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Monday, June 11, 2007

Sceptic Tank

Those who have had the misfortune to read this blog regularly will know that the Gorse Fox is fairly sceptical about the impact of CO2 on Climate Change.

Like many Starfleet is trying to measure its carbon footprint. (Indeed, it has a very good record on the reduction of pollutants generally, over the years). GF has been asked to track his travel and record it in a spreadsheet which uses government numbers to indicate how much CO2 GF is creating.

But... can you trust the Government numbers?
  • GF's car uses diesel.
  • Diesel weighs in at 850 grams per litre.
  • GF averages 52-56 mpg (lets say 50mpg for simplicity as he has never done less than that in the last 30 months)
  • Round trip to Worcester is 340 miles (6.8 gallons) which at 4.546 litres/gal = 30.9 litres (say 31)
  • So the total weight of diesel consumed is 31 * 0.85kg = 26.35 kg
  • yet the spreadsheet (based on Government estimates) says he's created 85.5 kg of CO2 (apparently creating 3.24 times as much CO2 as there was raw diesel in tank)
  • GF appears to be creating matter very efficiently (in contravention of Lavoisier's Law of the Conservation of Mass)
Makes one want to go "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"


Update:
An answer (never let it be said the GF is not willing to learn!!!),
The eight molecules of CO2 weigh about three times more than the one molecule of octane you started with. That doesn't mean you've violated the law of conservation of mass; instead, you've added the weight of the oxygen from the air to the weight of the carbon from the gasoline.

See: The Slate
and Terrapass

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