"EU reassessing role of natural gas in green finance rules, Commission says"

Just a heads-up, the article leads with a lie.

 

FILE PHOTO: Smoke billows from a chimney at a combined-cycle gas turbine 

power plant in Drogenbos, Belgium April 27, 2021. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

 

That's steam, not smoke.

The media use photos like this because they are trying to convey the idea that CO2 is a pollutant. Unfortunately CO2 is invisible.

And combined cycle gas turbine plants emit CO2 and water vapor but they don't emit enough particulate matter to be visible as smoke. Presenting a quandary for photo editors. 

The practice has been going on long enough that it has been called out dozens hundreds thousands of times, so much that any further misrepresentation has to be willful. Hence the word 'lie'.

And don't even get me started on the pictures of nuclear reactor cooling towers.

 

Brussels delayed a decision on whether power plants fuelled by natural gas will be labelled as green

The European Union's landmark rules to classify green investments may need to accommodate natural gas, the European Commission said on Monday, as Brussels weighs a politically fraught decision on how to treat the fossil fuel.

The Commission last month published its "sustainable finance taxonomy", a list of economic activities that can be marketed as green investments that is central to the EU plan to steer private capital into activities that will help meet climate targets.

While rules for some sectors, including transport and industry, have been agreed, Brussels delayed a decision on whether power plants fuelled by natural gas will be labelled as green, after months of lobbying from industry and EU governments.

EU financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness told lawmakers in the European Parliament the executive will have to "look again" at how gas could be accommodated given that it could help to reduce emissions in some circumstances.

"Maybe in the situation we have today, we need to find some accommodation, so that if there is no other better option that a member state can use, that gas plays a particular role," she said....

....MORE