“Every gallon of gas burned emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide,
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That’s ridiculous.”
It’s also bad math. A gallon of gas weighs what, just over 8 pounds? How can you increase the mass through burning?
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My point,exactly..
Doing a bit of research, the atomic weight of oxygen is 15.999u. The atomic weight of carbon is 12.0107u. Combining two oxygen and one carbon gives a weight of 44.0087u.
Carbon comprises 27.29% of the weight of CO2.
Therefore, is 20 pounds of CO2 are produced by burning 1 gallon of gas (approximately 6.3 lbs), 5.458 of the 6.3 lbs weight of 1 gallon of gas must be comprised solely of carbon atoms. That’s 87%.
Sniff, sniff... Something seems a little off.
Full disclosure: I am no chemist, so these calculations are presented only as a reasonableness check for the stated amount of CO2 produced per gallon of gas.