Sunday, June 2, 2019

CO2 Explained

Peaking at 8 billion tons, 80% carbon, 6.4 Gt (Giga tons or billion tons) of carbons in 2010

Peaking at 35 billion barrels that is 5 billion tons/year, 85% carbon, 78% burnt, 3.7 Gt tons in 2010. 75% is burnt in motor vehicles.
Aprox 10 Gt in 2010. It verifies.

"Carbon dioxide concentrations have shown several cycles of variation from about 180 parts per million during the deep glaciations of the Holocene and Pleistocene to 280 parts per million during the interglacial periods. Following the start of the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric CO2 concentration increased to over 400 parts per million and continues to increase, causing the phenomenon of global warming."

"As of 2010 it constitutes about 0.041% by volume of the atmosphere, (equal to 410 ppm) which corresponds to approximately 3200 billion metric tons of CO2, containing approximately 870 billion metric tons of carbon." (870 Gt)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere

Approx. 1/3 of the existing carbon dioxide in atmosphere is due to human activity in the last 100 years with an average of less than 5 Gt carbon/year meaning less than 500 Gt. It verifies. 100 years is a an extremely short period on geological scale.

I made a mistake in a previous post about the contribution of motor vehicles to production of carbon dioxide when i said it was 1%. In reality as seen above that number is 28% of which only 5.6% is usefull, rest of it being wasted. 22.5% of the carbon we put in the atmosphere is for no reason at all. By switching to electric, if that fuel was burnt in plants producing electricity at 45% efficiency, that waste could be reduced by 25% or 7% of total carbon emissions.

But cars with combustion engine waste twice of that amount by turning roughly half of that energy use into heat while braking because they do not use regenerative braking as electric and hybrids do so they waste twice as more energy. So the final percentage is about double or 14%.

About half of this amount of carbon emission reduction is obtained by using hybrid cars because they use regenerative braking but those are very complicated technologically and pose the cumulated maintenance problems from both classic combustion and electric. Electric cars are very easy to maintain because there's no oil change, brake replacement and other occasional repairs.

Another way to significantly reduce carbon emissions is using frontal washers and the newer heat pump driers. Doing laundry uses a good percentage of household consumption, maybe 20%. Front load washers use less energy per use and per using less heated water. Heat pump driers use up to 50% of the energy and do not need vents and they dry cleaner (air is on closed circuit, and is not pulled from walls when windows are closed).

A heat pump drier basically has a heat pump similar to a window AC that works as a dehumidifier wile recycling air and energy.

They will eventually get cheaper in time but they already could pay for themselves in a couple of years or so (average cost for electricity for drying in an american house is 250 dollars a year for 1.4 MWh of electricity used for drying and a heat pump drier costs right now about 300 dollars more).

"Heat pump dryers can, therefore, use up to 50% less energy required by either condensation or conventional electric dryers."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_dryer#Heat_pump_dryers

Cars like Hyundai, Prius, more newer others have huge dashboards because of their very inclined windshield per cause of aerodynamic shape with more than one square meter or 10 sqft of dashboard.

What makes you turn your AC on in your car at 75 degrees outside? At 75 degrees you only need the AC when it's sunny and your dashboard sizzles because of it. One square meter of dashboard probably generates up to 1 kW of heat inside your car, or half of your household average use.

By example car roofs are insulated towards interior and some are reflective with color white most. But on sunny days your dashboard produces maybe an average 1 HP (750 watts) of heat inside the car that you are cooling of course with one HP of mechanical power from engine operating at 20% efficiency, or 5% of your car's average power. (Isn't that kinda stupid).

What if you installed solar panels on your dashboard? You could probably operate an electric AC only when needed that is only when it's sunny outside and you'll get of course less heat in your car from Sun cause some of visible and infrared light reaching dashboard through your windshield is turned into electricity in that solar panel.

For example a 5000 BTU window AC uses about 400 watts to cool an average room. But a car is much smaller, you could use half of that or the energy necessary for a small refrigerator.

But you could also probably charge your battery in the parking lot. 10 hours of charging at 1 kW (roof + hood + dashboard) could mean one hour or more of driving at 10 kW. Or you could simply unfold a solar panel from your trunk, cover your car with it and have your battery charged 10-20% or something by your lunch break. (It takes 9 hours to charge a 90 kWh battery 10 percent with a 1000 watt solar panel 3 by 2 meter. Like the Lunar rovers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+panels+charge+battery

Same with your house. AC is fighting mostly the heat generated by the roof and walls, (not air's temperature), which goes into the range of many kW in a hot sunny day. Wouldn't be nice if you would have part of your house' roof and walls covered with solar panels which will charge your car's battery. No need for expensive electronics to connect your solar panels to the grid or generate AC. Instead you could charge a battery during day time and exchange it with that in your car that can be modular, something like a drawer (or some electronics operating with less than 100% that could transfer overnight energy from that battery to your car's). Those solar panels will also absorb much infrared energy and you'll need less if any AC working at your house. Etc.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Friendly comments welcome

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.