The loophole is not that the second company is wasting the energy. (Like you said, it could even try to profit from it, e.g. by [as someone else mentioned] mining Bitcoin or doing something else that's "unclean" -- that only makes the loophole worse.) Rather, it's the fact that it's a secondary company getting paid by the primary company so that the latter can claim it runs on green energy when it doesn't. And both can profit in the process.
That isn't a loophole, that is how the system is supposed to work. The right to claim you run on green energy is something you can sell. This means that:
1. Actually running on green energy is a competitive advantage.
2. The cost is borne by companies who want to be able to claim they are running on green energy.
This allows companies that want to be ethical to subsidize the cost of green energy even if they can't literally run on green energy due to logistic issues.
What would be the point of this "loophole"? This is pittance money for All the big companies, Apple, MSFT, Google etc. I don't think most consumers even care about whatever marketing buzz this might generate.
This is a net positive whichever way you spin it. Pollution doesn't understand state or country boundaries.
Although in the grand scheme of things this is probably a good idea and a net positive, it is still kind of absurd when you look at the individuals.
Take Norway for example, it was said earlier that they officially run on only about 40% green energy. However in actual reality they run closer to 100% on green energy and everyone there knows it.
Then a coal power factory somewhere can buy the Norwegian credits and claim to be 100% green and sell that.
It's no wonder many people don't like this scheme.
But as you say and I agree, it is probably a net positive.
> Then a coal power factory somewhere can buy the Norwegian credits and claim to be 100% green and sell that. It's no wonder many people don't like this scheme.
No this is not happening anywhere, where are you coming with this kind of things?
Coal company producing only coal-generated power don't buy green credits.
If 100GW renewal energy is produced, who or how it is being used is irrelevant, because the alternative would be 100GW energy generated through non-renewable resources. I don't in which version of reality is that a bad thing, regardless of who buys whatever REC credit.
"Net positive" unless there are more drastic measures companies decide not to take because they feel like they're already doing something/doing their part. I see a real danger in doing too little only because you feel like you're doing enough.
