Are our attempts to reduce CO2 emissions making things worse?

rjmachin

For years, I keep hearing that we should be reducing use of gas, cars etc to help the environment.

So, we get an influx of solar panel companies, electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles etc.

Then I read the other day on BBC News about the "Dirty Secret" that is increasing warming.

It says that Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) that is used in power stations, wind turbines and sub stations among others to prevent accidents and fires is actually 23,500 times worse that CO2.

It is equivalent to 6.73 million tonnes of CO2 or 1.3 million extra cars on the road for a year.

So it seems that an increase of electrical appliances (electric cars for example) could result in making the environment worse than petrol cars.

It does not state this as fact, but the 23k times worse fact seems to indicate that it's worse.

What are your thoughts on whether our attempts to reduce CO2 emissions are actually making things worse?

zeupater

rjmachin wrote: »

For years, I keep hearing that we should be reducing use of gas, cars etc to help the environment.

So, we get an influx of solar panel companies, electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles etc.

Then I read the other day on BBC News about the "Dirty Secret" that is increasing warming.

It says that Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) that is used in power stations, wind turbines and sub stations among others to prevent accidents and fires is actually 23,500 times worse that CO2.

It is equivalent to 6.73 million tonnes of CO2 or 1.3 million extra cars on the road for a year.

So it seems that an increase of electrical appliances (electric cars for example) could result in making the environment worse than petrol cars.

It does not state this as fact, but the 23k times worse fact seems to indicate that it's worse.

What are your thoughts on whether our attempts to reduce CO2 emissions are actually making things worse?

Hi

I read this on the BBC news page too ... initial thoughts (within about a minute of reading the detail) .... ~23k times per unit volume sounds a lot, but the relative volume is minimal and the reporting seems to be poorly thought through & illogical ...

The article described the use as being an insulator in switchgear and related switchgear to RE, but failed to realise that most RE simply changes where a subset of the total number of substations (those associated with generation as opposed to distribution) are located.

On to the SF6 emissions currently being equivalent to 1.3million vehicles in Europe ... well, are they sure that is really logical because it's the position for the whole electrical infrastructure for the whole of Europe before EVs have made a significant impact on demand & that electrification of transport isn't predicted to require a doubling of generating capacity? ... furthermore, aren't there currently around 310million vehicles already on the road in Europe, so wouldn't 100% reduction in ICE engines through electrification reduce emissions by a factor of 310:1.3 (99.6%) even if their prediction was correct? ...

However, what needs to be considered is that there's a mismatch between demand and switchgear capacity in that even doubling demand doesn't directly equate to generating, transmitting or distribution capacity due to demand shifting (/smoothing) relative to peak operation .... further diluting the impact & increasing the net benefit to emission reductions to well above 99.6% .... well, that's where I considered that the article was highly flawed & didn't deserve any further effort other than thinking something along the lines of ...

... "Looks like someone needs to do a little more research before putting their name to a BBC article if they want to retain both their own & the organisation's credibility!"

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

How long does it take to breakdown? I know methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2, but does breakdown faster.

1961Nick

I read is as another piece of BBC sensationalist journalism where the article is written & then the facts are manipulated to fit the article.

Martyn1981

I'm probably pointing out the obvious, but for everyone concerned about AGW, whilst most general conversations talk about CO2 / carbon dioxide, it's worth remembering that monitoring and concern is based on GHG's (greenhouse gases) and tends to be expressed in CO2e (CO2 equivalent).

So if a non CO2 GHG gas is emitted, that too will be taken into account when calculating AGW and emissions.

And tomorrows lesson will be on 'sucking eggs'.