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Average carbon footprints for different direct behaviors, discussion on allowance
Thread started on 15/6/2007 21:21

shannon

footprinting

carbon allowance

heating

electricity

air transport

car transport

public transport

Now that I have taken the leap to start the Maryland Carbon Rationing Action Group, I have all of these little tasks that I need to perform. First of all, I have to set an emissions target per person per year. The CRAGs only count direct emissions that you use that can be measured – they will count your car trips, air travel, electricity, fuel, etc. They don’t count things like the amount of fuel it takes to make and transport your food. I am in the process of looking up average emissions so that I can set a 12.5% reduction target. And I am trying to figure out when our carbon year should begin- since it’s just me and I need to recruit people, I am thinking about having a recruitment month and then a test month or something. I have found a few good spreadsheets and here are some fun facts I have so far (I figure I will put them into an Excel calculator but for now here are the raw numbers in US units):

Air Travel – CO2 emissions in air travel vary by length of flight—ranging from .24 kg CO2 per passenger mile for short flights down to .18 kg CO2 per passenger mile for long flights. 1

Unleaded gasoline has 19.56 lbs CO2/gallon 2
Average US car usage = 12,000 miles per year. 3
The emissions depend on your car, its mpg, etc. Average fuel economy in the US is 20.3 mpg 4

Average MD CO2 emissions from electricity = 1.37 lbs/kWh 5
US residential average annual electricity consumption = 4,401 kWh/year 6

Mass of CO2 per 100 cubic feet (CCF) of natural gas = 12.0593 lbs/CCF 7
The average person using natural gas uses 268.58 CCF/year 8

Mass of CO2 per gallon of kerosene = 21.537 lbs/gallon 9
I don’t have numbers on using this fuel for heat yet.

Mass of CO2 per gallon of diesel and fuel oils 1, 2, and 4 = 22.384 lbs/gallon 10
The average person using fuel oil for heat uses 283.67 gallons/year. 11

Mass of CO2 per gallon of propane = 12.669 lbs/gallon 12
I don’t have numbers on using this fuel for heat yet.

The following fuels have 0 lbs CO2 emissions: geothermal energy, wind, photovoltaic, solar thremal, hydropower, and nuclear. 13

  1. www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/category/Assumptions

  2. www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/category/Assumptions/

  3. www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html

  4. need to cite source

  5. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ee-factors.html#note2

  6. www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/category/Assumptions/

  7. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

  8. www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/category/Assumptions/

  9. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

  10. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

  11. www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/category/Assumptions/

  12. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

  13. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

‹ More members needed! Any landlords or tenants out there? ›
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More US estimates from Andrew Ross

written on 17/6/2007 15:36

shannon

Hi Shannon

I found some interesting info to help you make a start. Or you may want to delve further and discover what the average Marylander’s personal carbon footprint is. Anyway here are the US averages:

Average American Emissions (ref 1)

Home
Electricity: 10,892 kWhs per household per year. = 6.88t CO2
Natural Gas: 781.91 therms per household per year = 4.28t CO2

divide these by US average of 2.57 persons per household (ref 2)

=> electricity per person per year = 2.67t CO2
=> gas per person per year = 1.67t CO2

Auto 12,000 miles per person per year = 5.02t CO2

Air 1,055 miles per person per year = 0.46t CO2 (implies conversion factor of 0.27kgCO2 per km maybe a bit low – ref 3 suggests 0.69t for same distance i.e. 0.41kgCO2 per km)

Total average US personal carbon footprint (electricity, heating, car, plane):
(2.67 + 1.67 + 5.02 + 0.46) = 9.82t CO2, or
(2.67 + 1.67 + 5.02 + 0.69) = 10.05t CO2 applying enhanced impact of aviation emissions (ref 3).

Interesting to compare these to UK average figures for the same things (ref4):
(0.87 + 1.48 + 1.06 +1.80) = 5.21t CO2

Most of the difference seems to be in the electricity (aircon, bigger TV’s, fridges, etc?) and car use (spread out population, less public transport?)

If you applied CRAGs in the US in the same way as most of us are doing it here, you would take this 10t figure and say OK let’s get this down before it’s too late. To get to 0.6t by 2030 (as some now suggest is necessary – see ref 5) it needs to reduce by 12% per year. On that basis a US CRAG target for 2008 could be

10t – (12/100 × 10t) = 8.8t or 8800kgCO2.

I hope you’ve got a bike!

best wishes and keep in touch,

Andy

(1) http://www.carboncounter.org/offset-your-emissions/calculations-explaine… (2) http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2003/tabAVG1.pdf (3) http://www.chooseclimate.org/flying/mf.html (4) http://coinet.org.uk/solutions/carbon_rationing (5) http://portal.campaigncc.org/files/THE_CUTTING_EDGE_CLIMATE_SCIENCE_TO_A…
 
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