Mikey, 88, teachers get in here...

[Left Seater]

Ok, so some guy came into our office las week and tried to get us to purchase large amounts of carbon offsets for all of our flights. I explained what we do and that he needed to be speaking to the owners of the jets we fill in on. He then pivoted to selling us offsets for just our seat on each flight. He said he could calculate it down to that level. I asked him for his math. I then compared that to Clear.eco which some have called the gold standard of offsetting your carbon footprint when traveling. Of course the guy was substantially higher. He couldn't explain that and the meeting ended soon after.

This got me thinking and I wondered how he and these other online sites calculate their number for offsets. So let's work thru an example and yall can peer review my work.

Short bus riders and those on ADHD meds should punch out now.

First off, let's look at a long flight where the majority of the fuel capacity will be consumed. This will allow us to assume all but the required reserve of fuel was consumed. For this flight, let's take the American Airlines Dallas to Hong Kong flight operated by one of their 777-300ERs.

This plane has the following seating arrangement:

First Class - 8 seats
Business Class - 52 seats
Premium Economy -28 seats
Main Cabin Extra - 28 seats
Economy - 188 seats

Source - https://seatguru.com/airlines/American_ ... 53bee88290

The plane has 47.890 gallon fuel capacity.

Source - https://aerocorner.com/aircraft/boeing- ... c687dfca57

Jet A is approx 81% carbon.

Source - Looking for a source for this knowledge. But since I don't yet have one I am going to assume all of the fuel weight is carbon.

Finally, I went to Clear.eco and put in the flight info for Dallas to Hong Kong. It offered the following offsets per seat by cabin type in tons of CO2:

First class - 8.15
Business - 5.91
Premium Economy - 3.26
Main Cabin Extra - 3.26
Economy - 2.04

Source - https://clear.eco/cart/

Ok, those are the baseline numbers. Now for some assumptions.

1) Let's assume that the flight consumes all but 5% of the fuel and that the tanks were full when it left Dallas.

= 47,890 gallons x .95% = 45,496 gallons of Jet A consumed.

2) Let's also assume that all of the fuel was completely combusted.

3) Let's also assume that all of the weight of the fuel is carbon. (Carbon is much heavier than Hydrogen and Oxygen which are also present in Jet A.)

= 45496 gallons of Jet A x 6.7 pounds per gallon = 304823 lbs of Jet A
Divide by 2000 lbs to get a weight in tons

=304823 divided by 2000 lbs = 153 tones rounded

So there are 153 tons of carbon in Jet A on the flight

Carbon atomic weight is 12.0107
Oxygen atomic weight is 15.9994

So each carbon goes from a pre combustion weight of 12.0107 to a post combustion weight of = 12.0107 + (15.9994 x 2) = 44.1058

So each carbon gets 3.6722 times heavier after combustion when it combines with Oxygen.

=44.1058 divided by 12.0107 = 3.6722 times heavier

So if we take the carbon weight of the Jet A uncombusted from our flight of 153 tons and multiply by 3.6722 that should be the offset we need to purchase to cover this flight.

= 153 tons x 3.6722 = 561.8466 tons to offset

But now go back to the gold standard of carbon offsetting for travel and add each of those offset values x the number of seats in that cabin.

First = 8 seats x 8.15 tons per seat = 65.2 tons
Business = 52 seats x 5.91 tons per seat = 307.32 tons
Premium Economy = 28 seats x 3.26 tons per seat = 91.28 tons
Main Cabin Extra = 28 seats x 3.26 tons per seat = 91.28 tons
Economy = 188 seats x 2.04 tons per seat = 383.52 tons

Add those and you get the following

= 65.2 + 307.32 + 91.28 + 91.28 + 383.52 = 938.6 tons

Why the difference?

=938.6 divided by 561.8466 = 1.67

Why are the offsets inflated by a factor of 1.67?

Any errors here that you can point out? Please do so. But these also clearly lean towards the offset sites number in the assumptions I have made.

[Softball Bat]

teacher

I have a lesson that I must impart to you...

[Mikey]

Why do 1st class seats go four times more carbon than Economy ?

And I wonder who funds Clear.

Possibly determined by the portion of the entire cabin space allotted to each seat.

As of April 1 I am retired and so I don't do math any more, except to try and figure out a 20% tip after subtracting sales taxes, which is complicated enough. Still, I'll try to go through this later today and see if I can find any fault in Seater's analysis.



vs




and coming soon...

[Left Seater]

Thanks Mikey.

And Roach, I also think that the CO2 offset folks are saying a first class seat takes up 4 times as much space as a coach seat. While it is certainly correct that a first class seat takes up much more space than an economy seat, it isn't as easy as saying it comes down to square footage.

The heavier the plane is the more fuel it will consume. So while 1 first class seat may displace 4 coach seats, it takes more fuel to transport 4 coach passengers than 1 First Class passenger. The 4 coach passengers can check in a total of 8 bags at 50lbs each while the first class passenger often gets 3 bags at 75. So the 4 coach passengers can bring 75lbs more in checked bags. Everyone gets the same carry on allowance, so that is 4 times more for 4 coach passengers.

Etc, etc, etc.

[Screw_Michigan]

Why do 1st class seats go four times more carbon than Economy ?

And I wonder who funds Clear.

I think it is a fucking disgrace you have to confess your sins to the federal government and pay out of pocket to qualify for 15 minutes less time waiting in security at airports. US airport security should be less shitty instead.

[Left Seater]

Why do 1st class seats go four times more carbon than Economy ?

And I wonder who funds Clear.

I think it is a fucking disgrace you have to confess your sins to the federal government and pay out of pocket to qualify for 15 minutes less time waiting in security at airports. US airport security should be less shitty instead.

Clear in this case is not the airport security program.

Clear is the carbon offset program.

[Kierland]

“assumptions”

In other words you are still full of shit.

[Mikey]

Ok, so some guy came into our office las week and tried to get us to purchase large amounts of carbon offsets for all of our flights. I explained what we do and that he needed to be speaking to the owners of the jets we fill in on. He then pivoted to selling us offsets for just our seat on each flight. He said he could calculate it down to that level. I asked him for his math. I then compared that to Clear.eco which some have called the gold standard of offsetting your carbon footprint when traveling. Of course the guy was substantially higher. He couldn't explain that and the meeting ended soon after.

This got me thinking and I wondered how he and these other online sites calculate their number for offsets. So let's work thru an example and yall can peer review my work.

Short bus riders and those on ADHD meds should punch out now.

First off, let's look at a long flight where the majority of the fuel capacity will be consumed. This will allow us to assume all but the required reserve of fuel was consumed. For this flight, let's take the American Airlines Dallas to Hong Kong flight operated by one of their 777-300ERs.

This plane has the following seating arrangement:

First Class - 8 seats
Business Class - 52 seats
Premium Economy -28 seats
Main Cabin Extra - 28 seats
Economy - 188 seats

Source - https://seatguru.com/airlines/American_ ... 53bee88290

The plane has 47.890 gallon fuel capacity.

Source - https://aerocorner.com/aircraft/boeing- ... c687dfca57

Jet A is approx 81% carbon.

Source - Looking for a source for this knowledge. But since I don't yet have one I am going to assume all of the fuel weight is carbon.

Finally, I went to Clear.eco and put in the flight info for Dallas to Hong Kong. It offered the following offsets per seat by cabin type in tons of CO2:

First class - 8.15
Business - 5.91
Premium Economy - 3.26
Main Cabin Extra - 3.26
Economy - 2.04

Source - https://clear.eco/cart/

Ok, those are the baseline numbers. Now for some assumptions.

1) Let's assume that the flight consumes all but 5% of the fuel and that the tanks were full when it left Dallas.

= 47,890 gallons x .95% = 45,496 gallons of Jet A consumed.

2) Let's also assume that all of the fuel was completely combusted.

3) Let's also assume that all of the weight of the fuel is carbon. (Carbon is much heavier than Hydrogen and Oxygen which are also present in Jet A.)

= 45496 gallons of Jet A x 6.7 pounds per gallon = 304823 lbs of Jet A
Divide by 2000 lbs to get a weight in tons

=304823 divided by 2000 lbs = 153 tones rounded

So there are 153 tons of carbon in Jet A on the flight

Carbon atomic weight is 12.0107
Oxygen atomic weight is 15.9994

So each carbon goes from a pre combustion weight of 12.0107 to a post combustion weight of = 12.0107 + (15.9994 x 2) = 44.1058

So each carbon gets 3.6722 times heavier after combustion when it combines with Oxygen.

=44.1058 divided by 12.0107 = 3.6722 times heavier

So if we take the carbon weight of the Jet A uncombusted from our flight of 153 tons and multiply by 3.6722 that should be the offset we need to purchase to cover this flight.

= 153 tons x 3.6722 = 561.8466 tons to offset

But now go back to the gold standard of carbon offsetting for travel and add each of those offset values x the number of seats in that cabin.

First = 8 seats x 8.15 tons per seat = 65.2 tons
Business = 52 seats x 5.91 tons per seat = 307.32 tons
Premium Economy = 28 seats x 3.26 tons per seat = 91.28 tons
Main Cabin Extra = 28 seats x 3.26 tons per seat = 91.28 tons
Economy = 188 seats x 2.04 tons per seat = 383.52 tons

Add those and you get the following

= 65.2 + 307.32 + 91.28 + 91.28 + 383.52 = 938.6 tons

Why the difference?

=938.6 divided by 561.8466 = 1.67

Why are the offsets inflated by a factor of 1.67?

Any errors here that you can point out? Please do so. But these also clearly lean towards the offset sites number in the assumptions I have made.

Everything seems fine until you get down to where you start talking about carbon content. First, carbon isn't a lot heavier than oxygen. Solid carbon compared to gaseous oxygen, for sure, but the atomic weight of oxygen is higher than for carbon (as you pointed out later).

Not a chemical engineer, but from what I can find, the total atomic weight of Jet A and Jet A-1 is about 185. The Carbon Number (number of carbon atoms per molecule) is "between 8 and 16" which seems like a pretty big range. Lets assume that we split the difference and make it 12. That would make the total carbon content by weight to be (12 x 12.017) / 185 = 78% of the total weight.

You're also assuming that all of the carbon in the fuel is converted to CO2, however there are other products of combustion, including H2O, CO, C, NOx, particles and a great number of organic compounds. I haven't looked to deeply, but I'm not finding a breakdown showing how much of each. I'm sure it depends a lot on temperature and pressure (altitude). So I'm not sure how much difference this makes in your final analysis.

This is as far as I've gotten, and will try to re-visit later. This is too much like work...

[Left Seater]

I don’t disagree with what you are pointing out here.

I made the assumptions and tried to lean towards CO2 since that is what is being sold as the offset.

What I should have said was that Carbon is much heavier than Hydrogen, which is what carbon is joined with in Jet A (hydrocarbons). Given that I tried to say most of the weight of Jet A was Carbon based and then assumed that every Carbon atom combined with O to make CO2. You correctly point out that there are other by products of combustion for carbon atoms. This though makes the carbon offset number even more inflated.

I appreciate the second set of eye, as I do want to understand the offset program.

[Derron57]

I think it is a fucking disgrace you have to confess your sins to the federal government and pay out of pocket to qualify for 15 minutes less time waiting in security at airports. US airport security should be less shitty instead.

Take that up with your precious Federal government. I thought you were pretty much down with anything they did ? WTF?

[Mikey]

It’s interesting to do these calculations. They sometimes throw a surprising light on an issue.

For example…

They’re talking about making some drastic reductions to residential water use here in CA. We’ve already removed our lawns (about 4,000 sq ft at least 10 years ago) and hav been converting our yard to drought resistant natives. I haven’t run any irrigation at all since at least the end of last summer.

But I digress.

I’ve read that each pound of almonds requires 1,900 gallons of water to produce. Residential water use in California is about 55 gal/day. California produces about 80% of the world’s almonds, and exported 296,000 tonnes (metric tons - mostly to India) in 2020.

1,900 gal/lb x 2,200 lb/tonne = 4,180,000 gal/tonne
4,180,000 gal/tonne x 296,000 tonnes = 1,237,280,000,000 gallons per year for exported almonds.
1,237,280,000,000 gallons / 55 gal/person/day / 365 days/ year = 61,633,000 people.

So the amount of water used for exported almonds is equivalent to what almost 62 million residents would use (the population of California is about 39 million).

Repeat for alfalfa (mostly sent to China), pistachios, rice, etc, etc.

So is there a water shortage in California? Not really. It’s too much Big Ag. Sure the farmers have a right to earn a living but it’s irresponsible to keep increasing acreage when water is running out. Especially for exports. They are essentially sending American water to Asia and making huge profits, while the state is asking residents to cut their water use while Ag accounts for 80% of annual usage.

[Mikey]

California should be capturing what rain and snow fall it gets.
If tree huggers are so concerned with the ocean levels rising, why do they demand that all of the rain and snow run off run in to the oceans?

Capture all of the water, return it to reservoirs and lakes, pump it in to the ground to increase the water table

And if they're going to continue to send so much alfalfa and almonds and other produce to Asia, irrigate those fields with desalinated water

Desalinated water is pretty expensive. Maybe they should import their water from Asia.

I guess you don’t care too much about the fishing (salmon especially) industry.

[Mikey]

I dont eat fish, you may as well ask me if I was against watering soccer fields....because I'd ban soccer in a heart beat


I am also perfectly fine with getting rid of all the wineries along the central coast and returning those hill sides to natural grasses for cattle. Then maybe we can get some of those steak houses down here

The grasses aren’t “natural.” Neither are the cattle.

[Left Seater]

Desalination is expensive, and most of the cost comes from energy expenses. It also produces brine which has to be dealt with.

But if the greenies want to keep us from using surface water, then there aren’t many other options.

[Mikey]

Desalination is expensive, and most of the cost comes from energy expenses. It also produces brine which has to be dealt with.

But if the greenies want to keep us from using surface water, then there aren’t many other options.

I guess you didn’t read my post. The obvious option is to stop exporting most of the water to Asia.

[Mikey]

20,000 tons of almonds in storage and nowhere to dump them.

https://fox40.com/news/local-news/nearl ... -says/amp/

That’s 92 billion gallons of water.

[Left Seater]

Oh, I read it. I was just saying there aren't many options otherwise if you keep the ag.

There will be other consequences of scaling back big Ag.

[Mikey]

I dont eat fish, you may as well ask me if I was against watering soccer fields....because I'd ban soccer in a heart beat


I am also perfectly fine with getting rid of all the wineries along the central coast and returning those hill sides to natural grasses for cattle. Then maybe we can get some of those steak houses down here

The grasses aren’t “natural.” Neither are the cattle.

The wild grasses, I'm not talking about the St Augustine and Ryegrass that are in your lawn. Knock down all the grapes and the water used for the wine, which I don't drink and put grazing cattle up on those hillsides so we can get a Hitching Post down here

I’m not talking about your front lawn either. All that “wild” grass growing on the hills in Central California (and the rest of the state as well) are invasive species that didn’t exist in the New World before they were brought over by the Spanish.

https://www.popsci.com/california-fires ... asses/?amp

[Left Seater]

Actually that article reads pretty neutral. It point to human suppression and electric utilities as culprits as well.

[Mikey]

That shit read like all gore propaganda. No doubt that paper was funded by sierra club or some other bunch of tyrannical marxist assholes that just want to control everyone and everything. Driving your car om the freeway deposits carbon dioxide on the hill side and that carbon dioxide is killing the native plants and making these evil European plants thrive..... didn't that fat fuck mikey moore, that you guys all worship, say the same thing about the push to fear "African bees"?

The fact is that those grasses didn’t exist here before they were brought in by the Spaniards. Same thing for all the black mustard you see blooming with all those beautiful yellow flowers this time of year. Highly invasive, huge fire hazard, and brought by the Spaniards. I have to fight that shit in my yard every year or it will crowd out everything else. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it untrue. Why do hate science? Too complicated or something?

Can’t believe people actually plant this crap.

[Mikey]

Yeah purple fountain grass. The fuckers we hired to do the landscaping on about half of our yard 20 years ago planted a bunch of that stuff. We thought it was cool because it looks OK and requires almost no maintenance. That is until it started multiplying out of control. That shit will slice your skin up if you don't wear gloves. Finally got rid of all of it off our lot a few years ago.

Fountain Grass readily moves in to wild areas and displaces the native plants that would otherwise provide habitat for the birds, butterflies, lizards, and multitude of other creatures that make their homes in this wonderful place we call California. Its shallow roots don’t stabilize slopes like many of the native plants it displaces. It is more flammable than the native vegetation, and over a longer period of the year, so contributes to more frequent wildfires (as do many other exotic plants, including Mexican Feather Grass, Pampas Grass, Vinca, Lantana and Pride of Madeira). When fires occur too frequently, areas of chaparral and coastal sage scrub get converted to weed fields as the native plants don’t have enough time to recover between fires.

Apparently from Africa or Asia originally, like some of these other non-native species, they have no natural competitors here so it just goes crazy.

There's a lot of the green fountain grass around here too. It pops up everywhere, including cracks in the road.

https://www.cnps.org/life-with-plants/w ... st-go-3105

[Mikey]

Here's another winner we used to have in our yard.

Brazilian Pepper. It's classified as a noxious weed in Florida and Texas but for some reason nurseries still sell it around here.



https://www.nps.gov/articles/spotlight_ ... pepper.htm

When we moved in 20 years ago we had one up near the back of our yard. It was an OK looking tree at the time but by the time we had it removed about 5 or 6 years ago the trunk was about 4 feet in diameter and it was shading that whole area of the yard, crowding out our navel orange and Mineola tangelo trees. The problem is that it spreads through the roots and we still get them popping up after I've spent several years spraying each one with Roundup.