I’m here to set the record straight. Climate change, environmentalism, eco-friendliness, it’s all getting out of control. The political ticket of saying “we’re saving the planet!” is worth more to people than the scientific value of real, hard, peer-reviewed evidence.
I’ll spare you the science lesson, and skip straight to maths. A lightbulb uses 40-100W of power. In the UK, the power grid is split down like this:
- nuclear: 19.26% @ 16 g/kWh CO2
- coal: 33.08% @ 891 g/kWh CO2
- gas: 39.93% @ 356 g/kWh CO2
This tells us that overall, we produce 16*0.1926 + 891*0.3308 + 356*0.3993 = 439.9752 g/kWh CO2. Figures from wikipedia and world-nuclear.
Ok, so if I run my 60W lightbulb (we’re talking standard, not ‘energy saving’ lightbulbs here) for one hour, I’ve used up 0.06kWh of electricity and it has cost the country 439.9752*0.06 = 26.398512 grams of CO2. Ok, sounds a lot for a single lightbulb to be producing in gas, but let’s compare this to the amount a single human breathes out in that same hour. Now, wikianswers says 2.4 grams per hour for a human being, and micpohling says 462.2916667 grams per hour for a cow (average of the four figures from the link divided by 24 hours in a day multiplied by 1000 grams in a kilogram). So a cow produces the same amount of CO2 as 17 and a half 60W lightbulbs.
There’s a statistic for you! Eating beef is good for the environment. Every cow you kill is the same as turning off 17 and a half 60W lightbulbs -forever-. Stick that in your vegetarian environmentalism pipe and smoke it!
Hi I was googling for vegetarian durger recipies and stumbled on your blog.
I find your comment about Vegetarians very offensive as I have never smoked in my life! I find it to be a habit of the devil. You should think before you type such things as us vegetarian non-smokers would not like to be associated with the smoking vegetarians.
Also I’m not very good at Maths so can I just ask is that a metric or imperial measurement of energy?
Hello again Douglas, my own resident Troll, I’m flattered!
The expression “stick that in your pipe and smoke it” is not meant to be taken literally, but refers to accepting a bitter-tasting truth due to the evidence supporting it and in spite of your preconceptions.
g/kWh stands for “Grams per Kilowatt Hour” which is a metric measurement of CO2 output from electrical energy sources (such as nuclear power stations).
I did not wish to insult anybody with my post, merely to investigate the claims that CO2 production by mankind is the greatest (sometimes even sole) cause of climate change. I stress that this is NOT a scientific study, and should not be taken to be one; however, it does provide some figures which have been obtained from external, independent sources that corroborate my assertion that 17 and a half non-energy-saving lightbulbs are equivalent in CO2 production to a single cow.
I am sorry if you still feel offended.
Incidentally, my sister is a smoking vegetarian, so I am offended by your claim that it is “a habit of the devil”. Fortunately, this is the internet, so I have learnt to take everything with a pinch of salt.