OT: CO2 Measurements

What with all this stuff in the media about CO2 and my vehicles (for example pushing out 376g/km), I was wondering, is 376g/km bad - and compared to what? We are *told* it is bad....

We are being given statistics which I can't ascertain.

Now - how much CO2 does a cyclist exhale when cycling one km? How about a walker? How about an unfit person doing the same.

I wonder.

Anyone know if there's a repository of such info?

Reply to
Neil Brownlee
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Tim,

Cheers - just trying to work out the effect of chucking 4 people out of a car and making them cycle :-)

Reply to
Neil Brownlee

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Richard

Reply to
Richard

Here are some interesting comparisons for some common cars.

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Richard

Reply to
Richard

At what speed?

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

I think it's a standard figure for that particular vehicle model, rather than a measurement for that vehicle, and about as useful for your particular circumstances as the "official" fuel consumption.

But a little thought suggests that, since the carbon has to come from the fuel, the CO2 output is proportional to the fuel consumed.

That doesn't help any comparison to cyclists, but there you also have to allow for the "housekeeping"; the energy, and CO2 exhalation, associated with being alive.

What's Gordon's next move? A carbon-based poll tax?

Reply to
David G. Bell

Well I dive a scuba rebreather and we have chemicals for removing the CO2. We worry about them as when the CO2 starts getting past you die. Ruins your day that does. We use a figure of 1 Litre of oxygen a minute input and so that equates to 1.4 grams and it gets turned into roughly 0.7 grams of water and 1.2 grams of CO2.

Now that number is worst case for a big tough navy diver working hard against the current not a little old wimp like me but it will probably do for riding a bike but remember half that is basic life support doing the same trip by electric tram staring aimlessly out of the window.

Ride a kilometre in 2 minutes and the extra CO2 we get about 1 or

2 g/km but, conversely, I'm sat at my desk doing absolutely no kilometres an hour at the moment and I'm still pumping out a gram or so a minute while the Rangie is sitting still at home, totally innocent of CO2 production until I start it up.

Another question is the fact that I have several tons of tree in my garden running the reverse process. Can I claim credit for them?

nigelH

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Reply to
Nigel Hewitt

Remember the merkin who covered his (probably) cadillac with grass.

All starts to make sense.

David

Reply to
rads

As long as you preserve any tree droppings to prevent the oxygen consumed by dead tree matter as it decays outstripping that produced by the tree itself! As a tree gets older this apparently starts to happen as it drops more and begins to rot.

ISTR that about 80% of the world's oxygen comes from algae in the sea, so forget the tree and stop cleaning the bath! I suspect that most of that oxygen is dissolved into the sea though. There's a lot of sea.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

That's about 200 g/km, or about 1900 g/l. Remember that over 2/3 of the weight of CO2 is from the oxygen.

Reply to
David G. Bell

How much difference does running LPG make from running a petrol car?

Reply to
Tom Woods

Neil Brownlee nearly made me spill my Shiraz on 24/03/2006 09:12 by writing:

Lung capacity is about 4 litres, and exhaled air is about 4.5% CO2. (Inhaled is about 0.04%, so negligible for our purposes).

4 litres comes from me being told that was low for my size at a medical (lots of respiratory problems over the years, but I'm a big bugger).

Consider someone working hard at 40 breaths per minute, that's

4.5/100*4*40 = 7.2 l of CO2/minute.

Fast cyclist = 20mph, or 1 mile in 3 minutes.

So that's 21.6 litres of CO2 per mile. At a density of 1.98 kg/m3 (1.98 g/litre), that's about 42g of CO2 per mile.

I don't think that proves anything.

Figures from

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Reply to
Andy Cunningham

On or around Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:12:12 -0000, "Neil Brownlee" enlightened us thusly:

it's bad compared to a car which carries similar load and puts out say

180g/km CO2. Provided, of course, that CO2 is bad.

Much as I love Land Rovers, I have to admit that for example our discovery doesn't have significantly more internal space than for example a Citroen Berlingo Multispace... which is considerably more efficient.

The citroen wouldn't tow a 3T trailer, of course. But then again, it would in all probability tow the normal small trailers we tow for the majority of our towing just as well.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:41:32 -0000, "John Smith" enlightened us thusly:

a 4-stroke NA engine has a swept volume of half it's capacity per revolution. - so a 4.4 doing 2000 RPM inhales 2.2 * 2000 litres per minute. Compressors and blowers are mostly rated in CFM of cubic feet per minute, which are about 27 to the litre, so that's about 163 cfm or about 16 typical garage-sized compressors. it's a LOT of air. And that's a NA engine, not a supercharged one...

Neil: what's your computer reporting for average economy and what's your best guess of average speed?

ah, now that's a good point. Mind you - OK, one 747 puts out mucho CO2, but how many 747s are there compared to cars?

's a bit like the thing about HRH Charlie's Bentley, which is chucking out 4 times the pollution of a small car, but there's onyl one of it and there are millions, literally, of cars. I'd not be surprised to discover that on average there are, all the time, in this country, about 5 million cars on the road, just guessing.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:53:51 -0000, "Richard" enlightened us thusly:

Not strictly relevant, but there seem to be an awful lot of news clients and or services these days that are breaking threading, and I for one think it's a) unnecessary and b) a pain the arse.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Austin Shackles uttered summat worrerz funny about:

But my client copes with it and keeps it in the origional thread even once it has pilaged the subject line. I found the client that didn't was a pain in the arse and could have got around it which meant it was also unecessary.

So until they make square pegs fit round holes assuming both are the same length and volume then we'll just have to stick to using compressed clients to fuel BBQ's

;-)

Lee

Reply to
Lee_D

I found a great website that solves the whole CO2 issue for you.

They calculate your carbon foot print then take your cash off you to ease your conscience, they claim to use the cash to plant woodland (Outside the UK of course).

I used their ready recconer to work out how much it would cost IF I had a Range Rover Sport and drove it like a tw*t for 20,000 miles a year.

I would only have to give them £157.00 a year .........bargain !!!!!!

Reply to
Marc Draper

In message , Marc Draper writes

You give me £157.00 a year and I'll plant a tree for you here in the UK.

Reply to
hugh

On or around Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:49:09 +0100, Marc Draper enlightened us thusly:

well, go on, then, tell us the URL...

Reply to
Austin Shackles

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Reply to
Marc Draper

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