Since there has been all this hype about removing carbon emissions,
Why hasn't anyone come up with the concept of totally banning soft drinks, since these are all made with carbon dioxide (for the carbonated water) and unlike electricity and transport fuels are definitely not an essential item to humanity (Debatably quite the opposite) and would cause relatively small disruption to society if banned.
This kind of struck me today when i walked past a bar and saw large cylinders marked carbon dioxide being unloaded for use in drinks.
The carbon diozide used in soft drinks comes from the air. So, they are reducing atmospheric CO2 for the time the CO2 is in the can or bottle. It is later release back into the atmosphere so there is no net gain or loss. The CO2 people are worried about comes from burning fossil fuels where the CO2 comes from the carbon in the fuels combined with oxygen from the air.
Industrial CO2 (including soda water) comes mostly from waste gases produced by power plants, lime production, and from corn to ethenol production.
Were it not used in soft drinks, it would be released to the air and therefore does not count in the atmospheric CO2 calculations.
Some numbers:
Yearly CO2 emitters Billion metric tons per year (Gt/y) Global volcanic emissions (highest estimate) 0.26 Anthropogenic CO2 in 2010 (projected) 35.0 Light-duty vehicles (cars/trucks) 3.0 Approx 24 1000-megawatt coal-fired power stations 0.22
I couldn't find anything on industrial CO2 bottled gas production, but my guess is that it's tiny compared to the above figures.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Ummm... you didn't read it correctly. Man made CO2 production is 35 billion tons per year. Natural sources (i.e. volcanoes) is only 0.26 billion tons per year or 0.7% of what man produces.
Yep. Wanna buy some carbon credits?
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Hmmmm... I suppose removing the CO2 is a good idea. The trees, grass and other plant life wouldn't grow as fast. Less grass to cut. Wait. I don't have to cut the grass.
Hmmmm... I suppose the plant growth would also slow down the oxygen produced too. That might be good! Maybe all the CO2 idiots would suffocate!
**It's not hype. It's all about science. Something you have no familiarity with.
**Because, my scientifically ignorant 'friend', the CO2 used for the production of soft drinks is extracted from the air. IOW, the CO2 in soft drinks is actually assisting with the REMOVAL of CO2 from the atmosphere. That is a good thing. OTOH, a case could be made for banning soft drinks on the basis that they use energy for their manufacture and are, generally, an appalling way for humans to obtain kilojoules.
**Did it strike you to think where that CO2 came from? It is extracted from the atmosphere. Thus carbonated soft drinks actually help with removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
**BIG difference. Beer and some sparkling wines generate their own CO2 via the fermentation process.
**For shame indeed. WFT were you idiots doing when you were supposed to be learning science in school?
Considering the intellectual content of your post, it would seem you are a non-CO2 idiot. CO2 content of the atmosphere is not a limiting factor of plant growth. Moisture, sunlight, minerals, and temperature are the key limiting factors. Temperature is the wild card - as temperatures increase plants at the warmer end of their range no longer thrive. Eventually plants which are hardy at the higher temperature will supplant them, but in the interim there is less growth, and less CO2 absorbed.
It's quite large and constitutes (depending on authority and study) between 5% to 20% of the approximately 35 billion tons of CO2 that man belches each year.
Forest and brush fires are usually included as part of the human contribution to CO2, possibly because many such fires are started by humans. I guess the lightning that starts most US forest fires is also man made.
Of course, it's been suggested that global warming "fuels" forest fires, making the mechanism positive feedback:
"The country's western forests, which traditionally act as storage "sinks" for sequestering 20 to 40 percent of all U.S. carbon output, are now transforming into a source of atmospheric carbon dioxide as they burn up, the authors write."
Incidentally, I'm doing my best to contribute to the problem. During winter, I heat my house with about 2.5 cords of oak and madrone.
"The carbon dioxide released when burning wood (about 1900g CO2 for each 1000g of wood burnt) is balanced by the fact that this carbon was taken up by the tree from the air when it grew. So this part of the emissions is carbon-neutral. However, many other chemicals are produced when wood is burnt, including one of the most potent greenhouse gases, nitrogen dioxide; although the amounts may be small (200 g of CO2 equivalent per kg of wood burnt), the gas is 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and lasts 120 years in the atmosphere." Hmmm... maybe I should install a catalytic converter on the woodburner.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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