Bio 105 – The major component of any fossil fuel is carbon

15 Jun Bio 105 – The major component of any fossil fuel is carbon

Question
You’re Causing Rapid Climate Change Worksheet

The major component of any fossil fuel is carbon. It forms seventy-five percent of methane, the major component of high-grade natural gas. Carbon forms eighty-four percent of octane, which typifies most gasolines, and it forms eighty percent of good anthracite coal.

Now here’s the catch. Since each carbon atom joins with two heavier oxygen atoms, CO2 molecules are much heavier than the carbon in fuels. Each pound of fuel yields almost three pounds of CO2. That takes some digesting. Our first reaction is, “It’s only a gas; it surely can’t amount to much.” But each gallon of gasoline produces twenty pounds of carbon dioxide.

Our consumption of fossil fuels has now caused the CO2 content of Earth’s air to be higher than it would normally be. It’s certainly impacting our climates. How much is subject to a pretty fierce debate, but global temperatures are definitely on the rise. While better analysts than I try to determine exactly what part of the rise comes from CO2 greenhouse effects, we’d be crazy not to look for ways of reducing the CO2 in our air.

Your CO2 “footprint” is basically a measurement of how much carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere as a result of your individual actions. Transportation choices are just one component of a CO2 footprint – but can often be the most significant. How big is yourtransportation footprint? And how does it compare with that of your classmates? Through this activity you will calculate your transportation CO2footprint for one trip remembering that as a rough estimate, the burning of one gallon of gasoline produces about 20lbs of CO2.

How to Calculate Your Car’s Miles Per Gallon (MPG) Yield

You must use this method and not just guess a value or use the value that the manufacture or a web site gives. We want to see what you car is actually getting with your driving.

1. Fill up your car’s gas tank all the way (till the pump clicks off). Before you leave the gas station write down the odometer mileage shown in your vehicle.

2. Record the odometer mileage reading for your car on the worksheet.

3. Drive your car as you normally would, and let your gas tank deplete to at least a half of a tank. (The lower you let your tank go, the better average rating you will get, but don’t run out of gas!)

4. Get to the gas station and fill your tank again (once more wait for the pump to click off).

5. Get a receipt, as this will show the amount of gas in gallons that you pumped. Note the mileage on your odometer.

6. Record the amount of gas it took to refill the tank on the worksheet.

7. Record the new odometer mileage on the worksheet.

8. Calculate the miles traveled by subtracting the first odometer reading from the second reading.

9. Divide the miles traveled by the amount of gallons it took to refill the tank. The result will be your car’s average Miles Per Gallon yield for that driving period.

10. Calculate the information required and post your results to the Q&A forum on the class web site by Friday.

11. Complete the work sheet and upload this document by the assignment due date.

Note that the syllabus includes a vehicle to use so that you may complete the worksheet assignments such as this one. If you do not have your own car then arrange to collect the data from one of your acquaintances or family members who do have a vehicle.

You must post your values for table rows A, B, G and Question 4 to the Q&A from by noon on Friday.
Results

A. Make and model of vehicle

B. Year of vehicle

C. Starting Odometer Reading

D. Ending Odometer Reading

E. Miles Driven (show your math)

F. Gallons of Gas Pumped
(Gas fill up 2)

G. Miles per gallon (show your math)

1. To driveto theAcademy Sports Outdoors store at 1689 Eisenhower Pkwy, Macon, GAfrom GMC in Milledgeville GA is how many miles? Use an Internet site such as Google maps or Yahoo maps to find this out.

2. How many gallons of Gas will the trip to Academy and back to Milledgeville use? Show your math calculations.

4. How much carbon dioxide will the total trip produce? Show your math calculations.

5. Post the following information to the Q&A forum on the class web site by Friday:
Vehicle make, Vehicle Year, Vehicle Type (SUV, Truck, Sedan, etc.), MPG, and CO2 Produced on
Macon trip

You’re Causing Rapid Climate Change Worksheet – Discussion Questions

1. Use the Q&A forum to gather data from 3 other students in the class.

Students name

You

1. Vehicle make

2. Vehicle Year

3. Vehicle Type (SUV, Truck, Sedan etc)

4. MPG

5. CO2 Produced on Macon trip

6. Does the make of the vehicle have any effect on its environmental friendliness? Explain.

7. Does the age of the vehicle have any effect on its environmental friendliness? Explain.

8. Does the vehicle type have any effect on its environmental friendliness? Explain.

9. For your group of students what was the worst vehicle in terms of MPG and CO2 production?

10. For your group of students what was the best vehicle in terms of MPG and CO2 production?

11. The average US driver, according to ABC news, commutes 32 mile each day. If they make this commute 5 days a week to find the total mileage driven by the average driver per week. (show your math work)

12. Calculate the gas used by the average driver if they were driving your car and getting the MPG you calculated for this worksheet. (show your math work)

13. Calculate the amount of CO2 produced by the average driver each week. This will be the average driver’s weekly transportation carbon footprint. (show your math work)

14. What are some of the ways that you could reduce this average carbon footprint?