Are Tech Companies being carbon neutral? or corporate accounting trick

[kcihtred2]

So I was watching a clip of Wan Show from mid November talking about Apple's repair program. It was discussing their hypocrisy of preaching one thing but doing the other

This made me think of an old article about are tech companies actually becoming greener. However only because they went and leased a bunch of forest and did nothing with it.

Did anything change?
A forest that might or might of not been cut down lasts another year and a land owner got paid by tech companies.

But did anything really change?

 

https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-growing-market-of-not-cutting-down-trees/5e0b4e3d-f26e-42cf-94e8-acaab805a65a

[SorryBella]

3 minutes ago, kcihtred2 said:

Did anything change?

Carbon Credits is still very much a thing. Im personally fine with the status quo, the true enemy in the game of NCZ has always been the relentless illegal logging and petroleum industry. Those are the much bigger fish to fry imho.

[IRMacGuyver]

Nothing changed.  The worst thing about carbon credits is that they're handed out to logging companies and various other companies that don't use them in the first place.  That's what makes them available to companies to buy second hand.  It's really pathetic cause those companies aren't doing anything different than they would be anyway.  Like the lumber companies are just planting trees cause they have to resupply their stock piles when they deforest an area anyway.  

 

Like many government programs it only hurts small businesses who can't afford to "buy" carbon credits from other industries.  Thus creating a barrier to entry for competition from new people with fresh ideas. 

[Quackers101]

is just to claim "things have improved somewhat", not that its being solved and so on.

Although they might be pressured into research for a green "solution".

 

however, they are not neutral nor reducing what is already an growing problem. As more products are sold every year and increased e-waste to plastic is not stopping.

[whoknowz]

Its all spin now, corporations have to please their customers. Like multicultural commercials.

Whats more scary is Bill Gates influence on the charities he and malinda donates to, not to mention all the other scary practices like political lobbying which is the biggest con in American history, like the 12 countries study and the food pyramid. Allowing fructose, food labeling and the list is long. All due to lobbying which in turn relates to carbon credits.

What you should be paying attention to is what the government does for offenders of environmental law.

[Talamakara]

On 12/9/2021 at 9:16 PM, SorryClaire said:

Carbon Credits is still very much a thing. Im personally fine with the status quo, the true enemy in the game of NCZ has always been the relentless illegal logging and petroleum industry. Those are the much bigger fish to fry imho.

The petroleum industry is the least of the groups damaging the planet. Do some research on the damage done to create solar panels and lithium ion batteries. Then ask yourself why your average home still needs thirty four 4'x6' solar panels just to bring them to net 0 balance.

The petroleum industry is not the big bad demon everyone makes it out to be.

[tikker]

41 minutes ago, Talamakara said:

The petroleum industry is the least of the groups damaging the planet. Do some research on the damage done to create solar panels and lithium ion batteries. Then ask yourself why your average home still needs twenty three 4'x6' solar panels just to bring them to net 0 balance.

The petroleum industry is not the big bad demon everyone makes it out to be.

Solar panels indeed aren't as green as they may initially seem, but they still look to be better than fossil fuels. This 2020 study for example concludes that despite its downsides and that it is not a zero-emission technology, it is better than traditional means:

Quote

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720370595

The efficiency and environmental impact of the PV systems have been reviewed with in depth focus on system component and materials of construction.

<snip>

The environmental impact of the PV energy system on air quality and climate change is significantly lower than traditional power generation system. Nonetheless, strategies to mitigate the environmental impact of hazardous materials involved in the manufacturing of PV should be implemented. Recycling of these materials is a challenging process due to the variations in the materials used and the need for several step-processing. The carbon footprint of PV solar systems' was estimated in the range (14–73 g CO₂-eq/kWh), which is lower than gas (607.6 CO₂-eq/kWh) oil (742.1 CO₂-eq/kWh), and coal-fired (975.3 g CO₂-eq/kWh) power plants.

We really need to move away from fossil fuels as fast as we can.

[Talamakara]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

Solar panels indeed aren't as green as they may initially seem, but they still look to be better than fossil fuels. This 2020 study for example concludes that despite its downsides and that it is not a zero-emission technology, it is better than traditional means:

We really need to move away from fossil fuels as fast as we can.

 

"We really need to move away from fossil fuels as fast as we can."

What would you suggest we move to? What would you suggest we move to that wouldn't instantly put 90% of the workforce out of business? You have to think of this on a large scale. This will effect everyone from those that pull the oil out of the ground to those that pump it into your car for you. Hell even your cellphone needs oil and gas to survive.

Maybe we should look at it this way. When the oil sands are done they can reclaim the land. Lithium ion mines like the Greenbushes mine in Austrailia or The one that is literally a GIANT hole in a town in china is not so easy to reclaim, if it's possible at all. They are also now trying to create lithium ion ponds but the amount of fresh water they are using is not only destroying local landscape, they leaving whats left of the land and water so polluted with brine and other chemicals that it's not usable. This is both destroying the land and affecting people who live in the area.

What we need to do is stop demonizing the current industry, use it to it's full potential in Canada, stop using the ones from countries like Dubai where destruction of the earth is ignored and the oil is dirty, then take the money we make from oil and gas and improve the future technologies. Like finding a way to make a solar panels without lead and cadmium (rare earth minerals), and find a way to get past the Shockely Quizer limit so the solar panel can use more than 33.6% of each photon of light it tries to absorb. Then maybe we can have a panel the size of a 22" monitor screen making more power than the 4'x6' panels they are using now making 400 watts on a good day. Hell i've even seen articles talking about night time solar panels, this would be awesome if it could be done cleanly.

Though I am open to other ideas if you got any.



 

 

 

[tikker]

2 hours ago, Talamakara said:

What would you suggest we move to? What would you suggest we move to that wouldn't instantly put 90% of the workforce out of business? You have to think of this on a large scale. This will effect everyone from those that pull the oil out of the ground to those that pump it into your car for you. Hell even your cellphone needs oil and gas to survive.

A lot of jobs will need to be reallocated, that is indeed a big logistical problem. We are talking about the fate of the planet here however, so about as large a scale as you can go. The latest IPCC reports conclude that we are quite literally screwed if we not take immediate action. We have exceeded the limits we set to limit global warming to the 1-1.5 C already, with our best shots being at keeping it under 2 C. Only drastic actions will have a decent chance at slowing or halting it. There will be things like cellphones or whatever that may need oil as an ingredient/component, but if we want humanity and Earth to stick around a bit longer we need to start switching to alternative less polluting forms of energy generation. The money tied up in this is part of the problem. There most likely will only be losers for a good part of the transition and, well, nobody wants to be one of them, so we stick with our ways.

2 hours ago, Talamakara said:

Maybe we should look at it this way. When the oil sands are done they can reclaim the land. Lithium ion mines like the Greenbushes mine in Austrailia or The one that is literally a GIANT hole in a town in china is not so easy to reclaim, if it's possible at all. They are also now trying to create lithium ion ponds but the amount of fresh water they are using is not only destroying local landscape, they leaving whats left of the land and water so polluted with brine and other chemicals that it's not usable. This is both destroying the land and affecting people who live in the area.

Those are also issues to address. Mining will be a hard one. As you point out mining is quite literally digging in the ground. Oil however, when used to burn as a fossil fuel, is something we can change more easily and desperately need to.

2 hours ago, Talamakara said:

What we need to do is stop demonizing the current industry, use it to it's full potential in Canada, stop using the ones from countries like Dubai where destruction of the earth is ignored and the oil is dirty, then take the money we make from oil and gas and improve the future technologies. Like finding a way to make a solar panels without lead and cadmium (rare earth minerals), and find a way to get past the Shockely Quizer limit so the solar panel can use more than 33.6% of each photon of light it tries to absorb. Then maybe we can have a panel the size of a 22" monitor screen making more power than the 4'x6' panels they are using now making 400 watts on a good day. Hell i've even seen articles talking about night time solar panels, this would be awesome if it could be done cleanly.

Not really, we need to continue scrutinising gray or brown energy sources. Sticking with the solar panels, they may not be as green and efficient as we'd like them to be, but they are still better than what we are doing now and not so inefficient or polluting that we shouldn't use them. There's no magic bullet yet, and it's certainly a choice between lesser evils, but those 20 something panels you mention would be capable of providing my yearly electricity budget give or take. Even taking a load off during the day would already help reducing the need for e.g. coal-fired power plants. Perfection is the enemy of done. We shouldn't wait until we have panels with 95% efficiency or until a home can be powered with just one before we start using them.

 

We need to start thinking of and using fossil fuels as supplements for when e.g. peak demand exceeds capabilities for a bit. For the base energy consumption it's in our best interest to move to other options such as nuclear and wind/solar/hydro where available. This may not be 100% possible, but any reduction in the burning of fossil fuels we can make we should attempt to.

[SorryBella]

4 hours ago, Talamakara said:

What would you suggest we move to? What would you suggest we move to that wouldn't instantly put 90% of the workforce out of business? You have to think of this on a large scale. This will effect everyone from those that pull the oil out of the ground to those that pump it into your car for you. Hell even your cellphone needs oil and gas to survive.

Show us your NYSE portfolio and be done with it. Your conflict of interest is showing.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, SorryClaire said:

Show us your NYSE portfolio and be done with it. Your conflict of interest is showing.

Industry is pretty much as damaging as transportation. Learn some facts before claiming things that you seem to know little about.

[YellowJersey]

Depends. If we're talking carbon credits, then I think they're a net positive (or rather, a net negative , even if they are, by themselves, an imperfect solution.

 

 As for more general claims to be eco-friendly, those are more just marketing to make the company look good without actually doing much of anything. Apple's a great example of this by promoting their recycling programme while fighting against the first two Rs, reduce and reuse. Lots of environmental policies are adopted due to marketing to improve a business' public perception (being green is all the rage) and to take advantage of government subsidies (like when Loblaws got huge subsidies to install more energy efficient freezers).

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 hours ago, Caroline said:

Perhaps.

But first the rest of technologies need a lot of polishing. Solar takes up a lot of space to be practical to power something more than a small village. Windmills can only be installed in a few places around the world.

  Hide contents

Best bets would be hydroelectric and nuclear. And stop city planning to only have cars, it's stupid when a bus can carry like 50 people and a train 500 saving a lot of energy.

The thing is, your electric car can be more efficient and lower emitions than a ice one.

The big plants are built to get as much energy as possible out of each little bit of fuel, so theyre generators are going to be getting more out of the same amount f fuel or emissions (whatever the best way to compair diffrent types of energy base sources)

You can have regenerative breaking, something that i =s extreamly important in electric and hybrid vehicals, i believe I saw that on a prius it could raise the mpg by like 10miles or something like that.

Your electric car will also get greener as time goes on, with the local grids being replaced with renwables, wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, geothermal, etc, you cant really get a more efficient engine in the same ice car.

For example, my small town has its oun wind farm, about 30 turbines if I had to guess a number. if they were average energy producing ones, they would get about 450 home monthly power usage, each, every month.

Thats more than enough for my town. 

theres also a very large solar farm that powers the nearest city, as well as a nuclear plant about 20 miles away, with a hondful more up north of me.

the nearset coal plant, however, is in a diffrent state, about 45mins-1hr away, and theres only like 4 within like 2 hours

[Talamakara]

5 hours ago, SorryClaire said:

Show us your NYSE portfolio and be done with it. Your conflict of interest is showing.

haha, That's your attempt at growing this conversation into something meaningful? Had you actually read what I stated, you may have actually learned that I like the idea of renewables. I would love to put solar on my house, but i'm not paying 18k for 23 panels (if i could fit 23 panels) on my house. Not only is that a waste of money right now, I believe building out solar anything is extremely hard on the environment. But i don't think you have the interest to understand that.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

8 minutes ago, Talamakara said:

haha, That's your attempt at growing this conversation into something meaningful? Had you actually read what I stated, you may have actually learned that I like the idea of renewables. I would love to put solar on my house, but i'm not paying 18k for 23 panels (if i could fit 23 panels) on my house. Not only is that a waste of money right now, I believe building out solar anything is extremely hard on the environment. But i don't think you have the interest to understand that.

Do you need 23 panels?

300w panels would get you 7000w, the average American household only uses 1000kwh a month, a 300w panel would give you about 2kwh a day(8hr of sun), you would be getting 1300kwh, and that’s being conservative, you might be able to get closer to 1500kwh a month with 23.

consumer panels also get to like 500w, which would give you like 4000kwh a month with 23 of those

[Talamakara]

9 hours ago, tikker said:

A lot of jobs will need to be reallocated, that is indeed a big logistical problem. We are talking about the fate of the planet here however, so about as large a scale as you can go. The latest IPCC reports conclude that we are quite literally screwed if we not take immediate action. We have exceeded the limits we set to limit global warming to the 1-1.5 C already, with our best shots being at keeping it under 2 C. Only drastic actions will have a decent chance at slowing or halting it. There will be things like cellphones or whatever that may need oil as an ingredient/component, but if we want humanity and Earth to stick around a bit longer we need to start switching to alternative less polluting forms of energy generation. The money tied up in this is part of the problem. There most likely will only be losers for a good part of the transition and, well, nobody wants to be one of them, so we stick with our ways.

Those are also issues to address. Mining will be a hard one. As you point out mining is quite literally digging in the ground. Oil however, when used to burn as a fossil fuel, is something we can change more easily and desperately need to.

Not really, we need to continue scrutinising gray or brown energy sources. Sticking with the solar panels, they may not be as green and efficient as we'd like them to be, but they are still better than what we are doing now and not so inefficient or polluting that we shouldn't use them. There's no magic bullet yet, and it's certainly a choice between lesser evils, but those 20 something panels you mention would be capable of providing my yearly electricity budget give or take. Even taking a load off during the day would already help reducing the need for e.g. coal-fired power plants. Perfection is the enemy of done. We shouldn't wait until we have panels with 95% efficiency or until a home can be powered with just one before we start using them.

 

We need to start thinking of and using fossil fuels as supplements for when e.g. peak demand exceeds capabilities for a bit. For the base energy consumption it's in our best interest to move to other options such as nuclear and wind/solar/hydro where available. This may not be 100% possible, but any reduction in the burning of fossil fuels we can make we should attempt to.

 

"A lot of jobs will need to be reallocated" - That is way easier said than done. You can't walk into a coal plant and tell a guy who has been doing job A for 25 years that his industry is dead. You will end up with millions who are unemployed and in a situation where no one will hire them. My MIL is a great example. she was 60 when she was laid off, she ended up as a cashier at walmart because no one would hire her because as soon as they had her trained she'd be retiring, or so thats what they said to her. So now you do that with millions in every sector of the employment systems that are related to oil and gas and you have millions unemployed. Even if the government does reeducation and reallocated these people will still eventually want to retire and you have just knocked that back from 65 to 80 or 85. 

"We are talking about the fate of the planet here" - Yes we are, but like everything else in this life saving the world has to take a back step to feeding and protecting ones family. No clue if you have kids, but as a parent i do want to help keep the earth alive for them, but keeping the lights on and food on the table will always take priority to everything else. Anyone who argues against that, isn't a parent.

IPCC - I have seen some of the science coming out of groups like the IPCC and the United Nations. I'm sorry but I have less faith in what they call "sound science" when so many of their groups are paid off by the people asking for the reports and those people are just uneducated politicians. Download a book called "the green fraud" and after reading that we can talk about the "science" coming out of governing bodies.

 

"Only drastic actions will have a decent chance at slowing or halting it."  - There have been people saying this since the 1970's and low and behold 50 years later, we are still here. 18 times the earth was supposed to die in the last 50 years and now we got little girls like gretta who are hypocrites beyond their knowledge or willingness to admit saying the same thing. Gretta crossed the ocean in 15 million dollar boat made of fiber glass, with her dual diesel engine crew behind her on another expensive boat. Only to scream at people that they had destroyed her childhood. In reality that 15 million dollars could have been spent in a million other ways supposedly helping the environment. The fiber glass boat itself is a byproduct of the oil and gas industry and of course the second boat for her crew having two diesel engines. So forgive me if i don't believe the cries of the alarmists.

 

"start switching to alternative less polluting forms of energy generation" - I agree, I would love to switch to solar, but as i've said what we are creating right now is more destructive as a whole than the oil and gas industry. You have to think of it this way. The cleanest source of power that we have on this planet right now is nuclear, but the masses will never let it evolve to be a long term energy source because all people can think about when someone says nuclear is "bomb, chernoble, not in my back yard" so no matter how safe it is, nuclear will never happen. Wind isn't any better at this point because even if you do something like recycle old cars to create the fan blades you still have to store the generated power and that comes back to batteries, the same lithium ion batteries solar uses which again, back to digging large holes in the earth. The solar panels themselves are made with lead and cadmium. Lead is both a rare earth material and toxic, so if a panel breaks or dies now you've got toxic materials sitting in the earth as we have no recycling technologies for solar panels. "Solar Panel Toxic Trash - Wired"

 

"Oil however, when used to burn as a fossil fuel" - the amount of CO2 being generated in Canada is very low. I have seen the numbers in years past and it's China and India that are the top two producers of CO2 emissions. In reality if we could get those two followed by the US to bring their numbers down, that would fall well below the "saving the earth" range everyone is talking about. But in the mean time we need to keep the lights on, we also need to keep the economy going. If we have no money, we can't afford to keep the lights on, if we can't keep the lights on we aren't spending money on ways to stop using fossil fuels. This is the reality of the entire scenario. If you can't keep your country alive today, then tomorrow isn't even something to consider.

 

"but they are still better than what we are doing now" - No they aren't. You can't destroy the earth to save it.

 

"There's no magic bullet yet, and it's certainly a choice between lesser evils, but those 20 something panels you mention would be capable of providing my yearly electricity budget give or take." - I agree there is no magic bullet. But if we were smart we could use the system we have in place now to build for the future. My house isn't that big, those 34 panels would put me at net 0 per month. If 23 panels would provide you electricity for a year, you are quite literally living in a shed in the woods and using a wood burning fireplace to heat your 100 square foot of space. Hell you wouldn't even have enough energy to charge your laptop to finish reading this.

 

"Even taking a load off during the day would already help reducing the need for e.g. coal-fired power plants" - I read an article on all the failed solar panel farms that different countries have tried to create over the years. "Solar companies disappearing" This was one of the last in the US and it was only producing 110MW i'm guessing per day. Las Vegas which is a small but active city uses 8000 megawatts per day. This means solar farms really don't do the trick. However and you will have to forgive me the math as I no longer remember the numbers. Lets play devils advocate here and say the solar panel weren't toxic and we could make large numbers of them. And lets say we take Las Vegas and the power companies rent the roof space on peoples homes. The power companies and the government could have some sort of deal on costs, but in the mean time all the panels on peoples homes would help feed back into the grid. I did look the numbers up at one point but I don't remember them now. But lets say even if you don't bring each house to net 0, a person's home normally uses less power during the day, so there would still be energy being put into the grid. This would be a win for the earth, a win for home owners as they would get their power bills lowered, and a win for the government as they wouldn't have power issues.

"it's in our best interest to move to other options such as nuclear and wind/solar/hydro where available" - You are right but as with the las vegas example the use of solar panels isn't even a drop in the bucket as to what las vegas uses on a daily basis.

[Talamakara]

50 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Do you need 23 panels?

300w panels would get you 7000w, the average American household only uses 1000kwh a month, a 300w panel would give you about 2kwh a day(8hr of sun), you would be getting 1300kwh, and that’s being conservative, you might be able to get closer to 1500kwh a month with 23.

consumer panels also get to like 500w, which would give you like 4000kwh a month with 23 of those

 

"Do you need 23 panels?" - You made me go digging through my emails, i have to update my posts. Here was the math they quoted me in 2018 and it was 34 panels then.

annual Kwh usage of 12000 (1000Kwh *12 months)

the estimators were using 255 W panels in their calculations. 255 W Panel with Microinverter * 3.75 Peak daylight Hours = 956.25 Wh per panel = 0.95625 Kwh 1000 Kwh per month / 30 days = 33.333 Kwh a day 33.333 Kwh/day / 0.95625 Kwh = 34 Panels Estimated Rooftop Cost : $18,207

 

Yes the newer panels are a little more, so the math will change. I'm not sure how much more 500 watt panels would cost. i need to look up the more recent numbers for exact if i were to do it now. But i'm still not willing.

 

[Talamakara]

5 hours ago, Caroline said:

Perhaps.

But first the rest of technologies need a lot of polishing. Solar takes up a lot of space to be practical to power something more than a small village. Windmills can only be installed in a few places around the world.

  Reveal hidden contents

Best bets would be hydroelectric and nuclear. And stop city planning to only have cars, it's stupid when a bus can carry like 50 people and a train 500 saving a lot of energy.

 

" And stop city planning to only have cars, it's stupid when a bus can carry like 50 people and a train 500 saving a lot of energy." - This is meant as an honest question. What is winter like where you live?

 

"Winter where I live"

 

 

[tikker]

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"A lot of jobs will need to be reallocated" - That is way easier said than done. You can't walk into a coal plant and tell a guy who has been doing job A for 25 years that his industry is dead. You will end up with millions who are unemployed and in a situation where no one will hire them.

I never said it would be easy. It's also not as black and white as saying next week you're all fired and jobless. It will or should likely take the form of a transition.

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"We are talking about the fate of the planet here" - Yes we are, but like everything else in this life saving the world has to take a back step to feeding and protecting ones family. No clue if you have kids, but as a parent i do want to help keep the earth alive for them, but keeping the lights on and food on the table will always take priority to everything else. Anyone who argues against that, isn't a parent.

 I'm indeed not a parent. However, as much as we don't like it, we are the problem. The harsh reality is that it is exactly this humans first mentality that has caused the continuous destruction of our planet and will be our downfall I think. You could similarly pose that anyone who argues we should keep continue like we have done this doesn't care about the fate of the planet or humanity, but of course it's not that black and white. Of course I'm also a hypocrite saying this, because naturally I will also heavily consider my own comfort in my decisions.

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"Only drastic actions will have a decent chance at slowing or halting it."  - There have been people saying this since the 1970's and low and behold 50 years later, we are still here. 18 times the earth was supposed to die in the last 50 years and now we got little girls like gretta who are hypocrites beyond their knowledge or willingness to admit saying the same thing. Gretta crossed the ocean in 15 million dollar boat made of fiber glass, with her dual diesel engine crew behind her on another expensive boat. Only to scream at people that they had destroyed her childhood. In reality that 15 million dollars could have been spent in a million other ways supposedly helping the environment. The fiber glass boat itself is a byproduct of the oil and gas industry and of course the second boat for her crew having two diesel engines. So forgive me if i don't believe the cries of the alarmists.

This is a bit of a status quo bias though. Like when we didn't think much of smoking and you'd say "I've smoked my entire life and am 80; can't be that bad". People have been saying this since the 70s because already back then people realised that the way we generated our energy would get us into trouble, such as this neat prediction. The warming we are seeing has already been predicted in the 70s. It's the perfect case of the following:

You don't have to believe every climate activist or alarmist out there. Listen to scientists, read the IPCC reports. It's not just random people shouting we are in trouble, it's experts who have studied these things for years, decades, that have been trying to get us to listen that we are in trouble for a long time already. I think people should be sceptical and do a little bit of thinking for themselves to the extent possible, but there is basically no disagreement in the scientific community that the anthropogenic climate change is real [Lynas, Houlton, Perry 2021]. Note that this is specifically about the anthropogenic part. Climate change is also a normal cycle, but we humans have impacted and accelerated it significantly.

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"start switching to alternative less polluting forms of energy generation" - I agree, I would love to switch to solar, but as i've said what we are creating right now is more destructive as a whole than the oil and gas industry. You have to think of it this way. The cleanest source of power that we have on this planet right now is nuclear, but the masses will never let it evolve to be a long term energy source because all people can think about when someone says nuclear is "bomb, chernoble, not in my back yard" so no matter how safe it is, nuclear will never happen. Wind isn't any better at this point because even if you do something like recycle old cars to create the fan blades you still have to store the generated power and that comes back to batteries, the same lithium ion batteries solar uses which again, back to digging large holes in the earth. The solar panels themselves are made with lead and cadmium. Lead is both a rare earth material and toxic, so if a panel breaks or dies now you've got toxic materials sitting in the earth as we have no recycling technologies for solar panels. "Solar Panel Toxic Trash - Wired"

That article raises valid points, but doesn't seem to say solar panels are worse as much as that recycling of solar panels is tricky and will need proper avenues in place to avoid e.g. them going to landfills. I'll refer back to the other article that found a factor 10 less emissions from them taking into account their life cycle. That article also mentions those challenges you bring up and that their impact can be significantly reduced if we look for alternative materials and have the proper policies in place. The question and development this should spur is "how do we recycle solar panels" not, "we can't recycle them yet, let's not use them" or even worse (and more likely) "not profitable to recycle".

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"Oil however, when used to burn as a fossil fuel" - the amount of CO2 being generated in Canada is very low. I have seen the numbers in years past and it's China and India that are the top two producers of CO2 emissions. In reality if we could get those two followed by the US to bring their numbers down, that would fall well below the "saving the earth" range everyone is talking about. But in the mean time we need to keep the lights on, we also need to keep the economy going. If we have no money, we can't afford to keep the lights on, if we can't keep the lights on we aren't spending money on ways to stop using fossil fuels. This is the reality of the entire scenario. If you can't keep your country alive today, then tomorrow isn't even something to consider.

 

"but they are still better than what we are doing now" - No they aren't. You can't destroy the earth to save it.

Except we are keeping our countries alive and we have a tomorrow to consider. You saying you'd like a good future for your kids proofs so. I've provided my source that solar panels probably cause an order of magnitude less emissions than fossil fuels. Happy to see quantitative countering risk assessments that they are much worse than the fossil fuels we are burning now.

 

You say "bring their numbers down"; by how much? It's much more than a relatively simple bringing down of the numbers at this point. Here's an excerpt of the 2021 IPCC report (emphasis mine):

Quote

B.1 Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century
under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be
exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse
gas emissions occur in the coming decades.

 

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"There's no magic bullet yet, and it's certainly a choice between lesser evils, but those 20 something panels you mention would be capable of providing my yearly electricity budget give or take." - I agree there is no magic bullet. But if we were smart we could use the system we have in place now to build for the future. My house isn't that big, those 34 panels would put me at net 0 per month. If 23 panels would provide you electricity for a year, you are quite literally living in a shed in the woods and using a wood burning fireplace to heat your 100 square foot of space. Hell you wouldn't even have enough energy to charge your laptop to finish reading this.

My yearly electricity usage for my 2-room+bathroom appartment is around 1800 kWh for the last couple of years. So yeah, even half the amount of panels would probably suffice assuming peak efficiency all the time. Now peak efficiency 100% of the time is not realistic, but those 20 panels would be sufficient for my place.

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

"Even taking a load off during the day would already help reducing the need for e.g. coal-fired power plants" - I read an article on all the failed solar panel farms that different countries have tried to create over the years. "Solar companies disappearing" This was one of the last in the US and it was only producing 110MW i'm guessing per day. Las Vegas which is a small but active city uses 8000 megawatts per day. This means solar farms really don't do the trick. However and you will have to forgive me the math as I no longer remember the numbers. Lets play devils advocate here and say the solar panel weren't toxic and we could make large numbers of them. And lets say we take Las Vegas and the power companies rent the roof space on peoples homes. The power companies and the government could have some sort of deal on costs, but in the mean time all the panels on peoples homes would help feed back into the grid. I did look the numbers up at one point but I don't remember them now. But lets say even if you don't bring each house to net 0, a person's home normally uses less power during the day, so there would still be energy being put into the grid. This would be a win for the earth, a win for home owners as they would get their power bills lowered, and a win for the government as they wouldn't have power issues.

"it's in our best interest to move to other options such as nuclear and wind/solar/hydro where available" - You are right but as with the las vegas example the use of solar panels isn't even a drop in the bucket as to what las vegas uses on a daily basis.

I'm not sure what is argued here. Nowhere did I take a position about panels on houses versus big solar farms neither did I say we have to get all houses to net 0. Solar farms have their own problems, a big one being transporting their energy to where it is needed. I explicitely said fossil fuels can still be used to cover peak loads or support the base load, only that they should not be the first choice. An extra 110 MW from solar is still 110 MW and 1% of Las Vegas that doesn't have to come from order of magnitude more polluting gray sources. The other point is what I reasoned earlier I think. The panels on houses will provide some of the base load and if the infrastructure is set up so it can feed back into the grid that's even better.

[mr moose]

Any talk of saving the environment that doesn't include nuclear is just lip service and a waste of 1's and 0's on any forum. 

 

Replace coal plants with nuclear ones, the savings from not having to dig up coal can be used to keep the coal industry workers employed doing something more useful.

[Sauron]

On 12/10/2021 at 5:10 AM, kcihtred2 said:

Did anything change?

Nope

[Talamakara]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

Any talk of saving the environment that doesn't include nuclear is just lip service and a waste of 1's and 0's on any forum. 

 

Replace coal plants with nuclear ones, the savings from not having to dig up coal can be used to keep the coal industry workers employed doing something more useful.

It will never happen. The words bomb and Chernobyl will be why the masses will never let it happen. 

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

It will never happen. The words bomb and Chernobyl will be why the masses will never let it happen. 

a world full of ignorant morons then.

 

 

[poochyena]

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

Replace coal plants with nuclear ones

That takes 10 years to build. Why not just build a solar and wind farm instead that can be built significantly quicker, and also has the advantage of being less centralized? Large number of small solar or wind farms is more efficient than a few large nuclear plants due to power transmission losses over distance. Nuclear was a great option 20 years ago, but today, focusing primarily on solar, wind, and batteries makes more sense. As as more people buy electric cars, the more sense it makes as everyone will begin to have their own large battery banks in the form of their car.

[mr moose]

Just now, poochyena said:

That takes 10 years to build. Why not just build a solar and wind farm instead that can be built significantly quicker, and also has the advantage of being less centralized? Large number of small solar or wind farms is more efficient than a few large nuclear plants due to power transmission losses over distance. Nuclear was a great option 20 years ago, but today, focusing primarily on solar, wind, and batteries makes more sense. As as more people buy electric cars, the more sense it makes as everyone will begin to have their own large battery banks in the form of their car.

Because the carbon footprint, land area, life cycle and materials reclamation of wind/solar is abhorrent by comparison.  Wind, solar and batteries make no sense at all when you consider there is not enough mineable lithium to cover demand.  Why would anyone stake the climate on a "future development" when you have a working solution right now.

 

On just about every metric nuclear is leading all the other options by a significant margin, hell even on economic terms with nuclear costing way more to establish, it cost less over a 30 year life cycle and makes significantly more profit.