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boyadjian | 4 years ago

Decarbonized world does not exists. It's an invention of self-righteous/do-gooders/right-thinking people. Every human activity will generate CO2, it's inevitable

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Manuel_D|4 years ago

Decarbonization can largely be achieved by replacing electricity production and fuels with carbon neutral processes. Nuclear power for power plants can do the former effectively anywhere where there is demand for power. The latter is trickier. Batteries work for things like cars, but don't have the energy density required for applications like transoceanic transportation. But that's where the prospect of hydrogen fuel comes into play. Industrial applications, like smelting, is another big application of fossil fuels that hydrogen can supplant.

spfzero|4 years ago

If generating electricity could be done carbon free via nuclear/solar/wind, and that electricity used to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, you'd have something for industrial/transportation uses.

ancientworldnow|4 years ago

Electricity production is only 20-40% of carbon generation (depending on what stat you're looking at and where). Nuclear power emits only a little less co2 than "clean" combined cycle nat gas when you account for the massive amount of concrete and energy for construction and decommissioning (aka lifetime emissions which is a stat rarely used for this reason).

Dirty electricity production (coal primarily) also has an aerosol masking effect the latest IPCC report estimates to be 0.5-0.8C in cooling - an effect we lose when we switch to renewable (which we should do anyway as this bandaid will need to be ripped off eventually).

The post you're replying to is exaggerating but a decarbonized economy will look nothing like what we have now.