Upsetting the applecart #2 - driving better than walking

[thermidorthelobster]

This appeared in New Scientist recently and I thought some might find it quite interesting.

"You report that 1 kilogram of beef adds the equivalent of 5 kilograms of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, plus other climate-change pollutants (21 July, p 15).  One implication of this is that driving a car is 'greener' than walking - if you're a beef-eater, that is.

"Chris Goodall writes in How to Live a Low-carbon Life:  'Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles adds about 0.9 kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere.'  Walking the 3 miles instead would use about 180 calories.  You'd need about 100 grams of lean beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6 kilograms of emissions - four times as much as driving."

[Terranosaurus]

BTW - you can't count 2 follow 1, not 1.

[thermidorthelobster]

Yeah, sorry, I edited it before you posted  :lol:

[clbarclay]

Who the heck has a pure meat diet? Haven't they heard of roast potatos

STOP eating lean meat and have a decent piece with some natural flavour and laden with slow release energy staright from the beast without unnecissery waste. Fat is perfactly acceptible as part of a balanced diet and lifestyle.


Its an interesting point they were making, but how it actually compares to reality is another matter. How much energy would is used by the person driving the car as well?


Finally an apparent problem in the maths. 100g of beef at a 5:1 (5kg CO2 for every 1Kg of beef) ratio would surely be 500g CO2 compared to the cars 900kg? :?  I'm not saying they are wrong, but can they/you provide further information to explain where the 3.6kg of CO2 comes from?


A final point is that there are a number of people were losing a few calories without replacing them would probably be a good thing (my self included :oops: ).

[thermidorthelobster]

I mistyped - it should have been 6KG emissions for every 1KG beef - but it looks like this itself was a typo in the magazine.  The original article reckoned 1KG of beef was responsible for 36.4KG CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions.

As regards driving, the energy used by a driver driving 3 miles at 60mph would be about 6 calories, which would need about 3g of beef or another 120g of emissions.  So car:  1KG, walking:  3.6KG.

[clbarclay]

Ah good old human error :lol:


Still hasn't turned me vegi.. :-#   nope still can't bring myself to say/type the word.


Would be interesting to see what figures (CO2 per kg) they produce for other foods (and of course beef with its full quota of fat =P~ )


Also how do they compare in terms of CO2 output to intake from the enviroment and overall affect on CO2 in the atmosphere on a yearly bases?

[thermidorthelobster]

Would be interesting to see what figures (CO2 per kg) they produce for other foods (and of course beef with its full quota of fat =P~ )

Apparently, beef is a particular culprit (high fat or low fat, it's both the same per KG, apart from you have to eat more lean beef to get the same amount of calorific energy out of it of course).

Being veggie doesn't help much;  cultivating rice, for example, uses vast amounts of water which leads to depleted aquifers, topsoil erosion, drought, famine etc...

[Biodiesel-Bev]

I think the fact that cows emit so much methane and other noxious gases doesn't help.  Apparently then burp far more than they fart.  Eueeww   :o .
Who'd have thought that Daisy and Buttercup were contributing so much to global warming.   :lol:

[Range Rover Blues]

Wish I could run my car on all those cow farts.

[Biodiesel-Bev]

Wish I could run my car on all those cow farts.

Have strange image of man running round a field full of cows with a gas tank in one hand and a hose in the other!!!    :lol:

[Wireless]

I think the fact that cows emit so much methane and other noxious gases doesn't help.  Apparently then burp far more than they fart.  Eueeww   :o .
Who'd have thought that Daisy and Buttercup were contributing so much to global warming.   :lol:

Methane is 20 times worse a greenhouse gas than CO2, which might be the reason that the figure for greenhouse gas emissions is so high; these figures are possibly given in terms of CO2 emissions, rather than actual CO2 emissions.

Did New Scientist explain exactly how they arrived at the CO2 emissions figure they quote?

[thermidorthelobster]

Did New Scientist explain exactly how they arrived at the CO2 emissions figure they quote?

No, but they link to the original research.  They were talking about CO2 equivalent emissions, not pure CO2 emissions.

[clbarclay]

Wish I could run my car on all those cow farts.

If reared in a suitable builing (draughty old pole barns are not) which collected rising gas then it can be done, but then you have the increase emissions of indoor feeding. Also it is possible to extract bio gas from dung and/or green waste.


I've seen similare investigations into whether bio fuel (typical from Oil Seed Rape) is energy beneficial, some reports finding the energy input requirement higher than the output making it unsustaiable, but then it all depends on how efficiently it is produced which can vary a lot.

[thermidorthelobster]

How about a big balloon attached to the cow's ass?

[clbarclay]

Ballons :?  :lol:

Methain rises being lighter than most atmospheric gasses, so if rises to a roof that funnels it towards the input of a compressor it can be collected and stored in presurised cyliders. Thats the basic theory, the practice is as always some what more comlicated.