One Space Trip Emits a Lifetime's Worth of Carbon Footprint (futurism.com) 201
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Futurism: In a revelation that will surprise almost no one, the 2022 World Inequality Report found that one space flight emits more carbon dioxide than most of the world's population will create in their entire lifetime. While other parts of the report focus on labor, income and economic inequality, the researchers also included a statistic -- spotted by folks on social media and highlighted by Gizmodo -- that perfectly sums up the relationship between those who create greenhouse gases versus those who suffer most from them.
"Perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of extreme pollution associated with wealth inequality in recent years is the development of space travel," the report states. "An 11-minute flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger About one billion individuals emit less than one tonne per person per year. Over their lifetime, this group of one billion individuals does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person." If you're wondering which space flight the World Inequality Report is addressing, well, the team didn't call anyone out by name. But Jeff Bezos' much-publicized space flight back in July was about that length of time, as Gizmodo pointed out. Bezos, the Amazon founder currently wrapped up in Blue Origin's space tourism junket, effectively puts out more carbon than most humans could create in their lifetime each time he sends up a rocket.
The World Inequality Report argues that to hold the biggest greenhouse gas emitters responsible, we need to better track global emission numbers. "Large inequalities in emissions suggest that climate policies should target wealthy polluters more," the authors write. "So far, climate policies such as carbon taxes have often disproportionately impacted low and middle income groups." It's the equivalent of being told to recycle your cardboard and pay for municipal recycling pickup, in other words -- it's a nice gesture, but no matter how hard you try, you'll never offset a single Bezos space journey. "The report also noted that the top 1% wealthiest individuals emit about 110 tons of carbon emissions per year, an extreme number dwarf by the top .1% (467 tons) and the top .01% (2,530 tons)," notes Gizmodo.
What's absent from the report, however, are the everyday benefits of space exploration, such as scientific discoveries and the creation of scientific and technical jobs, among other things. The tradeoff between the negative carbon emissions and positive benefits of space travel remains to be seen.
"Perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of extreme pollution associated with wealth inequality in recent years is the development of space travel," the report states. "An 11-minute flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger About one billion individuals emit less than one tonne per person per year. Over their lifetime, this group of one billion individuals does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person." If you're wondering which space flight the World Inequality Report is addressing, well, the team didn't call anyone out by name. But Jeff Bezos' much-publicized space flight back in July was about that length of time, as Gizmodo pointed out. Bezos, the Amazon founder currently wrapped up in Blue Origin's space tourism junket, effectively puts out more carbon than most humans could create in their lifetime each time he sends up a rocket.
The World Inequality Report argues that to hold the biggest greenhouse gas emitters responsible, we need to better track global emission numbers. "Large inequalities in emissions suggest that climate policies should target wealthy polluters more," the authors write. "So far, climate policies such as carbon taxes have often disproportionately impacted low and middle income groups." It's the equivalent of being told to recycle your cardboard and pay for municipal recycling pickup, in other words -- it's a nice gesture, but no matter how hard you try, you'll never offset a single Bezos space journey. "The report also noted that the top 1% wealthiest individuals emit about 110 tons of carbon emissions per year, an extreme number dwarf by the top .1% (467 tons) and the top .01% (2,530 tons)," notes Gizmodo.
What's absent from the report, however, are the everyday benefits of space exploration, such as scientific discoveries and the creation of scientific and technical jobs, among other things. The tradeoff between the negative carbon emissions and positive benefits of space travel remains to be seen.
Doesn't account for Starship (Score:2)
SpaceX is trying to transition to sub-cooled methane and oxygen, which produces less CO2 emissions.
Technology is already advancing beyond this concern. Furthermore, if you can shift some manufacturing off Earth thanks to heavy lift with reasonable costs like Starship, then you have reduced overall CO2 emissions.
The people stuck in the mud are always trying to drag down the people looking to the future...
Re:Doesn't account for Starship (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, Musk plans to make his own methane from CO2, so the Starship will be carbon neutral. SpaceX has to do this anyway because they will use the same technique to make methane on Mars.
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Sounds like greenwashing. The process of producing the methane is unlikely to be carbon neutral, and neither is manufacturing of the spacecraft or all the support that is needed to launch it.
Re:Doesn't account for Starship (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not greenwashing. There is no methane on Mars. The whole point of building Starship with methane engines is that methane can be made from water and CO2, both of which are available on Mars. It's called the Sabatier process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] SpaceX has already started making methane on Earth and plans to scale up so it can provide fuel for all its launches.
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Not the methane thing, the idea that it's carbon neutral on Earth.
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So you'd prefer they didn't even try.
Got it.
Thanks.
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He'd prefer they be carbon neutral.
He suspects they are not.
I'd love for him to be wrong, but I suspect he's right.
What would be useful would be for someone who knows to provide a citation that shows some pertinent facts.
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Not the methane thing, the idea that it's carbon neutral on Earth.
If SpaceX manufactures their methane from atmospheric CO2, using energy from non-fossil energy sources, it will be carbon neutral on Earth.
What I want to know about Sabatier on Mars (Score:2)
In order to refill a Starship with methane in a timely manner, the Sabatier process likely requires more energy than can be obtained from unfolding solar panels on Mars.
So will Starships carry nuclear reactors to the surface of Mars?
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If people are going to land on Mars then the people going will take nuclear reactors with them or there will be nuclear reactors on Mars waiting for them. We have no other technology with the required energy density and reliability to support human life on Mars. They will likely have solar panels too, maybe even windmills, but they will certainly use nuclear power.
Will Starships carry nuclear reactors to the surface of Mars? Maybe, if not Starships then it will be something else.
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Sounds like greenwashing. The process of producing the methane is unlikely to be carbon neutral, and neither is manufacturing of the spacecraft or all the support that is needed to launch it.
The idea of using methane is to be able to fuel on Mars, as it's easier to produce methane than hydrogen on Mars.
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Sounds like greenwashing. The process of producing the methane is unlikely to be carbon neutral, and neither is manufacturing of the spacecraft or all the support that is needed to launch it.
Musk: I'm going to reduce my emissions by 99%, and not because the govt forces me but just because I want to do the right thing.
Leftist hipster, typing on his newest Macbook while sipping a soya latte at Starbucks: WAAAA HE UR NOT KARBON NUTRAAAL!!!
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The process of producing the methane is unlikely to be carbon neutral...
You can make methane by reacting CO2 with hydrogen, by the Sabatier reaction [wikipedia.org]. "Green" hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water, using electricity from renewable sources. However, this is not not where most methane comes from at present, so maybe carbon neutral methane is a bit unlikely.
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The people stuck in the mud are always trying to drag down the people looking to the future...
Reminds me of this from Firefly:
Mal: Wheel never stops turning, Badger.
Badger: That only matters to the people on the rim.
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And there are plenty of rockets that run on hydrogen, which doesn't produce CO2 at all.
But even with that, rockets are terrible for the environment, but as long as we make few of them, it is not a big problem. Billionaires can get their joyride too, for the same reason: not many billionaires. Still I think it is worth is, even the billionaire joyride part.
And how will manufacturing things off earth with BFRs help the environment? It will account for even less than the damage done by rockets, a drop in the o
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Space exploration advance (Score:2)
Re: Doesn't account for Starship (Score:2)
At the same time they're also launching a lot of rockets for starlink. Yes, Internet everywhere is great, but if you make the lives of people harder in the regions you're trying to reach, I wonder about your end game.
As for space tourism... yuck. They better plant one hell of a forest for each ride to compensate..
Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/year? (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, I'm sure the carbon calculations check out, but in a world with a population of 7.7 billion people, a dozen or so space trips a year add up to a trivial amount of carbon.
This factoid puts things in perspective, but banning space travel or tourism would have zero meaningful effect on carbon emissions. And I would argue that the carbon costs of having a robust space program far outweigh its costs in carbon.
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It takes the shine of rich asshats taking joyrides to the edge of space, just to say they did it. Not serving any purpose beyond massaging their ego.
There is talk of creating a space tourism business. Maybe we should get ahead of this one and demand it be neutral in terms of climate change.
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It's one thing when they are only hurting themselves. Climate change hurts all of us.
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You have proof of this? Or just repeating the talking points of the green industry? From my perspective, if we do have significant warming, we're just as likely to have positive impacts in some regions as negative ones in others. Some currently inhabited land might become hard to inhabit, while some land currently hard to inhabit will become very inhabitable. Such changes could cause some painful migrations and shifts in wealth, but it won't end humanity. We will adapt. Opening up space to being inhab
Re: Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/y (Score:2)
"It won't end humanity."
Congratulations on reaching the new lowest bar for assessing impact of human activity.
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Or billionaires in this case.
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Or, and bear with me here, both can be true!
Re:Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/ye (Score:5, Informative)
https://flightfree.org/flight-... [flightfree.org]
Or, manufacturing 2 SUV's (e.g. Land Rover Discovery):
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
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Another way to quantify it, a passenger trip on Blue Origin trip is equivalent to 25 trips from the eastern US to Hawaii.
You forgot the key difference. It is per passenger.
In other words: you can have 100 trips of a blue origin space flight, and it is less than a singel of your example planes.
Ooops.
Re:Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/ye (Score:5, Informative)
It takes the shine of rich asshats taking joyrides to the edge of space
Does it really?
Compare it to private jet use. A G5 emits a little over four tons per hour of flight, so this flight to space is equivalent to 18 hours of air travel, a flight from New York to Honolulu and back. Also note the carbon emissions of the 0.1%, mentioned in the summary: 2530 tons per year. So for those wealthy enough to fly to space, taking a suborbital hop every year would only increase their personal emissions by 3%.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, just pointing out that these joyrides don't constitute a significant contribution to climate change, not compared to everything else. Not even compared to just the other stuff that rich people do.
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It takes also a lot of money off the hand of rich asshats that would normally just toss it to some haven back in the hands of the regular people.
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I'm not so sure... I was having trouble finding numbers, but that seems likely to be more than the actual propellant weight carried, and for SpaceX 2/3 of their propellant weight is lox. 75 tonnes of C is not the same as 75 tonnes of CO2; 75 tonnes of CO2 per passenger might be approaching believable, but I have a really hard time believing they're burning 225 tonnes of fuel per passenger.
Re:Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/ye (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, they make it sound like 75 tonnes is some insurmountable amount of carbon.
Uh, yeah, at current carbon sequestration rates, from any number of sequestration approaches that costs in the ballpark of $5k. Anyone in the middle class or above could offset that if they wanted to.
(And I say this as someone who hates these "rocket joy rides for people with too much money" rocket companies, who in effect smear actual orbital rocketry companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Astra, etc simply by virtue of association with their conspicuous consumption)
Re:Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/ye (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, global carbon emissions are 36.7 billion tonnes. A rocket flight using 75 tonnes per individual and assuming 5 invididuals = 0.000001% of global carbon emissions.
This is just more billionaire hate. Any article that helps you form your own opinion by suggesting in its tagline how you should feel ("That's Pretty Messed Up") is suspect.
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In fact, global carbon emissions are 36.7 billion tonnes. A rocket flight using 75 tonnes per individual and assuming 5 invididuals = 0.000001% of global carbon emissions.
Yeah and my CO2 emissions are like 10 tonnes per year. So nothing in the grand scheme of things. I guess there is no point me doing anything to reduce them since it's such an insignificant amount right?
Re:Okay, sure, but there are maybe a 10 flights/ye (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, I'm sure the carbon calculations check out ...
I'm not following them.
“Perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of extreme pollution associated with wealth inequality in recent years is the development of space travel,” the report states. “An 11-minute flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger About one billion individuals emit less than one tonne per person per year. Over their lifetime, this group of one billion individuals does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person.”
So that's a lifetimes of CO2 for the lowest emissions 1 billion people. Which is about 12.6% of the world.
Compare with two paragraphs above: [T]he 2022 World Inequality Report found that one space flight emits more carbon dioxide than most of the world’s population will create in their entire lifetime. Which is a claim about at least 50% of the world.
Go figure.
On the other hand there is some the carbon inequality report is eye opening. This graph [wir2022.wid.world] should make you lose faith in humanity. I mean Europe has at least reduced emissions since 1990. As has Russia, albeit by a mechanism less dependent on altruism. But the US are just being dicks, and Asia's development is running on incorrect technology choices.
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Compare with two paragraphs above: [T]he 2022 World Inequality Report found that one space flight emits more carbon dioxide than most of the worldâ(TM)s population will create in their entire lifetime. Which is a claim about at least 50% of the world.
Should be a no brainer that this is complete nonsense.
Just google the total fuel in an airliner and a Space X rocket.
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Granted, I'm pretty sure the math does not work out.
Except you talk about a throw away space ship, take into account production costs, and the infrastructure for the whole space industrial complex.
A single rocket launched in to space does not even need a quarter of the the fuel of a an standard air plane.
Granted again: such a plane has 400 passengers and the rocket only 4 or 6.
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Meanwhile, "plastic straws are evil" (Score:2, Insightful)
In all seriousness, it's a depressing fact (alongside the wealthiest individuals emission). It's a big, big "nothing that you'll ever do [for the climate] really matters or makes a dent", neither as an individual, nor as a collective.
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just take personal responsibility and care for a plastic-injured seal in your bathtub. After it bites you and craps all over your house I think you can say "I've done my part."
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It's a big, big "nothing that you'll ever do [for the climate] really matters or makes a dent", neither as an individual, nor as a collective
Not true, you likely live in a democracy if you're on here. Voting matters. If you're American vote Democrat and volunteer with your time as well and if you live in some other Western nation support your nation's Green Party the same way.
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That's not true. Your vote matters.
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You can make a global Brexit and come to Europe :D
You are welcome!
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Why do you think that nothing you do even makes a dent? Here are things YOU can do that hugely reduce YOUR carbon footprint:
1. Don't drive to work. Work from home or use public transportation every day.
2. Don't fly around on airplanes. Skip those exotic vacations and just watch Netflix or something during your time off.
3. Don't eat meat. Go vegetarian or vegan. The factory farms that produce your meat are horrible polluters, and the money you give them makes you responsible for their pollution (and yes
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Ah I see, that makes sense. You sacrifice and go out of your way to do right by your neighbors. And then, some other neighbor refuses to do the same and in fact does so much damage that what little good your sacrifice did is totally overwhelmed. Thus, your sacrifice, and the good it did, seems valueless.
Objectively, though, the world is still better-off overall if you make your sacrifice (however small it may be). Even with the bad actors doing harm, the harm that you WOULD do if you didn't make any sac
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1. Don't drive to work. Work from home or use public transportation every day
Only if you footprint would really be lower. In my case, with 350 000 km train rides and 50 000 km of bicycle in 20 years it worked great. But I live in highly connected urban environment and have no kids.
2. Don't fly around on airplanes. Skip those exotic vacations and just watch Netflix or something during your time off.
Not really. We should not sacrifice the little joys we have in life. Stop treading on the common people and fo
SpaceX's reply (Score:2)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s... [twitter.com]
New Shepard burns Hydrogen (Score:5, Informative)
New Shepard is a Hydrogen rocket, it doesn't emit any carbon.
Carbon could have been emitted if the hydrogen was steam reformed from natural gas, but hydrogen can also be produced using water and electricity. That costs slightly more, but the price of such "green hydrogen" is dropping rapidly. And given they charge millions per ticket, spending a few thousand extra on green hydrogen rather than grey hydrogen is trivial and probably worth it for PR reasons.
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The BE-3 used currently is indeed a hydrogen engine.
The BE-4 is a liquid methane engine. (Same fuel as Raptor).
"World Inequality Report" (Score:3)
Yeah, I'm tired of the yellow submarine horseshit. Smoke if you got 'em
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Yeah, I'm POSITIVE that's not going to work.
What we need is (Score:3)
an electric spaceship, impossible you say? Quit being so negative.
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No it's not. Hyperloops work well to get mass into orbit, so do spacestalks.
Solution: space elevators (Score:3)
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It might actually be impossible to do. It's not clear that you can actually build a cable that can withstand the forces on it, the biggest being its own weight.
Safety (Score:2)
It would truly be a spectacular failure but also an incredibly deadly one.
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In the long run, I am convinced that it will ultimately be the only economically viable way to get humanity into space.
If it's impossible, we are pretty much certain to be stuck on this rock until its destruction.
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Interestingg (Score:4, Insightful)
âoe In a revelation that will surprise almost no one, the 2022 World Inequality Report found that one space flight emits more carbon dioxide than most of the worldâ(TM)s population will create in their entire lifetime. âoe
That is written to be deliberately widely misquoted to sound like it is the cumulative emissions of 7 billion people. Why donâ(TM)t we look at how many gallons and kilos of fossil energy fuel are burned daily and see what imperceptible percent of that is used when there is a rocket launch?
It is well known that a large percent of people do not even own cars. Let us also acknowledge that to a typical African villager most people living in the US are like Elon Musk is to the average American. Just owning a car and an air conditioned home is a big deal. What is the carbon footprint of someone who owns a car? Probably 10,000x the difference of someone who lives in a village in Bangladesh and walks everyplace. I mean one gallon of gasoline has more energy than many humans might use in a week or two. And a full gas tank that is probably 3 to 6 months of energy. And letâ(TM)s not count all the electricity used at home!
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Percentile (Score:3)
This sounds like they're choosing the lowest ~12th percentile of carbon emitters for their comparison. If they dropped that to the lowest 6th percentile I bet it would be even more dramatic.
The simplest solution is to make the people who shelled out millions for the ride shell out a few thousand more to offset carbon footprint. Same should be true when I fill up my gas tank or fly on a plane (not the thousands part). These things should have a real cost that offsets the carbon impact.
They're just jealous because they can't go (Score:2)
Bunch of sore losers.
...laura
Great example on how we won't solve global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say we stop doing space travels, will it help reduce carbon emissions? No.
So much time and effort not solving the problem.
How about using Pareto principle and concentrate about the 20% emitters that causes 80% of the problem?
Well, I know, that was an almost rhetorical question. That 20% worst offenders are likely the most powerful, untouchable people.
Meanwhile here we are, paying a premium on electric cars and bikes, using less air conditioner on summer, eating less meat, but in the end it will be no use.
I don't mean we should stop doing all that. Everyone must do their part. But that MUST include the big dirty emitters.
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The principal that people should not be able to outsource their costs (in this case climate change) is sound. Space tourists should pay at least what it really costs.
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I would argue that our desire to go to space will speed up our efforts to lower CO2 emissions. Consider a few problems that need to be solved in going to space.
If we go to the moon, or to Mars, or even just put more inhabited stations in low Earth orbit, then where are we going to get the power to keep them temperature controlled, filled with breathable air, lighted, as well as power all the computers to manage this heating, cooling, air filtration, etc.? We will need nuclear fission power.
How do we get t
Shocking headline, news at 11! (Score:2)
So, why not compare apples to apples here? Ah, yes it will not bring as much clicks as a flashy headline.
An average passenger vehicle emits 4.6 metric tonnes of CO2 per year:
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehic... [epa.gov]
Thus, an average car owner will reach that in about 16 years. Actually much earlier than that. Their groceries will be delivered by large trucks, their homes will be heated by gas, and their electricity will come from some turbine.
An average American generates 16 tonnes of CO2 per year:
https://www.nature [nature.org]
A lifetime's carbon footprint for some (Score:2)
But nobody in the developed world. It's less than 10% of the average lifetime CO2 footprint for an American, and most of us will never go on one of these trips in our lifetimes. You can make a much bigger impact on your carbon footprint by living in a well-insulated home close to your workplace.
What we really need is less regulation /s (Score:2)
Jobs don't justify bad environmental situations (Score:2)
"Creation of scientific and technical jobs" is not a reason to launch people into space if there are no other positives (which there may certainly be). This is akin to saying we should keep mining coal because how else will coal miners have jobs. Now if those scientific and technical jobs have other merit, great, but "jobs" in and of themselves do not justify the existence of an industry.
Poor handling of stats (Score:2)
When you start handling stats like this you end up with using the results wrong.
An interesting stat is the average family in North American used to have 2.5 kids.
Based on this method of handling stats I need to ask where all the 1/2 kids are.
God Almighty (Score:3)
What an absolutely fucking miserable article.
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Amen, brother.
other factors (Score:2)
There are ways of getting mass into space... (Score:2)
... that don't require setting a skyrocket off under it. Solutions can be found in science fiction novels, if anyone cares to look. Plus the cost/kg is much lower, if we can build something like the Loftstrom launch loop or a beanstalk in a geosynch orbit.
Note and Opinion (Score:3)
Note: When you hear people railing against the global 1% then you should take note. To be in that 1% requires an individual annual income of only $35,000. That's significantly less than the median income in the USA.
Opinion:
That means that one person in seven uses less than 6 pounds/3 kilos of dry firewood, charcoal, or other fuel as an energy source per day. If that's true, and it probably isn't, that is a problem that needs to be addressed. That level of energy poverty is NOT an aspirational goal.
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That level of energy poverty is NOT an aspirational goal.
That is the goal of the Green movement, however, and if you give one of these pinheads too much kombucha they will explicitly brag about bringing down civilization as the One True Path.
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If that's true, and it probably isn't,
If only there were places where you could find out how much CO2 various people use [ourworldindata.org]
I stopped reading at "World Inequality Report" (Score:2)
his is like that famed19th century prediction that by the time the twentieth century rolls around, transportation in New York City will become impossible because the city will be neck deep in horseshit.
That last phrase richly describes this analysis. It costs a lot in carbon terms to send one astronaut to orbit using RP-1 kerosene, but by the time large numbers of people get sent up, this will be replaced by nonpolluting hydrogen-oxygen. In fact, this is what the much-giggled-at Blue Origin suborbital craft
How Much Do Rockets Pollute? (Score:2)
From Everyday Astronaut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Carbon? Really? (Score:3)
Complete garbage. (Score:2)
I'm no Bezos fanboy, but give the guy a break (and at least PRETEND to have some basic scientific knowledge when reporting on spaceflight matters). New Shepherd burns Hydrogen and Oxygen, so pure, essentially distilled, water is the exhaust and Carbon is nowhere in the equation. Also, the rocket is fully-reusable, so it's not even throwing stuff away or requiring the fabrication of big new parts, with any associated manufacturing burdens. In fact, the booster even flies back to the launch pad, so there's no
That's nothing (Score:2)
There are f'ing 8 billion people. And we are worrying about 1 per launch?
Not even sure it's true (Score:2)
For someone who doesn't emit much Carbon.
I wonder if whoever put this together accounted for how much carbon is released by people that still subsist on burning biomass (like wood) daily?
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***sighs***
Once again, burning biomass involves burning non-fossilized carbon. There is a big difference between carbon dumped into the atmosphere that has spent the previous 250 megayears in the ground and carbon dumped into the atmosphere that was part of the atmosphere a century ago and has since been turned into a tree...
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Nobody is using wood for rocket fuel for a good reason, but if they were it would be more than enough to cook on. Good fucking grief.
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The best and easiest way to get rid of all inequalities is to make everyone equally poor. That's the unfortunate endpoint of all this whining about inequalities.
The poor will always be with us. I read that in a popular book somewhere. It had plenty of other good lessons in it too.
To increase wealth in the world will inevitably increase inequalities. That's because some people will lack the education, intelligence, and moral character to keep whatever wealth they have and grow it. We should all give a portion of our wealth, perhaps 10%, for helping these people out. That's something else I read from that popular book.
The best we can do for these people is build
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Quick reminder that we hit the CO2 concentration at which plant life benefit maxes out, ~400ppm, around 2015. Beyond this point plant life cannot benefit from higher CO2 levels - even higher CO2 levels will only make crops less nutritious.