Fact checking Elon
#climatechange #carbondioxide #fossilfuels #decarbonization #carbonsequestration
I listened to the Musk Trump interview.? Don’t ask LOL.
But Elon said something that piqued my interest.?
He said that with the CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere, we are adding about 2 ppm of CO2 annually.?
The number sounds about right.? From 1960 to 2012, CO2 levels increased from 317 to 394 ppm so that is about 1.5 ppm on average.
From 2012 to today it has gone from 394 to 420 ppm so that is almost 2.2 ppm annually on average and makes sense too, because our emissions have increased, so the annual rate has also increased. So, his statement that the increase is about 2 ppm annually is correct.
?But I was wondering, could we calculate that?? Let’s give it a shot.
?In 2023 it was reported that we added 35.8 giga tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.? That is 35.8 X 10^9 MT (35.8 billion metric tonnes).
Note: Sorry LinkedIn seems to not allow for superscripts so 10 to the power of 9 is written as 10^9.
A metric tonne (MT) is 1,000 kg.? I have no way to verify that annual emission but have to assume that with so many eyeballs on this issue they should have a good handle on this figure.? However, let’s not forget that they have to rely on stats provided by individual countries.? China has over 3,000 operating coal-fires plants.? In 2023 they added almost 50 GW more of coal plants (and have another 600 GW + under construction and planned).? So, assuming that they are reporting properly ?? let’s go with the 35.8 billion MT for the purposes of this calculation.
We are pumping into the atmosphere, which is a finite space.? So, if we know the volume or the weight of the atmosphere, we can easily calculate the percentage increase in CO2 caused by pumping an additional 35.8 billion MT as of last year.
?A quick Google search gave me the result that the atmosphere weighs 5.5 quadrillion tonnes which is 5.5 X 10^15 MT of air. That’s all we need but I wonder if we can verify this??
?The atmosphere is complex with several layers getting thinner and thinner until you are officially in ‘outer space’.? But most of mass and action happens in the lowest layer which stretches up to about 11 km from the surface of the earth.? About ? of the mass is there and that’s where clouds are, and planes fly.??
So, we need the volume of that shell.? Easy.? The volume of a sphere is (4/3)πr^3 so we just need to calculate the volume of a sphere of radius earth + 11 km, then subtract the volume of the earth based on its radius and what will be left is the volume of the shell 11 km thick.? The earth's radius is 6.578 km.
So, we calculate the volume of a sphere of radius 6,578 km + 11 km and then subtract the volume of a sphere 6,578 km.? Plugging in the numbers I get
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5.6 X 10^9 (km)3.? That is of course cubic kilometers so that works out to 5.6 X 10^18 m3.? At sea level density of air is 1.204 kg/m3.? But at 11 km up it is only about 30% of that.? I checked the graph of density decrease with altitude and although not linear, I'm lazy so let's just take the average density at 65% of sea level for the whole shell for the purpose of our calculation.? So, the average density of air throughout our shell is assumed to be 0.78 kg/m3.?By this calculation we get a shell consisting of:
5.6 X10^18 m3 of air,?times an average density of 0.78 kg/m3?gives 4.37 X 10^18 kg of air or 4.37 X 10^15 MT of air.? And if 75% of the mass of the atmosphere is in this 11 km shell, then the entire mass of the atmosphere would be 5.82 X 10^15 ?MT.? Amazingly close to the Google value of 5.5 quadrillion MT, so let’s use the Googled value.
?Currently there is about 420 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is 0.042% by volume but CO2 weighs more than the nitrogen and oxygen that makes up the rest of the air (ignoring the Argon and other trace gases) so by weight, the CO2 represents 0.0642% of the atmosphere.? I did this calculation before?
?so won’t repeat it here.
?So at 5.5 X 10^15 MT times 0.000642 = 3.53 trillion MT of CO2 presently in the atmosphere.? So if we add the same amount this year as last year, 35.8 billion MT, that would be an increase of 1.01%.? So, from 420 ppm that would be an increase to 424 pm or 4 ppm.? Double than what historic shows.
?Assuming the calculations about are correct, then two conclusions can be drawn.
1.? The amount of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere is overstated.
?2.? There is natural sequestration which is taking out half of the CO2 we are pumping in.?
i.e. above calculation would assume that we are overwhelming natural systems and so whatever we put in is accumulating exactly by what we put in.
But perhaps we are fortunate that half is being sequestered.? Still need to do something of course to curb emissions??
Anyway, that is just my back of the envelope calculations to fact check Elon ???
Let me know what you think.?
Comments welcome.
Global Analytical Quality Manager
7 个月The spirit of elons statement was true. Lets keep it under 1000 ppm lads!
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7 个月Very interesting and conclusional calculation and explanation. If we use all the CO2 to let it be eaten by algae we could safe the planet with half the effort, because 1 ton of algae stores 2 tons of CO2. If we all start looking for solutions there may be a solution, without having the necessity that some Germans are glueing themselves to airports to safe the world. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and insights and I am sorry that you had to go through the Musk Trump argument!