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The CO2 removed from the air by the soy plants from which the oil comes cancels out the CO2 added by burning the oil. Literally all the carbon in the soy oil w
by hollerith 1y ago
The CO2 removed from the air by the soy plants from which the oil comes cancels out the CO2 added by burning the oil.
Literally all the carbon in the soy oil was pulled from the atmosphere.
That's where the phrase "carbon neutral" comes from.
- prmoustache 1y agoYou seem to easily forget all the co2 used to farm those plants and transport the oil. There is no such thing as carbon neutral as long as some metal, plastic and petrol is involved.
- hollerith 1y agoI agree that the production of soy oil in the current economy uses a lot of fossil fuel. But you brought up soy oil to support your assertion that "energy being renewable or not is unrelated to climate change", which is wrong. If it were possible to produce soy oil without using fossil fuels, then producing, using and burning soy oil would be carbon neutral. The argument you want is we cannot simply assume that the world's economy can be weaned off of fossil fuels without a permanent and severe reduction in living standards. Maybe it can be done, maybe it cannot: it depends on how efficient the substitute energy sources get.