isramart : Clunkers Program displacement of gasoline and carbon

Isramart news:
Clunker Program displacement of gasoline and carbon. When hearing of the success of the Cash for Clunkers Program, curiosity prompted quantification of the impact. This commentary is primary technical analysis.

Assuming $2 billion more in is injected to the Clunker Program, removing 750,000 gas guzzlers from the road with a 2/3rds of them getting 4 mile per gallon (mpg) increase and a 1/3rd of them the 10 mpg fuel economy increase, with the average U.S. passenger car pegged at an average of 25 mpg, driven 60 miles per day on average across the country, or very roughly 20,000 miles per year with carbon emissions at 350 grams per mile. These are my assumptions and I challenge you to formulate your own and question mine.

At 25 mpg U.S. average fleet-wide fuel economy, a car consumes 800 gallons of gasoline per year. An 18 mpg car consumes 1,111 gallons of gasoline per year. With the minimum Clunker 4 mpg improvement to 22 mpg, 909 gallons of gasoline are used, or savings of 202 gallons of gasoline per car per year. At 28 mpg in the 10 mpg increase for the Clunker Program with the $4,500 rebate, 714 gallons of gasoline are used in a year or a savings of 397 gallons of gasoline per year.

Assuming my 2/3rd 4 mpg improvement and 1/3rd 10mg improvement, each portion roughly saves 100 million gallons of gasoline per year for a total of 200 million gallons of gasoline per year displaced through the Clunker Program with $3 billion invested, and 750,000 gas guzzlers off the roads and permanently scrapped. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency (http://www.eia.doe.gov/), the U.S. transportation sector for cars uses 51,092,000 gallons of gasoline per day. The Clunker Program will reduce this amount by 548,000 gallons per day or offset gasoline use by 1%.

In terms of Carbon Equivalent reductions from the Clunker Program, we assume the carbon content of 1 gallon of gasoline driven 1 mile is approximately 350 grams per mile. If the average driver puts 60 miles per day on their car and get the average U.S. 25 mpg, they emit roughly 840 grams of carbon dioxide per day. An 18 mpg car creates 1,167 grams of carbon per day. A 22 mpg car emits 952 grams of carbon per day and a 28 mpg car emits 750 grams of carbon per day. The carbon savings for a new 22 mpg car is 215 grams per day, a 28 mpg car saves 417 grams of carbon per day. Doing the math and trying to show the work, the 500,000 new 22 mpg cars save 10.4 kilograms per year in carbon or 23 pounds of carbon per year. On a daily basis this is 0.028 kilograms per day or 0.064 pounds per day of carbon reduced, in total. The 250,000 10 mpg cars roughly save the same amount of carbon, 10.75 kilograms per year or 24 pounds of carbon per year.

So, what does this mean to total U.S. carbon and total world wide carbon emissions output and reduction from the Cash for Clunkers Program?

According to the latest available data from the U.S. EPA Climate Change Center (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html) in 2007 the total U.S. output of carbon equivalent greenhouse gases (including methane, carbon hexafluoride, nitrous dioxide and other smaller Greenhouse Gases) was 7.159.1 Teragrams (Tg) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Equivalent (Eq) or 7.2 TgCO2Eq. The TgCO2Eq is called by the U.S. Department of Energy a Million Metric Ton of CO2 or MMTCO2. Transportation accounted for 1.887.4 TgCO2Eq in 2005. We will come back to this after we look at the world wide levels of CO2Eq.

The U.S. EPA states U.S. Greenhouse Gas emissions have increased 17% since 1990. The U.S. accounts for 21% of world wide carbon emissions, roughly China the same, with the developed and developing world roughly evenly splitting the remaining 3/5ths with each contributing approximately 1.5/5ths of total world wide Greenhouse Gas emissions.

According to the Energy Information Agency in 2005 the developed world referred to as the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation or OECD, which includes North America, OECD Europe, Japan and Australia/New Zealand, the OECD Group accounted for 13.565 TgCO2Eq in 2005 or 48% of world wide CO2Eq emissions. The remaining 52% came from the developing world.

If my brain has not locked by now and you are still reading, the Cash for Clunkers Program will reduce carbon by 21.5 kilograms per year. In a world wide carbon perspective, lets look at in teragrams. A teragram is 1 trillion grams. So, the Clunker Program reduces carbon equivalent Greenhouse Gas emissions by, take a breath, 0.000.000.021 Teragrams per year or 0.000.000.000.058 Tg per day. Its a small world, with much progress needed.