Updated: 22 Sep., 2006

California's Carbon Dioxide Folly By Charles Kubach, Mine-Engineer.Com 22 Sep, 2006

Where does most of the carbon dioxide emissions from California originate? Motor vehicles driven 12,000 miles per year will contribute 5 tons annually per vehicle, with about 20,000,000 vehicles in the state, this amounts to over 100,000,000 tons of CO2 per year. Then there are 13 cement plants operating in California (about 10% of the nations cement plants are in California), which produce about 85,000,000 tons of CO2 per year, while producing over 98,000,000 tons of cement. Then there is the power generating industry, which accounts for about 67,000,000 tons of CO2 per year. (California buys a lot of its electricity from neighboring states), and over 50% of its power plants are fueled by natural gas. But there is another source completely overlooked by the most scientists, people. Humans produce about 1,963 lbs of CO2 per year*, just by breathing. When multiplied by the 33,000,000 residents, this comes to 32,389,500 tons of CO2 per year. Human respiration accounts for roughly 11% of all CO2 emissions in the state, and even more if animals and pets are included. So roughly this is a total of 284,389,500 tons of CO2 per year (including the 32,000,000 tons produced by breathing humans). These figures are approximate as of 2004. Globally in 2004, 26,000,000,000 tons of CO2 were released into the atmosphere. California's share of global emissions is 1%, a drop in the bucket. Therein lies the Law Makers Folly. Even if the emissions were reduced by 50%, the air in California would not get any cleaner, for reasons illustrated below. India, for instance releases about 1.4 billion tons of CO2 per year (almost 5 times California's CO2 emissions), and have little if any pollution systems in place, and as their economy is rapidly expanding, their emissions will expand by millions of tons per year (more than California produces, probably). The brain dead legislature led by the equally mentally deficient governor, have declared war on CO2 emissions in California and want the taxpayers, citizens and industry to pay for their costly folly. In their illusionist dream world, they claim that by reducing the CO2 emissions from California utilities, industries and autos, they will save the world from climate change, by reducing greenhouse gasses. I understand that politicians are not very bright. Also, most intelligent people would not want their muck raking, hand under the table, back room dealing career. However, to be objective, would this costly plan, that is bound to cost California citizens trillions of dollars, and send hundreds of thousands currently employed in well paying jobs to the unemployment lines, actually work? One major scientific fact about carbon dioxide is that when it is released into the atmosphere, like all gasses, it disperses in all directions, and is equally divided in the atmosphere and troposphere. It does not just hang out over California. So if California were to bankrupt its remaining industries, drive out all intelligent industries and reduce the CO2 emisions, would the air actually be any better? Well, considering that industries that don't want to face bankruptcy will relocate to another state (or South of the Border), they will continue to produce CO2, which will drift back over California. Then when China, India, or a collection of 3d world plants, with absolutely no pollution controls, crank out a billion or so new tons of CO2 to produce goods needed by the world and Californian's, this will also drift over California. Considering the lost production of basic elements required for the modern lifestyle that we enjoy, such as cement (the Romans made their great civilization's foundation on cement), electricity, and other products, Californian's will have to import them at much greater cost. And they will also benefit from much more pollution from the CO2 produced by these foreign manufacturing and production entities. I could go on and on, citing reference after reference and argument after argument, showing the fallacy of such legislation, but I think this is more than adequate to show whether it might actually improve the CO2 in California's air. There is not a chance in hell that the air quality would improve, in fact it would get worse. What would happen is the freeways would not be crowded, because only a few people could afford to live in their $800,000, 1500 square foot house without a job, and even fewer could afford their $50,000 econobox automobile, that previously cost $15,000, much less the fuel to go into it. Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and even old Mexico would gain a tremendous boost to their economy, and have a standard of living that would afford them the spare change to purchase the State of California, in Bankruptcy Court. So no, their tree hugger inspired legislation would do nothing, accomplish only the financial ruin of the citizens and the industry that reside in the state, while the CO2 levels in the atmosphere would continue to rise. However they would all pat themselves on the back, and exclaim, "Look at what we did for the Environment and the People ", absolutely nothing positive. And it would only cost the state its financial future. But do they care? No, not one bit, they are not very bright, as I said before, and they keep their heads buried in the tree hugger organization reports that tell them "this is the right thing to do". So does this mean there is no answer. No, but the California legislature and governor certainly don't have a clue as to what it might be. They have made that very clear by passing this ridiculous legislation. Personally I think that, with aggressive investment in technology, over the next 20-50 years, we can reduce our CO2 levels to very little, however, if the US stopped producing any CO2, the rest of the world would continue to crank out billions of tons, which we would enjoy in our atmosphere. Some cry out the UN should do something. There is not a more worthless organization in existence than the UN. They are impotent, petty politicians, so factionalized they are only out to get their cut of the industrialized world's resources, push their international pork barrel projects and generally stand in the way of any real progress. The UN is totally useless. Some scientists at Los Alamos have been working on a rather ingenious idea of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, irregardless of the source. It's current technological state is rather crude, but it does work. Basically, they can process atmospheric air which typically has average amounts of CO2 at 370 PPM, and react it with various substances, such as quicklime, and remove the CO2. From there the carbon dioxide can be used in processes (such as refining oil), or reacted with other material and CO2 is transformed into a solid rock. They estimate that this crude process would only cost about $0.20/gallon of gasoline. A fraction of the trillions California is going to spend on its boondoggle. This is a very good idea, since it does not depend upon countries that we have no control over, releasing tons of CO2 into the air. We would simply remove it, and perhaps some day, get them to pay for their share of the cost. If this method were adopted, along with R&D on new technologies to produce energy and material we need with fewer and fewer CO2 emisions, we would achieve the result desired. But this is too scientific for California Tree Huggers and their paid for lobby (the legislature) to understand, it is Science, and it works. They prefer wishful thinking and their typical left winged brand of BS, which will only bankrupt this Once Great State. * A human at rest consumes 0.01 CFM of Oxygen, while exhaling 0.0075 CFM of carbon dioxide. A human during moderate exercise consumes 0.07 CFM of oxygen and exhales 0.063 CFM of carbon dioxide. Since, on average, one is at rest 33% of the day and active 67% of the day, one would consume a weighted average of 0.05 CFM of oxygen, and exhale a weighted average of 0.045 CFM of carbon dioxide. The density of carbon dioxide at STP is 0.083 lbs/CuFt. There are 525,600 minutes in a year. This means that the average person will exhale 1,963 lbs of carbon dioxide per year. That is 0.98 tons of carbon dioxide per year, per person.

But that's just my opinion. Charles Kubach 4 Sep., 2006 Mine-Engineer.Com Return To Mining Information Page