I liked the idea of carbon offsets until I tried to explain it

Re:I liked the idea of carbon offsets until I tried to expla... by oehpr on Monday April 11, 2022 @06:15PM (#30995810)

As a sideline on this conversation. I'm VERY interested in dTal's point and if it stands up to scrutiny. To me, it makes sense. The carbon in the air now is from carbon that was sequestered. It was in oil, it was in trees, it was in the rocks. Then we let it go. We drilled oil, cut down the trees and burned them and built them, we made concrete.

So. If you take carbon out of the ground, and expect to see it floating in the air, you should be taxed. That's the idea.

But does this make sense? Just how much of the carbon in oil really is destined for the air? How much of the wood? How much of the stone? Or is there some other chain I'm missing? How much carbon would be sequestered in plants that produce biofuel? How much of a net negative is ethonol production anyway? What about other fuels? This subject seems complex to me.

You seem to think all this is wrong, and it could be! I really would be interested to hear where the logic breaks down.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I liked the idea of carbon offsets until I tried to expla... by jollybean on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @01:39AM (#30998993)

If you planted a tree purely for the purposes of later burning it, it would 'capture' a bunch of Co2, then when you burnt it, it could release that Co2 creating a net 0 cycle.

It's not efficient as an energy cycle.

Not even considering the fact that wood burns in a very 'dirty' way and would require a lot of energy to 'clean' the emissions.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I liked the idea of carbon offsets until I tried to expla... by dTal on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @04:09PM (#31007676)

We probably wouldn't burn wood directly. Ethanol is also biomass. In fact, every single fuel we "burn" is biomass. The hard part is getting hold of carbon that isn't glued to some oxygen already. Once you have it, you can process it into whatever form best suits you.

You have to be careful when you speak of "efficiency". You have to specify, with respect to what expended resource, and what desired goal? If we say the expended resource is "land area" and the desired goal is "powering all of civilization", then indeed the the "efficiency" of growing trees and burning them is not so great, compared to say solar panels. But if the expended resource is "environmental damage" and the desired goal is "heating a cabin in the woods", burning tree wood is extremely efficient.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I liked the idea of carbon offsets until I tried to expla... by oehpr on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @11:45AM (#31004231)

yes. That's a net zero. That's the point. If the point is carbon, then net zero is net zero. This is what dTal is saying. We shouldn't tax an activity that is net zero.

So it seems the real point is that it's "dirty"? We'd have to clean... what? Particle emissions? Most areas I see woodburning done have high quality air, low particle counts. Because their density is so low.

This keeps happening. The core rebuttable to dTal's argument is being left unstated. You keep saying it's wrong, you keep not saying why.

[ Parent | on HN ]