from the I-think-you're-doing-it-wrong dept.
What a surprise: If you subsidize something, you get more of it. In the EU, there are financial incentives for generating energy from renewable sources. Trees are a renewable resource, true enough, but I doubt that the Eurocrats intended to subsidize the massive destruction of forests.
Protected forests are being indiscriminately felled across Europe to meet the EU's renewable energy targets, according to an investigation by the conservation group Birdlife.
Up to 65% of Europe's renewable output currently comes from bioenergy, involving fuels such as wood pellets and chips, rather than wind and solar power.
Bioenergy fuel is supposed to be harvested from residue such as forest waste but, under current legislation, European bioenergy plants do not have to produce evidence that their wood products have been sustainably sourced.
Birdlife found logging taking place in conservation zones such as Poloniny national park in eastern Slovakia and in Italian riverside forests around Emilia-Romagna, where it said it had been falsely presented as flood-risk mitigation.
[...] Jori Sihvonen, the biofuels officer at Transport and Environment, which co-authored the report, said: "It is easy to fall into thinking that all bioenergy is sustainable, but time and again we see some forms of it can be worse for society, the natural environment and, in the case of burning land-based biofuels or whole trees, even the climate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Friday December 02 2016, @07:23PM
Finally a concrete and GOOD example of regulation/subsidization gone wrong. We need a focus on renewable energy, but sadly such subsidy programs are expensive because they require enough oversight to make sure bullshit loopholes like this aren't abused. So, what solutions do you propose? Let me cut off a possible avenue: just scrapping everything and letting the free market figure it out won't lead to better environmental protection unless renewables/nuclear can compete on cost with the fossil fuels.
How do we encourage investment in renewable energy systems while preventing the clear cutting of forests? Oversight? Punishment for rule violation? Or is this perhaps just a money grab and the loophole was inserted without protections specifically to allow these people to profit from clear cutting?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 02 2016, @07:26PM
So, what solutions do you propose?
Enforce the existing law that says "Bioenergy fuel is supposed to be harvested from residue such as forest waste."
Amend the law to require documentation if that doesn't work.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday December 02 2016, @07:30PM
TOO EASY!!! You fail the test of complicated bureaucracy, now go down to the basement and feed the leopard.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 5, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 02 2016, @07:57PM
I checked the lavatory, but I couldn't find a leopard. Just some plans about a freeway bypass...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @08:08PM
Let me cut off a possible avenue: just scrapping everything and letting the free market figure it out won't lead to better environmental protection
Well, you didn't double dare me to not go down this avenue. We could always just scrap everything and go free market. But if you want better environmental protection (assuming it actually is environmental protection, which gets pretty tenuous sometimes), then you can always regulate fossil fuel burning just like today.
unless renewables/nuclear can compete on cost with the fossil fuels
If it can't then that's a great reason not to emphasize renewables and nuclear. This market is failed behavior modification. It's not the first time either, there's been like three other examples (for example, here [soylentnews.org] or here [theguardian.com]), I've been aware of as well as the poor design of the market in the first place (hard caps result in great fluctuations as the market transitions from highly elastic to highly inelastic demand as demand exceeds the cap on the market).
My view is that none of it makes sense. There's poor justification not just for the market's various mechanisms, but also for capping greenhouse gases emissions in the first place. And I think it shows in the continuing run of problems with these markets. While I don't think they are all foreseeable, it's pretty obvious that if you don't check that someone is playing by the rules, and it's very profitable to not play by the rules, then you'll get a lot of rule breaking.
But who goes through all that effort just to blow off obvious rule breaking strategies? Why politicians who didn't care if the market worked in the first place. Funny how the parties who say they care about global warming continue to act like they don't care about global warming. It's almost like words don't match actions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Friday December 02 2016, @08:16PM
You do realize this is in a different continent right?? The free market has proven over and over that businessman will prioritize profits over environmental protections. Since environmental protection has no short term inherent market values we can not let the free market take care of it. For those of us who want the planet to remain hospitable in the long term this overrides profits and economic success by a wide margin.
it's pretty obvious that if you don't check that someone is playing by the rules, and it's very profitable to not play by the rules, then you'll get a lot of rule breaking.
Huh, would never in a million years thought you would advocate for increased government oversight.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @10:20PM
Huh, would never in a million years thought you would advocate for increased government oversight.
My belief is that there are things such as pollution and other negative externalities that do need enforced regulation. Where I disagree is normally on two fronts.
First, the size of the externalities. Too many people have this view that any pollution (or equivalent externality) is just as bad as a lot of pollution. For example, we have groups claiming that there is "no safe" level of radiation. That ignores that even if you completely accept the linear no-threshold model [wikipedia.org], it's not hard to get radiation exposures so low that you accumulate more lifetime risk driving to the local grocery store. From here [abc.net.au]:
"As the crisis in Japan goes on, there are an increasing number of sources reporting that 100 mSv (millisieverts) is the lowest dose at which a person is at risk for cancer," says a statement from the organisation.
"Established research disproves this claim," the statement continues. "According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual's risk for the development of cancer."
To put that into context, about 30 workers at the plant site are thought to have received radiation exposure of that much and no one in the general public is thought to have received more than a quarter of that (at least according [wikipedia.org] to the Japanese government).
What was worse, was this blurb was quoted by a slashdotter who was arguing about radiation exposure orders of magnitude lower (global increase in background radiation due to Fukushima).
Second, there's the propensity to demand more regulation when regulation isn't enforced. For example, during the huge oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico (Deepwater Horizon), it was determined after the fact that there had been 200+ safety violations on the well platform. Calls for more regulation, of course, were issued. But what is the point of adding more unenforced regulations?
It's also worth noting that if necessary industries can only operate by violating regulation (and oil wells probably have reached that point incidentally), then the state will be forced to ignore regulation violations and that will make it easier to fail to prevent harmful conditions that those regulations are attempting to prevent.
My view on this particular point is enforce existing regulations first. If there really is a problem of regulatory coverage, then we can add the appropriate regulation to deal with that situation. Most US industry, commerce, and other trades are already heavily regulated. If that regulation isn't working, then someone is doing something wrong.
So here's how I'd summarize my stance on US and developed world regulation in general. Most human activities are already overregulated. If we chose to enforce regulation properly, we would already have prevented most of the externalities we want to prevent (except of course, for externalities and perverse behavior created or incentivized by the regulation itself). So enforce existing regulation and work on making regulation both saner and easier to comply with.
In particular, we need to stop the deluge of regulation creation that goes on in any government. For example, in the US federal government both regulation and legislative law increase faster than one can read it. US environmental regulation continues to be a large portion of that accumulation of new regulation.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday December 02 2016, @10:47PM
Someone hijacked your account Khallow! Sorry, but I'm just shocked at this even keeled approach you're suddenly taking ;)
Couldn't agree more, but more regulatory oversight means funding lots of new employees which is rarely a popular stance. That is probably why most things fail "we need this!" followed immediately by "we're not paying them to do that!"
I have a great plan! Transfer all DEA agents to regulatory oversight! Since we can replace their fancy toys with clipboards we can then allocate their "toy funds" into treatment programs for addicts. Problems at least partway solved.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @11:09PM
shocked at this even keeled approach
Don't worry. I'll lull some fat ship into range of my cannon and hoist the Jolly Roger! The internet will once again fear my rants! No port is safe!
I respond in kind. If someone is polite, I tend to be. If someone comes in yowling "you're a stupid, evil doodiehead", then I tend to turn up the heat a lot. And sometimes I'm just cranky.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 02 2016, @10:16PM
If the regulation only requires that renewable resources be used, but doesn't specify that the resources harvested in a SUSTAINABLE fashion, then the regulation was very poorly considered.
The whole problem with non-renewable resources is that there is no sustainable rate at which to harvest them. Coal and other fossil fuels have absolutely massive reserves, even today, but they have essentially zero replenishment rate.
I wonder if anyone is considering breeder reactors as a renewable energy resource?
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday December 02 2016, @10:49PM
Lots of people, just not the right ones. Also, the public is very scared of a terrorist taking over the facility and escaping in a helicopter to blow up DC. Nevermind that the FAA would track them and military fighters would be on them in seconds... Yay propaganda making people terrified of the word radiation. I've had to clear up EM radiation / nuclear radiation more times than I care to count.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 03 2016, @01:37AM
I'm with you right up to the "fighters would be on them in seconds..." Our fighter bases are actually spread fairly thin, sometimes they would have to respond over 300 miles or more, which they can do in about 20 minutes, but only after they get airborne which can take another 5 to 10 sometimes. Even in Washington D.C., the fighters weren't able to respond in time to stop the Pentagon bound plane...
The real difference in radiation is ionizing vs non-ionizing. Linear accelerators generate ionizing radiation without the use of radioactive materials. I'm not convinced that non-ionizing radiation is as harmless as everyone treats it, but I am definitely convinced that ionizing radiation can be harmful and is not as predictable as the "experts" seem to think it is - I have personally bumped into far too many people who died, of cancer, well before their time after working in a job that had them dealing "safely" with sources of ionizing radiation.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:21AM
I was assuming that there would at least be security alerts when the thieves went in. But you're right, likely they might be able to escape if they planned it perfectly, though I presume security would be designed to give some delay. They always use tight security right? lawl
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @02:28PM
We need to define the cycle time for an energy source to be considered renewable. After all, without such limit, even the fossil fuels are renewable!
If an source is not fully replenished to its original state within a year, it cannot be deemed renewable.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday December 02 2016, @10:52PM
I also found this statement unbelievable :
Up to 65% of Europe's renewable output currently comes from bioenergy, involving fuels such as wood pellets and chips, rather than wind and solar power.
First, it doesn't jive with all the much touted wind and solar claims over the last few years, and second if they are burning wood to generate energy they are doing it wrong. Its about the dirtiest way to get heat, worse than coal.
There are forest to biofuel projects [alaskaair.com] that MIGHT eventually make a difference, but usually these are way more expensive than the fuel they replace, and not all that practical.
With certain tree species (poplar and similar) that will sprout from their roots and re-grow if you leave even a short 6 inch tall stump, and you can harvest these with machinery every 5 to 10 years and chip them directly into trucks for transfer to rendering plants. Its been done by paper companies for fiber for 40 years in some markets. (The trick is never let them get bigger than you can mow and chip in place without a huge crew of workers - maybe 3-4 inches diameter at ground level).
But even if all these schemes pass some lame sustainability test, they invariably run afoul of CO2 emissions concerns.
If you just PLANT the trees, and let them grow to a large sustainable forest you do more for the environment than cutting them down and burning them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 03 2016, @11:00PM
A standing forest is a giant pulse CO2 emission waiting to happen. Forests burn, it's actually natural and beneficial to many species of larger trees.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 02 2016, @07:30PM
It took me several years to figure out why the Green movement opposes nuclear power in all of its forms:
It is not renewable. And by their logic, not sustainable.
The thing is that nuclear reactions are so much more energetic than chemical reactions that "not sustainable" means we will run out in millennia if not millions of years. Our society does not have the capacity to plan that far ahead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 02 2016, @07:59PM
This Green is in favor of Nukes. Local issues are easier to solve than global ones.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @08:05PM
All forms of solar, wind and hydroelectric power are essentially just collecting energy from the massive nuclear fusion reactor in the sky. So really these are all forms of nuclear power. But even that is not sustainable, as the Sun's fuel is not infinite and it will eventually run out.
So if we reject all forms of nuclear power, that leaves us with... tidal and geothermal?
Tidal power collects energy from the Moon's gravitational pull as it moves around the Earth. That too is not sustainable, the Moon will eventually move too far away and its gravitational influence will be negligible. And the Earth will eventually cool, thus geothermal energy is not sustainable as it will eventually run out as well.
Or the Earth-Moon system will fall into the Sun first, rendering the point kind of moot anyway.
(Score: 3, Funny) by nethead on Friday December 02 2016, @08:15PM
Is the Earth-Luna system falling into to the sun before or after it goes out? I just want to know what to pack.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday December 02 2016, @08:21PM
Sunscreen and water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @11:01PM
Who cares? As long as the Earth-Moon system is fine, then we're good to go.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:22AM
"I just want to know what to pack."
All you need to know is do not forget your towel.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday December 02 2016, @08:32PM
I think the geothermal energy comes from all the heavy elements (heavier than Iron 56), and they don't get made in normal nucleosynthesis, but in a supernova [wikipedia.org]!
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday December 02 2016, @09:33PM
Some of the Earth's heat is primordial, from when the planet coalesced. The rest is from radioactivity, but it isn't only heavy elements that are radioactive. Consider potassium-40, for example.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @10:25PM
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday December 02 2016, @11:25PM
So you should be able to extract two thirds of the Earth's heat without being bad.
We do that in several places in the world, but never getting near that 2/3 level. We also only do this where that heat would be lost soon anyway. (Near-surface steam sources, usually volcanic in origin, but also ground source heat pumps).
I would think cooling the earth's residual heat on any large scale would have negative consequences, probably similar in nature and rate to the damage that people can inflict by lighting a fire to cook and keep warm. How much damage would have accumulated had the entire population of earth been able to adopt ground source heat pumps a couple thousand years ago. Would it be worse than the environmental damage we've done with fossil fuels or wood fires?
Half the energy from the sun that arrives on earth is absorbed at the surface [nasa.gov]. Only 12% of that is re-radiated. Intercepting that 12%, and using it as an energy source would seem to be free of any long term environmental concerns, as eventually every bit of work accomplished by such use would flow back to the environment and be re-radiated.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @09:29PM
Shaking my head at those loony environmentalists! They won't shut up about "sustainability" and it's just annoying! Sad!
Other concerns about fission--overlooked, I'm sure, by crazy greens--centre on the facts that the irradiated fuel is much more radioactive than mined uranium, that radioactivity can lead to cancer and mutations, that reactors designed for power production can instead be operated to produce materials for nuclear weapons, and that such weapons can ruin one's day.
As for "sustainability":
The "Red Book" of uranium resources, produced by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency, indicates that the world's available uranium as of 2013 amounted to about 7.6 million metric tons—enough to last for about 150 years at current rates of consumption. Consumption, though, is bound to increase as an increasing number of countries turn to nuclear energy to meet their energy requirements.
-- https://web.archive.org/web/20150918222607/http://thebulletin.org/reprocessing-poised-growth-or-deaths-door/sustainable-nuclear-energy-closed-fuel-cycle [archive.org]
More efficient use of nuclear fuel requires reprocessing, which was invented to separate plutonium for use in weapons and can still be used for that purpose. Reprocessing doesn't please loony environmentalists, either: for example Greenpeace are saying that
The Sellafield and [La Hague] facilities are the biggest source of radioactive pollution in Europe. [...]
In addition to raising general background levels of radiation, marine life in particular algae, plankton, and crustacean's including lobsters have absorbed significant amounts of radionuclides, in many cases exceeding safety levels set for seafood after a nuclear accident. There is an increase in the rate of childhood leukaemia and other radiation linked diseases in the vicinity of both Sellafield and La Hague.
-- http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/waste/reprocessing/ [greenpeace.org]
Drawbacks to deuterium-tritium fission include the need for fission reactors to produce the tritium, induced radioactivity due to neutron capture, and of course the lackluster energy return on energy investment. The Americans started work on a hybrid fission-fusion system that would run on "small" thermonuclear bombs, but it was cancelled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_PACER [wikipedia.org]
Don't tell those wacky greenies that the Sun runs on nuclear energy! They'll try to ban it, LOL!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 02 2016, @10:41PM
Current reactor designs are designed for bomb making, not efficiency.
If your waste is too radioactive to handle, you are leaving energy on the table.
THE THORIUM PROBLEM - Manufacturing & energy sector hobbled by thorium [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Saturday December 03 2016, @12:16PM
Actually - no.
Civilian/power reactors:
PWR - designed for naval propulsion primarily (compact)
BWR - designed for ease to build (cheap)
CANDU - designed to be able to be built to 1950's canada's industrial level (ie, no access to enrichment nor processing - both requirements for weaponmaking)
AGR - a power-optimized derivate of the MAGNOX, practically useless for weapons Pu.
EGP-6 - power and heat optimized miniature version of RBMK, will be shut down when the floating NPP is completed.
Civilian/research:
Pool-type/tank-type - almost all research reactors, designed for high neutron flux (can be used to transmute pretty much anything)
Dual-use reactors/power-production:
RBMK - Chernobyl-reactor, built to be as cheap and fast as possible to build and operate (hence no containment), has its origins in productions-reactors and are decent at that. (no new builds, current ones are upgraded to be better at power and safety at the cost of lower Pu-production)
MAGNOX - purpose-built as a production reactor and one of the best at it, found more economic use as a power reactor in the UK (only running is a derivate in N.Korea)
Production reactors are a different breed - the optimizations for power (higher temperature, longer runtimes) makes it produce a lot more of Pu-240 which makes bomb-making _very_ hard (actually, makes the core pre-ignite), hence pretty much only MAGNOX, RBMK and research-reactors are suitable of the non-production reactors (and the former two was built specifically to be dual-use).
I agree, which is why we should build more breeders and CANDU (which can take spent fuel from LWRs and use it as fuel - see DUPIC).
Quick - name one power-reactor that can't use thorium ;)
Seriously - _all_ current power reactors can use thorium just fine (normally to augment fuel) and with some (normally extensive) modificaitons can use it in the U-233/Th-232 mix as breeders. And to further point out how mundane thorium is the current CANDU's on offering (AFCR, with the Qinshan as reference unit) can do it off-the-shelf.
Really, do no mix up "thorium" with "molten core thorium with a Pu/U driver" - they are completly different things to anyone that taken even a cursory look at nuclear fueld cycles.
(as an aside - using a Th-232/U-233 mix actually places you closer to what you need to build a bomb than running a CANDU on natural urianium or DUPIC does - since the Th-232/U-233 requires reprocessing while CANDU on NU/DUPIC doesn't)
And as an aside: while you can (and pretty effeciently) produce Pu-239 in a viable form in a CANDU this is akin to buying sportcars to haul manure - just get a tractor (research reactor) or a truck (production reactor) instead since its both cheaper and better at the job. (and since you need enriching and reprocessing to build a bomb you might as well build a civilian LWR-fleet to offset the costs)
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday December 05 2016, @12:58AM
The advantage of molten salt reactors is that you have liquid fuel that can be exchanged using chemical, rather than physical processes. (I suppose you may want me to find a citation for this one).
I have also heard (mentioned in the video I linked) that China is building all new coal plants such that they can be retrofitted to use a thorium (molten salt) reactor layer (once they finish inventing it).
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday December 05 2016, @09:32AM
No need for citation. However the advantage of fluid vs mechanical repo is a matter of where you want to deal with gasses..
Personally I'm a fan of CANDU and AHR (AHR kinda violates the divide of molten vs solid core) so I tend to read up on oddball methods and fuel.
I almost never watch online-videos (but I do read transcripts). However - that the cinese can retrofit their supercritical steam coal plants with high-temperature nuclear cores is more if a sideeffect of similar profiles in heat-quality than special consideration for nuclear cores (china has been building suitable coalplants for more than a decade)
This advantage (to be able to use supercritical coal components, research, materials...) is pointed out for pretty much all very high-temperature and supercritical water-reactors.
(What the chinese intend to use is a HTGR/PBR - so it is solid fuel (triso most likely))
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday December 03 2016, @11:11AM
That one is fun.. very fun..
A recent articles on the subject [forbes.com] (sorry, javascript req).
Long story short - uranium at 200usd/pound (will add about 0.2 to 0.3us cent/kWh in LWRs, less in PHWR and about a twentieth in breeders) and powering the entire planet by nuclear alone will run out _after_ wind power (due to the sun stripping away the atmosphere when it grows).
And that is before we even get to breeders and thorium.
So yes, nuclear is not sustainable but it will run out after this planet is a molten lifeless rock - but if you have that timescale then neither wind nor terrestial solar is sustainable.
(As an aside - current uranium prices are at about 35usd/pound, "normal prices" (and what is used when calculating costs for nuclear) is 130usd/pound)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @08:13PM
Jori Sihvonen, the biofuels officer at Transport and Environment, which co-authored the report, said: “It is easy to fall into thinking that all bioenergy is sustainable, but time and again we see some forms of it can be worse for society, the natural environment and, in the case of burning land-based biofuels or whole trees, even the climate.
“The European commission should phase out all land-based biofuels by 2030 and devote greater efforts to promoting sustainable renewables such as solar, wind, geothermal and tidal.”
Why phase out the only renewable energy source that works with widespread internal combustion engines? Solar power and the rest aren't going to make my gasoline-powered Nissan Versa go vroom unless they get so cheap that we can formulate gasoline from CO2 extracted from air.
Throwing away a few trillion in infrastructure is not the sign of a solid environmentalist strategy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @09:01PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @10:56PM
(Score: 2) by BK on Friday December 02 2016, @08:32PM
But even clear-cutting is, in fact sustainable. If you clearcut 5% of your available forest each year and replant, 20 years on you will be able to harvest the replanted forest. The problem seems to be that it makes Jori feel bad.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Friday December 02 2016, @09:12PM
Agreed, but protected forests as in TFA are generally not the same as managed forests. There's not much reason to protect a managed forest because a) it's intended to be clearcut in any case and b) it's not good habitat for most wildlife, being a uniformly aged monoculture. It sounds to me like the regulation not being sufficiently enforced is the protection of the forests, and the regulation against using whole trees for biofuel might be preventing the effective use of managed forests that you point out. Sure, it's a large area to patrol, but maybe they could use drones to do something warm and fuzzy for once. I'm sure the drone manufacturers would appreciate that kind of publicity.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday December 02 2016, @09:17PM
That's a good point. That's actually also how it is done in Sweden: every year, a strip of forest is clear-cut, and another strip is seeded. Cycle repeats after 20 years.
I sometimes think Sweden is so rich because it's not struck by the resource curse [wikipedia.org]: compare Sweden to Congo. Paper, safety matches (Swallow säkerhets tändstickor) and IKEA furniture from birches and pines are *much less* profitable than diamonds, gold, copper, mobile-phone-antenna-thingy-metal, coffee, cocoa, and precious hardwoods. And it's only profitable for companies with 20 year patience.
But about the clear-cutting: sounds like the environmental subsidies should be paid after 20 years.
First year: cut some Slovenian forest down. Profit!!!!1! register with EU for subsidy.
Year 20: EU pays out subsidy, *if* it looks like the forest is again full of mature trees. Otherwise: oh it seems you forgot to replant it 19 years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @09:23AM
> But about the clear-cutting: sounds like the environmental subsidies should be paid after 20 years.
> First year: cut some Slovenian forest down. Profit!!!!1! register with EU for subsidy.
> Year 20: EU pays out subsidy, *if* it looks like the forest is again full of mature trees. Otherwise: oh it seems you forgot to replant it 19 years ago.
But in practice:
First year: cut Solvenian forest. Register with EU for subsidy.
First year + 1 day: borrow against future EU subsidy, sell stake in EU subsidy, short EU subsidy. Pay out bonuses.
Year 20: Ooops. No forest, no subsidy. Collect short profits. Investors complain, EU bails them out.
Didn't we see that somewhere before?
(Score: 1) by Sourcery42 on Friday December 02 2016, @08:34PM
Reminds me of the US paper industry abusing the alternative fuel mixture credit. http://in.reuters.com/article/paper-blackliquor-idINN2443422220090424 [reuters.com]
Start dribbling a little diesel into the byproduct you've been burning for decades, claim you're supplementing a fossil fuel with an alternative fuel source, and wait for your handout.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @10:03PM
In Europe and Japan, wood- and coal-powered cars [robertsarmory.com] were in use during the Allied siege in World War II. Now OPEC is cutting oil supplies; Europe's response is predictable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Friday December 02 2016, @10:19PM
Car-less sundays again [wikipedia.org] (Dutch)? I found that quite exciting in 1973, that the noise from the motorway stopped.
My parents forbode me to walk on the motorway though, just in case :-(