Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Hiya Eric, I think I have a solution.

I believe the article/subject refers to adding more CO2 to the environment from FF sources, therefore it is correct.

You believe the article is misrepresenting the release of CO2 from the burning of bio-fuels, which in terms of how it is specifically written, is also correct.

[Two rights make a right?]

Is that a good way to leave it, and we can both be grumpy old men agreeing that the standard of reporting/news coverage is getting worse, share a beer, and laugh it all off?

Martyn1981

There at it again, not that they ever stopped, I suppose!

ExxonMobil 'tried to get European Green Deal watered down'

The US oil firm ExxonMobil met key European commission officials in an attempt to water down the European Green Deal in the weeks before it was agreed, according to a climate lobbying watchdog.

Documents unearthed by InfluenceMap revealed that Exxon lobbyists met Brussels officials in November to urge the EU to extend its carbon-pricing scheme to “stationary” sources, such as power plants, to include tailpipe emissions from vehicles using petrol or diesel.

Green groups believe this would be the least effective way to disincentive fossil fuel vehicles, and would rather allow countries to set their own emissions standards and targets for road emissions.

The move appears to be an attempt to stall the rollout of electric vehicles by keeping a lid on the cost of driving a traditional combustion engine vehicle running on fossil fuels. The European commission stopped short of proposals to phase out combustion engine vehicles and has plans to consult on whether to include vehicles in its carbon-pricing scheme.

Edward Collins, a director at InfluenceMap, said the document “represents yet another evidence piece” of ExxonMobil’s long-term strategy of delaying climate action by focusing on “long-term technical solutions” to try to avert “decisive regulatory action” that is urgently required to tackle the climate crisis.

zeupater

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:

EricMears said:

both the BBC article & the grauniad subheading are claiming "The move could cut CO2 emissions from transport by 750,000 tonnes per year" .  

It really doesn't matter if you think there's "good CO2" and "bad CO2"  the phrase used was "cut CO2 emissions from transport " 

Correct, it will cut CO2 emissions from transport in the context of AGW, that's why we are doing these things.

I fully appreciate that an ICE burning a hydro-carbon fuel will release CO2, be it FF or bio-fuel based, and therefore I understand your main point/argument. However, as I've said (and Z also said) the difference here is a move to the short term carbon cycle, and the bio-fuel burning doesn't 'release' any FF CO2, when releasing CO2 it is simply circulating carbon, the same way that we humans circulate carbon (air to crops to food (or crops to animals to food)), which doesn't release long term stored carbon to the environment.

So, in terms of the article, AGW, and the aim behind adding ever higher amounts of bio-fuel, it is to reduce the amount of FF CO2 released, which the articles have simply shortened to 'releasing less CO2', and I think that is both fair and obvious when considered in context, and it's the way it's usually referred to in news and articles these days.

So, will it cut emissions from transport - pedantically, no, but in context to the real issue, absolutely.

[Just in case you still don't get the big issue here, can I ask if you understand the difference to net carbon in the atmosphere when a crop is grown (consuming CO2) and then consumed (releasing CO2), v's FF extraction and the subsequent release of stored CO2 on the total amount of CO2 in the environment? Thanks. M.]

How patronising can you get ?
As a professional chemist,  I am well aware of issues relating to CO2.  As one who learnt to read and write many years ago, I'm also aware of the importance of saying what you mean and reading the words on the page rather than trying to guess what the author might have meant.

Will  cut emissions from transport was the claim NOT will change emissions from transport !  

Moreover, extrapolating from "some ethanol is bioethanol" to "all ethanol is bioethanol" is an unwarranted assumption.  What proportion of UK ethanol production do you suppose is bioethanol ?  

Hi

It's not really something that needs consideration or further discussion seeing that to achieve BSEN228 classification as E10 etc and be allowed to be dispensed at the pump with an appropriate label the ethanol is required to be bio-derived  ... https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/727547/e10-petrol-consumer-protection-fuel-pump-labelling.pdf ...

The overarching legislation needs to conform to directive 2009/30/EU (as amended) ... https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32009L0030 ... which allows a percentage of ethanol to be blended into the petrol for vehicular usage with the specific provision that "... on condition that the ethanol used is a biofuel" and that "... The marking of petrol, for example as E5 or E10, should be consistent with the relevant standard drawn up by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN)", hence the labelling standard referenced above.

If anyone's really interested (and why wouldn't anyone be!  ) , the linked EU document does contain some pretty decent data tables regarding bio-ethanol sources & associated CO2 impact.

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

Strewth Z, farmed wood does pretty well as a source of multiple bio-fuels with high GHG emission savings..... if I'm reading/understanding that document correctly?

Quick question - I think most ICE R/C cars run on methanol, so would you have to source it from bonsai trees?

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

Hiya Eric. There's no need to get rude, I

Absolutely - so please stop !  Rather than lecturing an Industrial Chemist on O level chemistry,  could I suggest you offer first aid lessons to brain surgeons 

Completely agree that using bioethanol as a fuel additive would make some of the emitted CO2 more sustainable but that absolutely isn't what the articles actually said.  I assume you've found it as difficult as I did to find the actual percentages of bio- and synthetic- ethanols in the UK but you must realise that synthetic ethanol plants do exist and are not standing idle.  The words used in those news items could easily be taken to imply that any ethanol added to petrol will reduce CO2 emissions.

A major source of bioethanol would be sugar-producing crops planted on cleared land in the Amazon Rain Forest which isn't particularly 'green' or 'ethical' !

You've taken my 100% accurate comment that the articles contain logical errors as an attack upon yourself for quoting the articles.  No such comment was made or even implied and there's no need for you to defend such sloppy journalism by trying to second guess what they ought to have said.

I have already said that there are advantages to using ethanol as a petrol additive but reducing total CO2 emissions is not one of them.  The only way to do that would be to leave the car in the garage !

Martyn1981

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:

Hiya Eric. There's no need to get rude, I

Absolutely - so please stop !  Rather than lecturing an Industrial Chemist on O level chemistry,  could I suggest you offer first aid lessons to brain surgeons 

Completely agree that using bioethanol as a fuel additive would make some of the emitted CO2 more sustainable but that absolutely isn't what the articles actually said.  I assume you've found it as difficult as I did to find the actual percentages of bio- and synthetic- ethanols in the UK but you must realise that synthetic ethanol plants do exist and are not standing idle.  The words used in those news items could easily be taken to imply that any ethanol added to petrol will reduce CO2 emissions.

A major source of bioethanol would be sugar-producing crops planted on cleared land in the Amazon Rain Forest which isn't particularly 'green' or 'ethical' !

You've taken my 100% accurate comment that the articles contain logical errors as an attack upon yourself for quoting the articles.  No such comment was made or even implied and there's no need for you to defend such sloppy journalism by trying to second guess what they ought to have said.

I have already said that there are advantages to using ethanol as a petrol additive but reducing total CO2 emissions is not one of them.  The only way to do that would be to leave the car in the garage !

Sorry Eric but there's no polite way to say this now given all of the information provided, and especially based on the links from Z - everything you have been arguing is wrong!

[In fact your latest post makes no sense if you have read Z's response to you?]

The terminology, that you oppose seems to be entirely accepted and normal. Using bio-fuels avoids releasing more (additional / FF) CO2 into the environment, so it is described as reducing GHG emissions. I appreciate that with our pedant hats on, we can challenge that simplified statement, but it is how it's put now, and everyone (almost everyone) knows that. I'm not sure what you are bringing this up, yet again, when the UK government docs (provided by Z) use this terminology. So I am not 'defending sloppy journalism' as the journalism was actually correct, I was simply trying to explain to you that in context, it makes perfect sense, and is perfectly correct.

Your assumptions about bio-ethanol v's ethanol also appear groundless (as per Z's links), so I'm not sure why you are still pursuing that issue. I did not dispute your claim, as I did not know if it was true or false at the time.

If you had read the link from Z you would also have noted the sustainability requirements, so again there is no point in you continuing to claim the alternative. Throughout I have also stressed sustainability.

I have not taken your criticisms of bio-fuels, nor journalism personally. I've tried throughout to be polite (even if I have, or appear to have failed, which was not my intention), I've simply explained where you have been going wrong in a hope to protect this thread from false negativity about one of the methods to fight AGW. You will appreciate now that your arguments were incorrect, and proved so, before you repeated all three again in your latest post*, so therefore, hopefully you will also appreciate why I tried to explain so.

*That is what I 'personally' object to, the repeated posting of negative claims that seek to undermine the efforts to fight AGW, and disrupt G&E threads, long after they have been shown to be false. I appreciate that you do not accept the scientific conclusion on AGW, but undermining it helps nobody, and hence why I will pushback, even if it annoys you. I'm not even technically arguing with you, I'm simply providing information and evidence (OK Z has done most of that now) to pushback against the false arguments raised.

Now that your concerns/claims have been dispelled, which is good news, and perhaps educational for us all, I see no point in continuing to disrupt this thread. So if you wish to keep arguing then please note that I won't be responding anymore - I really don't think there is anything left to say on this issue. All the best.

Martyn1981

Big month for RE in Germany hitting 60% in Feb. The rest spread fairly evenly between nuclear, gas, coal and lignite:

Wind Energy Leads Germany To Renewable Energy Record In February

According to Renew Economy, German has set higher daily or weekly records in the past, but February of 2020 set the record for an entire month. “Of the total 45.12TWh generated by Germany’s power sector, 27.63TWh, or 61.2%, was generated from renewable electricity sources. Throughout the month, Germany’s renewable energy sector regularly provided around 60% or above of the country’s electricity production – including over a dozen days around or above 70%,” RE writes.

Edit - Might as well tag this article in.

Germany 'needs 25GW offshore to meet green goals'

Germany could miss its 2030 renewables goal if the country does not increase its offshore wind target to 25GW from 20GW currently, according to research by German think-tank Agora Energiewende.

The think-tank also said in the 'The green electricity gap, its effects and how it can be plugged' report that annual solar expansion must also be doubled to 10GW or onshore wind expansion must start to grow again to 4GW a year.

Currently Germany is on track to deliver a 55% share of renewables by 2030, instead of the 65% target, Agora Energiewende said.

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

I see no point in continuing to disrupt this thread. So if you wish to keep arguing then please note that I won't be responding anymore

THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT !

No doubt the rest of the forum members will be as grateful as I am.

Martyn1981

Green budget now or soon, hopefully!

Climate activists demand budget plan for low-carbon future

Climate campaigners are urging the government to set out a clear plan for a low-carbon future in next week’s budget, despite the chancellor’s decision to pull a major plank of climate policy at the last minute.

The budget will determine much of the government’s work this year, and campaigners fear that a failure to send clear signals on meeting the 2050 net zero emissions target would play badly with other countries looking to the UK for leadership as host of the vital UN climate talks, called Cop26, later this year.

Hopes were dealt a blow when it emerged on Friday that a major policy announcement on national infrastructure – including an overhaul of Britain’s energy, transport and water infrastructure to cut greenhouse gas emissions and help cope with the impacts of extreme weather – would be postponed.

Campaigners want to see the government commit to a range of measures that would reduce carbon, beyond the piecemeal announcements made so far. Boris Johnson said last month at the launch of Cop26 that the moratorium on sales of new diesel and petroleum cars would be brought forward five years to 2035, and this week ministers agreed to make onshore wind farms eligible for public support, and to increase the content of biofuels in petrol.

Green groups and experts say much more is needed, including strategies on fixing Britain’s heat-leaking homes, boosting renewables, halting the rapid rise in emissions from transport, restoring the natural environment and tackling waste.

“As the first major opportunity for the Johnson government to show it is serious on delivering net zero, the budget is a huge moment ahead of Cop26,” said Jonathan Marshall, the head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. “The minimum expected is to lead by example and convince other nations to submit ambitious pledges, amplifying domestic action on to the global stage. The UK can show the world that hitting net zero is eminently possible, and is more than just a slogan.”

Some groups are calling for the government to devote at least 5% of spending to the low carbon effort.
“Massive investment in our abundant renewable power potential, public transport and a nationwide energy efficiency programme would put the UK at the forefront of the green industrial revolution – and show genuine leadership ahead of this year’s crucial climate summit in Glasgow,” said Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth.

Martyn1981

BBC touting a potential hydrogen economy for Wales, though I'm currently assuming that a hydrogen economy will flourish all over the World, unless a better (more compact) form of storage for excess RE generation is found.

H2 could be used directly for space heating and transport, or combined, perhaps with carbon capture, to produce bio-gas and bio-fuels to help decarbonize those sectors.

So batts for intra-day storage and H2 for longer term ...... perhaps ...... till something better comes along?

Hydrogen energy industry looks to grow in Wales

A new trade association to represent and advance the Welsh hydrogen economy launched in Cardiff on Wednesday.
Assembly members also debated how the sector can be helped to grow here.

Hydrogen is seen as a promising, clean alternative to using fossil fuels for heating and transport in particular.