I am not sure if I recal this accurately, it was in an article from the
weekend Telegraph motoring section, talking about the Volvo XC90 I
believe.
If memory serves me correctly, the author of the piece said that a
return trip from Guldford to Cornwall added 250kg of CO2 to the
atmosphere.
I don't know if I mis-read the article - surely this isn't possible?

Signature
jeremy
Nick Finnigan - 27 Aug 2004 10:45 GMT
> I am not sure if I recal this accurately, it was in an article from the
> weekend Telegraph motoring section, talking about the Volvo XC90 I
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> I don't know if I mis-read the article - surely this isn't possible?
XC90 is supposed to be about 300 g/km and 22mpg,
so it would need to travel about 500 miles.
Maybe slightly overstated.
Stuart Gray - 27 Aug 2004 21:29 GMT
>> I am not sure if I recal this accurately, it was in an article from the
>> weekend Telegraph motoring section, talking about the Volvo XC90 I
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> so it would need to travel about 500 miles.
> Maybe slightly overstated.
Maybe, but does that include the emissions from the occupants?
David Thornber - 28 Aug 2004 11:24 GMT
>I am not sure if I recal this accurately, it was in an article from the
>weekend Telegraph motoring section, talking about the Volvo XC90 I
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
>I don't know if I mis-read the article - surely this isn't possible?
Are you sure you're not confusing CO2 with CO? CO2 is an unavoidable
product of burning fuel, and a car engine will produce lots of it. CO,
on the other hand, is a product of burning fuel inefficiently, and is
much more harmful (often lethal in confined spaces) but should be almost
entirely eliminated by the catalytic converter.
Don't fret over CO2 emissions. Yep, you're contributing to the
greenhouse effect, but by a trivial amount when compared with other
sources. If I were you, I'd be more worried about the potentially
lethal dihydrogen monoxide that your car is emitting.

Signature
David Thornber
Questions@quickwatchsales.com - 28 Aug 2004 12:24 GMT
>I am not sure if I recal this accurately, it was in an article from the
>weekend Telegraph motoring section, talking about the Volvo XC90 I
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
>I don't know if I mis-read the article - surely this isn't possible?
500 grammes a mile, sounds about right.
The carbon and hydrogen in the fuel end up as carbon dioxide (four times the
mass of the carbon, roughly) and water vapour (eight times the mass of the
hydrogen.)
So if you use fifty litres of fuel, which is somewhere in the vicinity of fifty
kilogrammes, you can anticipate about 250 kilos of CO2 and a similar mass of
water vapour.
Of course, if you do the same thing with a steam train you produce twice this,
all else being equal, a horse is probably ten times, a human being walking the
trip probably manages to produce more like 25 tonnes of CO2 and a lot of other
waste products.
DavidR - 28 Aug 2004 14:44 GMT
> Jeremy > <newspostings@hazelweb.co.uk> said:
> >I am not sure if I recal this accurately, it was in an article from the
> >weekend Telegraph motoring section, talking about the Volvo XC90 I
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> >return trip from Guldford to Cornwall added 250kg of CO2 to the
> >atmosphere.
> Of course, if you do the same thing with a steam train you produce twice
> this, all else being equal, a horse is probably ten times, a human being
> walking the trip probably manages to produce more like 25 tonnes of CO2
> and a lot of other waste products.
25 tonnes? You must have an enormous appetite.
Some of the CO2 and other waste produced by humans/horses comes from plant
material that would have rotted down anyway. The main CO2 contribution from
food is fossil fuel in cooking and transport.