Math Exercise

Givens:

• 19.64 lbs of CO2 are produced from burning a gallon of gasoline.
• 1.22 lbs of CO2 are produced from turning Natural Gas into a kWh of Electricity.
• The average US driver travels 12,000 miles per year and gets about 30 miles per gallon.
• The average home in California uses 6,000 kWh per year.
• Assume all electricity comes from natural gas in the following examples

Results:

• Vehicle Emissions = 21.5 lbs of CO2 per day
• Power related Emissions from a 100% NG powered home = 20 lbs of CO2 per day

Note:

While this exercise is hypothetical it's surprising how similar daily CO2 emissions are between these two "activities"... i.e. Driving a gasoline car and powering an NG home produce about the same about of CO2.

More Givens:

• NGCC = Natural Gas Combined Cycle - it's a common type of power plant 
• Average vehicle emissions of hydrocarbons: .21 lbs per day
• Average NGCC emissions of hydrocarbons: .002933 lbs per day
• Average vehicle emissions of carbon monoxide: 1.57 lbs per day
• Average NGCC emissions of carbon monoxide: .001467 lbs per day
• Average vehicle emissions of NOx: .10 lbs per day
• Average NGCC emissions of NOx: .005161 lbs per day

Results

• An average vehicle emits around 60 times more hydrocarbons, 1000 times more carbon monoxide and 20 times more NOx than a hypothetical 100% NG powered California home. 

More Notes: 

It's surprising how much relative pollution comes from cars when viewed from a non-CO2 standpoint. Extra surprising when you consider that the average US home has 2 drivers.

If my math is off well then fuck me.... Given these ridiculous comparative pollution numbers you'd have to think my math must be way way off but in my defense I channel checked the numbers across two separate sources and they were spot on.

• Above we established that CO2 emissions from a car are about equal to the CO2 emission from a NG powered CA home. 
• Forget CO2. 
• An average vehicle pollutes around 60 times more hydrocarbons, 1000 times more carbon monoxide and 20 times more NOx than a hypothetical 100% NG powered CA home. 

I started this post thinking... hmmm... math is fun... At the end of this post I'm feeling sick... How is it that we're being distracted by CO2 metrics while all this pollution flies under the radar?

How did we lose sight of the fact that pollution is currently murdering multiple ecosystems worldwide? Given that pollution is a clear and present danger why are people so worried about global warming impacting their grand children? How are unborn grandchildren more important than today's tortured ecosystems? Anybody know? I sure don't. I'm at a complete fucking loss.