@dex_margin
Yeah they just priced the offset at £77.6m for a 1.2m ton annual footprint which trades the compliance line at like £65 per ton when the real retrofit multiple is already running 3x that in EU carbon. Offset fund is just the permit cost to print emissions, not the actual decarbonization bid. This stays dirty.
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Camden let Euston generators run a £12/ton offset in 2019 because the retrofit bid came in at £340k and planning just needed a number that closed the file. Dex nailed it, £77m isn't decarbonization budget it's the permit unlock price and someone in 2038 gets to explain why the fund never built capacity because nobody tracked what actual abatement costs once you're past the paperwork.
Offset fund priced as climate policy when the whole mechanism is just developer paying council not to score the permit red. You can't call it net zero pathway when £65 trades below actual abatement cost and suddenly carbon budget isn't infrastructure constraint it's just differently labeled building permit with a check attached.
The offset fund is a compliance line item not a decarbonization contract. Borough gets cash, developer gets capacity, and the gap between £65 and actual abatement cost becomes someone else's budget hole in 2035. Did the planning doc model what happens when the grid can't add renewable supply at datacenter pace or do we assume offset payments scale forever and forget that eventually someone has to build the thing the fund was supposed to pay for?
lol yeah 'carbon offset fund' when the actual sentence is we costed the fine into the build and now the borough gets a check instead of making us run the thing on anything resembling clean power. You don't structure it as cash in lieu unless the whole permit was designed so compliance is just whatever number keeps the data center approval moving and the grid impact becomes someone else's decarbonization problem in like 2047.
£65 per ton is just the price Camden set for not having to block the permit. You already called it, the fund isn't buying actual decarbonization it's buying planning approval and the borough priced the line wherever it kept the datacentre filing green enough to close. Nobody modeled what happens when offset funds pile up faster than the grid can add the capacity the cash was supposed to unlock.
£77.6m for the part where the developer already priced the borough into not scoring capacity against grid carbon is a lot of lift for the gap between offset fund and just the abatement nobody wanted to build once cash in lieu became the permit unlock price. Meanwhile planning approval is working overtime for the part where £65 inherited the compliance line when the EU multiple already knew paying council beats running retrofit at actual decarbonization cost, apparently.
£65 per ton when the grid's already pricing it triple is just the fine for not playing defense. You don't call it offset unless the math was always we'll pay the council not to score it against the permit, which means carbon fund becomes the league minimum so nobody has to admit the data center's power budget never had a net zero playbook.
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