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Carbon Dioxide and my journey to work

The other day I started wondering about how pleasant it would be to avoid driving through the rush hour every day to go to a place where, ideally, I'd rather not be .....

My car journey is about 10 miles each way, 200-odd days of the year.

In heavy traffic I get about 40 miles to the gallon (it's a diesel, so the efficiency isn't too bad even under stop-start conditions).

How much carbon dioxide does my journey to work push into the atmosphere each year?

Over 200 working days, I do 20 x 200 miles - 4000 miles.

At 40 to the gallon, that's 100 gallons, or 450 litres.

Petrol weighs about 0.9 kg per litre, so that's 400 kg.

Liquid hydrocarbon fuels are about 85% carbon by mass, which comes to 340 kg.

Multiply by 44/12 and that gives the mass of carbon dioxide.

It comes to about 1.2 metric tons.

This compares with about 4 tons for my personal carbon dioxide contribution to the atmosphere each year.

Nigel Deacon / Habitat21 website

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