Quote:
Originally Posted by #-3
I'd like to be the pedantic ####### that points out a logical fallacy here.
You don't achieve anything by waiting for Nirvana. everything is about net lifecycle impact. A 6 million KWH / year windmill weight ~25 tons costs what 100 tons of CO2 to produce at worst? Assuming 50% utilization of the windmill burring 3 million KWH / year of natural gas gives you like a 2-3 month ROI on the CO2 for melting the steel on a windmill. And that ignores new methods of steel making like EAF, where the number could be as low as 35-40 tons of CO2
It's a fun narrative for the O&G faithful to say that the other options create emissions too, but there is a long way between current emissions and net 0.
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Yes I do agree with this post but would say I think the main issue of debate that I have with Street Pharma and Mathgod is not so much the content of their posts necessarily or even that we should not proceed down this path, but the timeframe to get these advancements done. 30 years is a blink of an eye. Also, I think it is WAY harder than they do. If you look at energy transitions or transformations from previous energy forms, first off nothing is "phased out" and secondly it sure as heck doesn't happen in 30 years.
For example, Street Pharma says above 'oh methanol boats'. Oh really? All ships are just going to immediately transition to methanol? How? Who pays for it? Also methanol is also created from fossil fuels not only RNG. Or are we making it a global rule that all RNG is made only and none from fossil fuels? And how are we to do this all? Who agrees to it? We can't even agree with other countries that murdering and genocide in Ukraine is a bad idea but we are going to somehow get the
whole world to agree to stop using fossil fuels? When 3rd world countries are actually modernizing and trying to use more?
Mathgod says the public sector has to pay for it because the private sector won't, but then stops his sentence there. Why
won't the private sector fund more? If these investments made money, wouldn't they? What is holding them back?
All that said I agree you need a carbon tax. But it's a Shell game (pun intended). You know who is about to receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer subsidy to go install a gigantic climate capture project? CNQ, Suncor, all the majors partnered in Pathways. So let's see;
1. the government installs a carbon tax to try and stimulate economic investment in carbon capture projects;
2. proponents pursue projects and submit applications, and major oil and gas producers do so;
3. proponents say the government has to pay them to subsidize the project.
4. government gearing up to give them the lions share of capital for the project.
So they impose a tax, and then fund the oil company to do the project, and then the oil companies own the assets and infrastructure, and then the project won't be done for like, many years anyway.
That's a good example of the type of economic evaluations going on- as to why the private world isn't chasing around green projects with as much gumption as we all want them to. It's because they don't make much money, unfortunately. Not as much as fossil fuel projects. Because there is demand for fossil fuel projects still and the energy cost of fossil fuels is so much substantially cheaper than alternatives. Renewable / green projects don't compete very well with other capital projects. And that isn't to say there aren't many other capital projects in green or renewables or whatever other energy sources that do make money, there are. But ya, it might mean governments need to supply large subsidies for these types of projects. So we are to just crap all over private investors for not doing it? But they're goal / point / reason for being is to make money. So are we saying that all of society needs to change? Which societies? All societies around the world?
Anyway. It's not happening in 30 years.