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submitted 3 months ago by solo@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[-] Deebster@infosec.pub 55 points 3 months ago

The North Yorkshire power plant, which burns wood pellets imported from North America

So the trees are grown in America, processed in America and then transported across the Atlantic before getting to Yorkshire? That must use up all the carbon budget before it's even burnt, surely?

[-] Skua@kbin.earth 19 points 3 months ago

Honestly it might not. I don't have any actual numbers to offer here, but the sheer size of modern cargo ships often makes then surprisingly carbon efficient despite the horrid fuel they use

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 12 points 3 months ago

For regular products it is actually the remaining way per truck that accounts for the majority of their footprint. Kinda why I usually roll my eyes when people cry about dirty cargo ships, while likely driving their own personal car. There's so many areas that would be more important to tackle first.

The whole concept of using wood pellets is bonkers though. You're basically using land to grow trees to burn them, which is stupidly inefficient and certainly not sustainable. It's pretty much a form of greenwashing, to give people the illusion of climate neutral energy production (similar to things like bio & e-fuels).

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

We can still ban bunker fuel.

[-] Skua@kbin.earth 2 points 3 months ago

We can and we should, yes

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The underlying problem is that it's on net reducing forest cover in North America, but that reduction in forest cover counts against the US emissions budget, rather than the UK one. This kind of shell game where you push emissions into another country doesn't really solve anything.

this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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