The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – which have grown rapidly in recent years.
Okay, so you switch to solar/wind/nuclear or some other semi CO2 free source. Now you take CO2 free energy away from someone that now will have to use co2 generating energy instead.
Not sure if this makes climate capture any less baloney, but energy, especially renewables isn’t a 0 sum thing. A country with good renewables often generates more elecricity then it can handle and there’s a negative price for electricity at those times.
If you can choose when you use elecricity, you definitely aren’t forcing someone else to use CO2 intensive energy.
I don’t think that makes a big change to your overall point, but it’s an interesting feature of renewable energy so I figured it was worth saying.
That was my point. Until renewables power 100% of your country (or better, the world) it is actively a waste to be CO2 capturt as you will be generating more CO2 than you capture with that same amount or energy. It’s better to route that renewable energy to something that would have been using “CO2 generating energy” instead.
I guess what I mean is, renewable doesn’t need tibe 100% all the time to lead to that case. The UK is about 50% renewable overall, but if it’s sunny and windy (or windy and nobody is using electricity) then that ratio jumps over 90% fast.
I think I’m just geeking out on electricity though, not making a meaningful point.
Not sure if this makes climate capture any less baloney, but energy, especially renewables isn’t a 0 sum thing. A country with good renewables often generates more elecricity then it can handle and there’s a negative price for electricity at those times.
If you can choose when you use elecricity, you definitely aren’t forcing someone else to use CO2 intensive energy.
I don’t think that makes a big change to your overall point, but it’s an interesting feature of renewable energy so I figured it was worth saying.
That was my point. Until renewables power 100% of your country (or better, the world) it is actively a waste to be CO2 capturt as you will be generating more CO2 than you capture with that same amount or energy. It’s better to route that renewable energy to something that would have been using “CO2 generating energy” instead.
I guess what I mean is, renewable doesn’t need tibe 100% all the time to lead to that case. The UK is about 50% renewable overall, but if it’s sunny and windy (or windy and nobody is using electricity) then that ratio jumps over 90% fast.
I think I’m just geeking out on electricity though, not making a meaningful point.