear cogeneration plants. There was one such plant (Ågesta) in commercial operation, but it closed in the mid 1970's.
edit: also, to your point about sequestration: it's in actual and literal fact the same people. The Stockholm municipal energy company burns a lot of waste (and also woodchips and other renewables) for district heating. That same company also recently closed a big carbon sequestration deal with Microsoft: https://carboncredits.com/microsoft-and-stockholm-exergi-strike-historic-deal-for-3-33-mts-of-carbon-removal/ https://carboncredits.com/microsoft-and-stockholm-exergi-str....
- MostlyStable 2y agoHopefully in the relatively near future, heat storage systems (like the sand batteries talked about in [0]) can do long term storage of heat energy from renewables and heating can provided relatively carbon free through the winter. For now though, I'd agree that the burning is not that big a deal. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ZrM-IZlTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ZrM-IZlTE
- mrmlz 2y agoWe got that as well in Sweden - but we use water. Its part of the central-communal heating system that heats a large of the city.
- bluGill 2y agoI'd prefer you use wind to get the energy(or solar but there isn't much sun when you need heat) and burn nothing.
- alexanderchr 2y agoSo would most of us, but somewhat impractically, Sweden tends to be at its coldest when it’s dark and windless.
- eru 2y agoInvestments in long range, high wattage cabling to connect grids might be useful. There's plenty of sun light further south. Of course, you need to run the numbers to make sure it actually makes sense. Both economically and from a resource point of view. Cables ain't free to build nor maintain. But there's probably a trade to be made with the carbon capture people to sell them trash plastic to bury (or to have them pay you to bury your plastic. No need to actually ship the actual plastic around.)
- sofixa 2y ago> Investments in long range, high wattage cabling to connect grids might be useful. There's plenty of sun light further south. With the energy loss over the distance needed (you basically need southern Italy/southern Spain for any reliable sun during the Swedish winter), that becomes too expensive to be practical. Not to mention now you have a domino dependence, where a few bad days of weather in the Mediterranean can take out multiple countries at once, instead of Spain/Italy being able to rely on their northern neighbours in such a scenario.
- eru 2y ago> With the energy loss over the distance needed (you basically need southern Italy/southern Spain for any reliable sun during the Swedish winter), that becomes too expensive to be practical. Can't be worse than that cable from Australia to Singapore? > Not to mention now you have a domino dependence, where a few bad days of weather in the Mediterranean can take out multiple countries at once, instead of Spain/Italy being able to rely on their northern neighbours in such a scenario. That's what peaker plants are for. There's no reason to go for 100% purity. Getting to 99% renewables gets you 99% of the way.
- sofixa 2y ago> That's what peaker plants are for. Unless you can wish natural gas into existence, that means keeping a lot of infrastructure and storage just in case.
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- kortilla 2y agoFalse choice. Don’t burn anything.
- Sammi 2y agoHow is peat a false alternative? It is literally what Swedes would burn if they didn't burn their waste. There exists no practical alternative atm. Sure it's worth working towards another alternative, but we also need to not freeze right now.