CO2 Related to a Football Field

The real news about carbon dioxide (CO2) and some of the research I’ve found about this gas.

First is a principle about gasses called the Brownian Movement. This is where a gas will dissipate equally in a given volume that is available to it. If you are in your garage and start up your car, the gasses from the car will fill the garage. This will lower the percentage of oxygen for one to maintain life and we all know the results of that.

On the other hand, the volume of atmosphere gasses is tremendous and CO2 is very small in the overall atmosphere. Again if the amount of CO2 or any other gas were to expand to the point that oxygen percentage decreased, we would all have problem breathing.

If we use a football field as a reference to the amount of gasses in the atmosphere we have the following as a comparison.

Nitrogen is 78 percent or 78 yards in a football field.

Oxygen is 21 percent or 21 yards.

Argon is 0.9 percent or 32.4 inches.

When you add up all these we get 99.9 percent (99 yards and 32.4 inches) with all the remaining gasses in the 0.1 percent (3.6 inches).

CO2 is overall 0.04 percent or 1.44 inches. CO2 coming from this generation is mentioned on several websites at 40 percent or about 0.6 inches in the football field.

The thing to remember here is if there were too much CO2 in the atmosphere, then that would decrease the amount of oxygen. We need to have about 21 percent oxygen to maintain human life.

CO2 is absorbed by both land based plants and the seas. If there were actually more CO2 added into the atmosphere then all the plant life would actually grow faster and bigger.

There are several things that are not reported in the different websites one would visit while trying to research this topic. These are the natural forest fires especially in the west and northwest U.S. This year we have about 500,000 plus acres that have burned up and then three years ago we had the same amount in Montana. Another one that is not reported is the constant volcanoes that are erupting around the world. Then there are also seven billon people on the earth all breathing at the same time.

It is a little hard to believe that coal fired generation, a drop in the bucket, can change the weather when we have forest fires and volcanoes producing lots more CO2. But then when you look at several of the websites they proclaim that forest fires and volcanoes are part of the natural system.

Overall the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is minimal but it is an important part of the cycle of life on earth.

A good web site for all of the above http://energyink.us/