EnviroLink Forum

Hi All, I am all for saving the world (or for trying to slow down the constant changing of the planet). Like all of us I am also very much concerned about the ever warming climate and the probable results of that.
The "carbon footprint" of things seems to be the biggest single cause of the problem. The "brainwashers" of this world have pretty much succeeded in making us belief that it is the "human carbon footprint" which is the main culprit for global warming especially the use of crude oil (fossil fuel) - but is it really ?
The world currently use about 90 million barrels of crude a day which is about 0.0143 cubic kilometers of oil a day x 3 (the scientists say that burning one barrel of crude produces about 3 times the amount of CO2) x 365 (days in a year) x 160 years (that's about how long humans have used crude oil in large quantities) = approx 2,500 cubic kilometers of CO2 produced by all the crude used over the last 160 years by us humans - it is probably much less as we did not consumed 90 million barrels a day right from the start but slowly buid up to that quantity over the 160 years.
The newspapers have reported that the volcanic outburst a while ago that caused so much problems for the airlines, has spewed more than 20,000 cubic kilometers of CO2 into the atmosphere in just 6 days - that is 8 times more than all the crude released over 160 years did!
I think that the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by all the volcanic eruptions over the last 160 years is vastly more than that of all the crude used over the same period.
I have read that the amount of CO2 released annually by veld fires around the world is also much more that released by crude in the same year.
The amount of CO2 exhaled per year by the 7 billion people on earth (not even taking the animals into account) is more than the amount of CO2 released per year by burning crude! Crude oil probably contributed less than 1 part in 2,000,000 towards the total CO2 being released into our atmosphere over the last 160 years. I know every little bit helps but are we not perhaps worrying ourselves to death over one little raindrop in a heavy rainstorm?
Regards, Eddie

Man's production of CO2 isn't confined to crude oil : you've left out coal, wood burning and the damage we cause by forest clearing: which removes healthy, co2-removing trees.

I also believe you'r take on volcanoes is incorrect and their have been studies stating so.

The sooner we move from oil as a motive-force to cleaner sources, the better.

Yes, it is.



You cannot use liquid volume instead of mass for such a calculation.



No, that is wrong.

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO2 budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO2 is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.



The data does not support this conclusion.



I would question your reading material, but moreso the understandign of the carbon cycle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire

Forest fires in Indonesia in 1997 were estimated to have released between 0.81 and 2.57 gigatonnes (0.89 and 2.83 billion short tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere, which is between 13%–40% of the annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.[96][97]



Again the lack of understanding of the difference between carbon within the carboen cycle and sequestered carbon being released is significant.



No, not the amount being released, but you are confused over what is released into the cycle and what is moving within that cycle.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
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I was going to say 'hello' eddie, but I'm wondering if you're still here after Wayne's cannonade!

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'Where mercy, love and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too'

http://holy-lance.blogspot.com

Re the last sentence:

I agree, but it is going to cost us...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front ... 631864.stm

_________________
'Where mercy, love and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too'

http://holy-lance.blogspot.com

Cannonade? Moi? I did not even point out a gas will expand to any volume regardless of concentration or anything.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

LOL! Thank you, Wayne, for informing another ignorant skeptic of the real facts. There are so many of them, ignorant of AGW, ignorant of ecology, ignorant of basic math, and ignorant in general.
Then you have the mentally ill ones posting here, like mothy, who I think should be banned.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

But Johhny, is it not okay to question? If not, then why are we here? If Wayne can clarify and educate, then why can't you? Do you not realize that we are all in this together? It's not about us vs. them. You seem to think that you are up against lesser life forms. Pshaaaaw! One might appreciate the question as much as the answer. There is a relationship between the two!

i think that the one thing is confirm that the crude oil contribute to the global warming and the production of co2 not confine the crude oil and in some factories there is no use of the coal and the wood burning they produce oil while using a garbage waste material and fulfill their needs.so CO2 effects.

I like to do things myself as the original poster of this thread did so here is my attempt:

a little bit of chemistry: most oil-based fuels have at least 7 carbon atoms in each molecule and most of the rest of the molecule is hydrogen... the smallest atom. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has one carbon atom and 2 slightly bigger oxygen atoms. If we compare molecules, one gasoline molecule (mostly heptane - 7 carbons), when completely burned, produces 7 molecules of CO2 which all weigh a bit more then 3 times as much as the carbon alone. That hydrogen has no neutrons in it's nucleus so it's molecular weight is about 1 and carbon is about 12 and heptane would have 7 x 2 + 2 = 16 hydrogen atoms. For simplicity that is about the same as 8 carbons for heptane making about 7 x 3 = 21 carbons-worth of CO2. Oxygen is about 15 for molecular weight so we can correct that as (15+15+12)/(12 x 3) x 21 = 24.5 or an expansion factor of about 24.5/8.2 = 3.

world crude oil consumption for 2010 is a bit more then 87,000 thousand barrels (http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=5&aid=2). Assuming a gradual steady increase since 1925 to 2010 (see graph below), the triangle formed is half the area so an estimate is going to be 87,000 x (2010-1925) / 2 = about 3 700 000 thousand barrels. A barrel of Texas crude is 138.8 kg. One range I found was 125.600 154.695 (depending on type) so lets use 140 kg. I will use tonnes instead of tons (a ton is about 9/10 of a tonne) which are 1000 kg. This then gives us 3 700 000 000 x 140 x 3 / 1000 = 1 554 000 000 tonnes of CO2. This is of course only crude oil and does not include natural gas (1 carbon atom and 4 hydrogen so also expands about a factor of (15 + 15 + 12)/(12 + 4)= 2.625) and propane (42 x 3 / ((3 x 2 +2)+(3 x 12))=2.864) which account for more carbon then crude by far.

edit: I am not done... we need to know how many cubic kilometers of CO2 that is for the comparison. The density of CO2 at sea level (STP = Standard Temperature and Pressure) is 1.9769 g/L and on average, it will be half that (as we move toward outer space). A liter is a cubic decimeter and 10 000 decimeters is a kilometer so there are 10 000^3 = 1 000 000 000 000 liters in a cubic kilometer and 1000 000 g in a tonne. This makes the calculation to be 1 554 000 000 x 1 000 000 x 2 / 1.9769 / 1 000 000 000 000 = 1 572 cubic kilometers. That still seems small.

edit 2: haha... that consumption number was PER DAY! That makes my totals to be 574 173 cubic kilometers (and about 567 000 000 000 tonnes)

edit 3: a more careful estimation of total use using that graph could be:
130 x (1970-1925) / 2 + 70 x (2012-1970) + (130-70) x (1980-1970) /2 = 6 165 000 000 "bbls" (compared to my first estimate of 3 700 000 000). This makes for a correction factor of 5/3 (1.66621) so we now get 956 700 cubic kilometers of CO2.

"Total global emissions [of CO2 from natural gas] for 2004 were estimated at over 27,200 million tons." and the total use could be estimated (link to graph below) as ((1970-1930)/2 + (2012-1970)) x 27 200 million tons x 1.1023 tonne/ton = 1 859 000 000 000 tonnes of CO2 from natural gas. Converted to cubic kilometers ( x 2 / 1.9769 / 1 000 000) we get 1 880 000 cubic kilometers (that is just the natural gas contributions).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Natural_Gas_Production_1900-2005.png

edit: using WORLD production graph instead (link below) this is my estimate relative to 2004:
(2012-1925) - (2012 - 2 x ((2012-(2012-2004) x 2)-1987) x (1/3) / 2) - ((1987-1925) x ((1/3) + (2/3)/2)) = 87-1.5-41.3 = 44.2. This gives us 44.2 x 27 200 x 1.1023 = 1 325 000 000 000 tonnes (correction factor 0.713) making 1 340 000 a better estimate of cubic kilometers of CO2 from natural gas use. Note that this does not include flaring which is burning off natural gas when it is too expensive to try to sell it (as was done a lot for decades before natural gas became expensive and sulfur was no longer allowed as a pollutant). It also probably does not include natural gas used by the extraction and purification processes of petrochemicals by the company who extracted the natural gas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Natural_gas_consumption.png