Carbon neutral and CO2 emissions, etc

bennty
Wed, 08 Sep 2021 19:41:50 +0000

ucbalumnus:

Of course, that electric bus probably has batteries that you said that you dislike in the first post of this thread. But then is mining the materials for the batteries worse than mining the petroleum or natural gas that would be needed to fuel that bus otherwise?

Totally does. Otoh, what’s the quantity of lithium in the bus vs. the number of future electric cars that it replaces? But yes, you’re right. There’s also the “but the old buses worked, what about the embodied carbon” problem (which is why the car I seldom drive is still sitting in my garage).

The point all around, including the uranium mining (and the massives stores of spent fuel cooking away unrecognizably for decades, leaking, getting shipped about when it’s not kept onsite) is that a major part of this picture needs to be use less. If you’re arranging your days so that you’re working with the sun and wind instead of trying to power willfully through the day as though environment means nothing, you will burn far fewer stored midnight electrons, and need fewer batteries.