5 ms·

Does it include externalities (co2 emissions)? Increasing natural gas generation is of course disastrous policy with a major death toll from the climate disast

by fulafel 8mo ago

Does it include externalities (co2 emissions)? Increasing natural gas generation is of course disastrous policy with a major death toll from the climate disaster, there needs to be a rampdown of fossils use and production.

deaux 8mo ago
Strange downvotes for a relevant question.
warkdarrior 8mo ago
There are no such things as CO2 emissions in this administration. Your AI chatbots will be powered by clean coal and you'll enjoy it!
- cyrusradfar 8mo ago
  /s this guy gets it. Thank you, finally speaking my language
- rob74 8mo ago
  They have a cute mascot, so it can't be that bad: https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/meet-coalie-the-cute-mascot-of-beautiful-clean-coal/ar-AA1VTlDY https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/meet-coal... Actually, the tweet quoted in the article is firmly in the "you can't make this $%&/ up" category...
- thegreatpeter 8mo ago
  So you believe Microsoft will start opening up coal plants again and not nuclear?
  - dathinab 8mo ago
    Nuclear power is a pain to build and maintain and un-build once it gets to old to reliable run it (the later part is commonly overlooked in cost calculations). It is also a ~50 year investment. This makes it not very attractive for companies and is why most nuclear power is state sub-ventioned. Theoretically the US had something similar to a state bank to help companies to finance exactly such projects, but Trump/DOGE defounded it for publicity reasons which makes it even less likely for private nuclear power plants. Many "we will use nuclear power" statements do rely on mini reactors. But AFIK pretty much all mini reactor projects have ended in dead ends so far. With promised at best working out on paper (and quite often not even there). So my guess is: They will claim they want to use Nuclear and might even intend to do so. But in the end look at their balance sheets and risk calculation and go "nah, lets do coal/gas/oil". There probably will be some single public co-investment into a nuclear power plant which "happens" to also be government sponsored to keep up the pretense.
analog31 8mo ago
While we're at it, water use is another externality.
adrianN 8mo ago
The only realistic way to "bear the cost" of CO2 emissions is paying for getting atmospheric carbon back into the ground. Right now that seems difficult to do at scale. The best way I know is making charcoal and burying it. Offsetting 1kWh needs on the order of 200g of wood turned into charcoal and buried.
- erpellan 8mo ago
  Making charcoal releases CO2 though? How does that help with carbon capture?
  - AngryData 8mo ago
    You don't HAVE to make it into charcoal, but it will take up way more volume if you don't and contains tons of volatiles like methane that will come out and may make the ground less stable to simply bury with dirt as it partially rots. Theoretically you could harness some of those volatiles for some energy production, but at the very least use those volatiles to heat the wood and make it charcoal for basically free.
    - nDRDY 8mo ago
      Methane is a significantly more effective GHG than carbon dioxide!
  - adrianN 8mo ago
    Charcoal is like 80% carbon and the tree extracted it from the atmosphere.
- nDRDY 8mo ago
  Are you suggesting we cut down trees and bury them to save the planet? For me, this idea marks the departure from reason and into crazytown. When our civilisation is excavated in 500 years, they are going to say we were as crazy as all of the others.
  - harimau777 8mo ago
burnt-resistor 8mo ago
Sound and particulate pollution too.
dathinab 8mo ago
The current US government is systematically attacking anything which tries to "reduce the effects of climate change" and claims it's mostly all a scam. So no. But what probably also isn't included but should is environmental damage. Running low quality "temp." gas turbines non stop isn't without filters etc. isn't just bad for the climate, it's a air pollution which can directly affect anyone in it's path with not only increased chances for lounge cancer but also much more short term effects like asthma, and increased chances of asthma attacks ending deadly. Especially if the weather prevents easy dispersion (like it tends to do in winter). It's not that long ago (<80y) that the west had acid rains, and deadly smog accidents exactly from this kind of negligent shit. And if we look at Asia this is sometimes still a topic today (but has gotten much better compared to just ~20 years ago).
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  Look in the mirror. No MBA pencil pusher wants to run an inefficient local turbine. It's just that the timeline and upper cost bound of doing that is less crap than having a "real utility" build more power at "real utility scale" and run you a wire because the latter is subject to all manner of delay and cost overrun. And there's no inherent physical or economic reason for it to be that way. We made it that way. The metaphorical local turbine is less worse specifically because people like you, saying the exact same things you're saying right now have saddled the "real utility scale" generation, and more importantly, the wire to the big industrial consumer who'd pay for it with all sorts of requirements. It costs tens of thousands of dollars of lawyers and engineering over years just to dump a concrete culvert in a ravine where it crosses a power line clearing and fill over the top, all because of the red tape. Say nothing of the cost to do all the legal paperwork to get the utility cut in the first place. Now multiply by every mile the wire has to go, add in the wires, etc, etc. For an industry that might boom and bust in 2, 5, 10yr dumping a fuel guzzling turbine in your parking lot at 5x the cost per watt starts to look pretty good.
  - blitzar 8mo ago
    The MBA pencil pusher would pay a billion for 1 unit of electricity if it increased their market cap by a trillion. The margin is so fat and the percieved upside so great that 9 figure signing bonuses have been thrown around. Of course this will all change, but I doubt we will see tech companies opening power plants anytime soon with their associated balance sheet dragging 1% return on equity.

by fulafel 8mo ago

deaux 8mo ago

Strange downvotes for a relevant question.

warkdarrior 8mo ago

There are no such things as CO2 emissions in this administration. Your AI chatbots will be powered by clean coal and you'll enjoy it!

cyrusradfar 8mo ago
/s this guy gets it. Thank you, finally speaking my language
rob74 8mo ago
They have a cute mascot, so it can't be that bad: https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/meet-coalie-the-cute-mascot-of-beautiful-clean-coal/ar-AA1VTlDY https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/meet-coal... Actually, the tweet quoted in the article is firmly in the "you can't make this $%&/ up" category...
thegreatpeter 8mo ago
So you believe Microsoft will start opening up coal plants again and not nuclear?
- dathinab 8mo ago
  Nuclear power is a pain to build and maintain and un-build once it gets to old to reliable run it (the later part is commonly overlooked in cost calculations). It is also a ~50 year investment. This makes it not very attractive for companies and is why most nuclear power is state sub-ventioned. Theoretically the US had something similar to a state bank to help companies to finance exactly such projects, but Trump/DOGE defounded it for publicity reasons which makes it even less likely for private nuclear power plants. Many "we will use nuclear power" statements do rely on mini reactors. But AFIK pretty much all mini reactor projects have ended in dead ends so far. With promised at best working out on paper (and quite often not even there). So my guess is: They will claim they want to use Nuclear and might even intend to do so. But in the end look at their balance sheets and risk calculation and go "nah, lets do coal/gas/oil". There probably will be some single public co-investment into a nuclear power plant which "happens" to also be government sponsored to keep up the pretense.

analog31 8mo ago

While we're at it, water use is another externality.

adrianN 8mo ago

The only realistic way to "bear the cost" of CO2 emissions is paying for getting atmospheric carbon back into the ground. Right now that seems difficult to do at scale. The best way I know is making charcoal and burying it. Offsetting 1kWh needs on the order of 200g of wood turned into charcoal and buried.

erpellan 8mo ago
Making charcoal releases CO2 though? How does that help with carbon capture?
- AngryData 8mo ago
  You don't HAVE to make it into charcoal, but it will take up way more volume if you don't and contains tons of volatiles like methane that will come out and may make the ground less stable to simply bury with dirt as it partially rots. Theoretically you could harness some of those volatiles for some energy production, but at the very least use those volatiles to heat the wood and make it charcoal for basically free.
  - nDRDY 8mo ago
    Methane is a significantly more effective GHG than carbon dioxide!
- adrianN 8mo ago
  Charcoal is like 80% carbon and the tree extracted it from the atmosphere.
nDRDY 8mo ago
Are you suggesting we cut down trees and bury them to save the planet? For me, this idea marks the departure from reason and into crazytown. When our civilisation is excavated in 500 years, they are going to say we were as crazy as all of the others.
- harimau777 8mo ago

burnt-resistor 8mo ago

Sound and particulate pollution too.

dathinab 8mo ago

The current US government is systematically attacking anything which tries to "reduce the effects of climate change" and claims it's mostly all a scam. So no. But what probably also isn't included but should is environmental damage. Running low quality "temp." gas turbines non stop isn't without filters etc. isn't just bad for the climate, it's a air pollution which can directly affect anyone in it's path with not only increased chances for lounge cancer but also much more short term effects like asthma, and increased chances of asthma attacks ending deadly. Especially if the weather prevents easy dispersion (like it tends to do in winter). It's not that long ago (<80y) that the west had acid rains, and deadly smog accidents exactly from this kind of negligent shit. And if we look at Asia this is sometimes still a topic today (but has gotten much better compared to just ~20 years ago).

cucumber3732842 8mo ago
Look in the mirror. No MBA pencil pusher wants to run an inefficient local turbine. It's just that the timeline and upper cost bound of doing that is less crap than having a "real utility" build more power at "real utility scale" and run you a wire because the latter is subject to all manner of delay and cost overrun. And there's no inherent physical or economic reason for it to be that way. We made it that way. The metaphorical local turbine is less worse specifically because people like you, saying the exact same things you're saying right now have saddled the "real utility scale" generation, and more importantly, the wire to the big industrial consumer who'd pay for it with all sorts of requirements. It costs tens of thousands of dollars of lawyers and engineering over years just to dump a concrete culvert in a ravine where it crosses a power line clearing and fill over the top, all because of the red tape. Say nothing of the cost to do all the legal paperwork to get the utility cut in the first place. Now multiply by every mile the wire has to go, add in the wires, etc, etc. For an industry that might boom and bust in 2, 5, 10yr dumping a fuel guzzling turbine in your parking lot at 5x the cost per watt starts to look pretty good.
- blitzar 8mo ago
  The MBA pencil pusher would pay a billion for 1 unit of electricity if it increased their market cap by a trillion. The margin is so fat and the percieved upside so great that 9 figure signing bonuses have been thrown around. Of course this will all change, but I doubt we will see tech companies opening power plants anytime soon with their associated balance sheet dragging 1% return on equity.