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by reportingsjr 2002 days ago
Because poor land use, like monoculture tree plantations, is likely equally as bad as atmospheric CO2 increase for the health of the earth.

Additionally, biogas is at best carbon neutral/slightly positive rather than carbon negative. Since you're still producing CO2 burning stuff, but it does get mostly reabsorbed by plants every cycle.
2 comments
x87678r 2002 days ago
> is likely equally as bad as atmospheric CO2 increase for the health of the earth.

I'd disagree

> biogas is at best carbon neutral/slightly positive

Of course that's the point - much better than oil/gas/coal. Yes ideally we'd like energy with no downside. Burning renewables is a great compliment to solar/wind.

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refurb 2002 days ago
Holy shit. It’s better, but not perfect, so it’s greenwashing?
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reportingsjr 2001 days ago
It's not really better at all, considering we have much, much better alternatives already available. The land use issue is massive.
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x87678r 2001 days ago
> much, much better alternatives already available

Such as? Wind/Solar/Hydro/Batteries all have their weak points.

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reportingsjr 2000 days ago
Absolutely agree, there is no perfect solution out there. However, wind and solar definitely have less of the land use issues that biofuels have.

The farms for biofuels are typically mono cultures, which is going to involve pesticide use and commonly fertilization. Both of which have some significant downstream effects that the world is trying to deal with right now (see the deadzones in many river estuaries, possible insect decline, etc).

Hydro is looked at less and less as a green energy solution because of the significant damage done to river/ocean systems (elwha river restoration, possible klamath river undamming). I don't think there will be any more large dams added to rivers that aren't already dammed in North America.

I'm also not a huge fan of utility scale solar. I understand that it is currently moving the needle significantly since the infrastructure costs are cheaper than residential solar, but there are so many added benefits of residential solar (reduced urban heat islands, no additional land used) that I see it as the main way forwards. I think that the solar power split that we'll eventually end up with is something like 40% residential solar, 60% utility as panels get more efficient.

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