rosen380 t1_jbixx7y wrote
That says a mature tree will absorb 48 pounds of co2 per year. CO2 is 20% carbon by weight, so that is 9.6 pounds.
If the car is capturing 4.5 pounds of carbon per 20k miles, then sounds like it is really more like 25-35% of what a tree does for normal driving distances
[Edit] Well, not even since the article says 4.5 pounds of co2, not carbon. In that case, it is more like 5-7%!
shastaxc t1_jbjb3xi wrote
That's why they said ten of these cars would equal 1 tree
rosen380 t1_jbjcayp wrote
You are right-- I missed the "ten" in front :(
Though it is still an exaggeration since (1) 4.5 pounds is (a little) less than a tenth of 48 pounds, and (2) 20,000 miles per year is certainly not a typically driven car; that is likely 95th-98th percentile.
In the US 12-15k is more typical and I'd guess the sort of folks who really care about the environment tend toward the lower end of that (choosing not to drive when not needed and combining trips).
Looks like ~14-18 equally one tree is closer to reality, and that is before comparing the CO2 output to build the system into the car and dealing with the used filters to I guess what the CO2 costs are to get a tree planted (in a way that it'll at least survive to maturity)
shastaxc t1_jbjcs1y wrote
Yes but if every electric vehicle had this feature, it would really add up, especially as EVs start to take increasing market share
rosen380 t1_jbjervo wrote
Why stop there... lets put one on every vehicle in the US.
The average American driver drives 13,476 miles per year[1]. Times ~240 licensed drivers is 3.2T miles driven.
At 4.5 pounds of CO2 per 20,000 miles, that is 728M pounds of CO2 per year.
At 48 pounds per mature tree, that is like 15M trees.
Just for comparison, adding 15M trees, would add 0.0066% to the total number of trees in the US.
Or another way to look at it; 728M pounds of CO2 is what you get from burning 36.4M gallons of gasoline. For reference, in the US we burn about that much gasoline every 144 minutes on average.
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Even before you consider actually producing these devices, installing them and handling the used filters, they are rounding error on rounding error.
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shastaxc t1_jbjjbiy wrote
Yes, that's what would happen once a majority of vehicles in the road are electric. You have to roll out these types of regulations slowly for them to work well. Targeting it at EVs to start makes sense because the manufacturers are consumers are aligned in the interest of going green. Only after a significant proportion of vehicles have this feature can you then extend the regulation to gas powered vehicles, when public opinion is on the government's side and can shame/boycott manufacturers into committing to the new feature. Otherwise, they will find the cheapest way to implement it, or lobby against it, or self sabatoge the feature (like making it difficult or expensive for the owner to maintain) in order to eventually turn public opinion and have the regulation removed.
rosen380 t1_jbjlirs wrote
But that was the point I was making -- EVEN IF you could get these installed in every vehicle IMMEDIATELY (which we can't) and EVEN IF there was virtually no CO2 emissions related to building them and installing them and taking care of used filters (and there would be some), they'd have almost literally no impact.
It would be equivalent to enacting some sort of legislation that would reduce the average annual driving for Americans from 13,476 miles to 13,472 miles.
Sure, it is better if people drive even 4 miles less than they do now and every little bit helps, but in this instance we are talking about an absurdly tiny little bit.
shastaxc t1_jbjtsa2 wrote
With the math you provided earlier, it should be equivalent to driving 144 hrs less for every car. It doesn't seem like much, true. But when combined with every vehicle also producing 0 emissions and consuming 0 gas in the hypothetical where all vehicles are EV, it then contributes to negative emissions. This sort of regulation in a vacuum does not make much of an impact. It requires other changes. But 100 of these incremental improvements would make a difference.
rosen380 t1_jbjvh2w wrote
144 **MINUTES**, not **HOURS**. And to save you the math, that is out of 525,000 minutes per year. literally measured in hundredths of a percent.
The environmental impact of switching from an ICE to an EV is literally hundreds to thousands of times greater than the impact of having versus not having this carbon sequestration device.
It takes 100 similar improvements just to get to rounding error!
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What's next? A nickel per hour increase to minimum wage to help the poor?
shastaxc t1_jbk0bw0 wrote
I feel like you're mistaking my conversation as an argument so I'm gonna stop here. Congrats on winning the argument.
FillThisEmptyCup t1_jbk70fs wrote
After 20k miles, you gather up as much co2 as about burning 1/4 of a gallon of gas. Making and hauling this equipment around in the car certainly burns many times more energy than it can possibly save in CO2.
shastaxc t1_jbkakr0 wrote
You're assuming that the electricity is generated using fossil fuels?
certainlyforgetful t1_jbjohwj wrote
Except trees don’t need to get plugged in.
Carbon capture is a scam
self-assembled t1_jbjm7b6 wrote
Having the filter on the front makes the car less efficient, requiring more energy, producing co2. Probably the total effect is 0 or negative.
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