Infographic to put CO2eq in perspective

[markus-gsf-seidl]

Hi!

I was reading a few "Sustainability Reports" of Hyperscalers and, while they are lacking a lot of numbers, they do have some sprinkled throughout the pictures and text. There are a lot of units an MMT CO2eq, GT CO2eq and others. While reading this, I realized that I lack the references to put these number in perspective. Are 3 MMT CO2eq much, or is it your every day usage?

I was inspired by https://xkcd.com/980/ and I do like this style of graph to visualize the numbers for money. Additionally I think we should do this for all the numbers that are relevant for Hyperscalers and IT:

• Energy: J and kWh
• Water-consumption
• Maybe Land-consumption, would be interessting to see how much land we need for the amount of computing power and how much we need for our continued computing power - if we move everything to the cloud.

Which WG or Project would be the right place to work on something like this, if there is any interest? @jawache
Would anyone be interesting? I can do a lot of research (additional support obviously welcome!), but it needs double checking and a designer (or maybe we script it at least partially?)

I already started to gather some numbers, the links under these numbers are links to the sources, bc I think to have anything valid the sources and calculations must be available somewhere.

Everything in metric tons:

1g CO2eq

• 6g CO2 in carbonated drinks
• in Air 1g/m^3
  • 1.977 kg/m^3 (gas at 1 atm) * 0.0417 % in air = 0.8244 g/m^3 ~~ 1g/m^3
• In exhaled air
  • 1.977 kg/m^3 (gas at 1 atm) = 1.977 g/L
  • --> 1 toy ballon = 500ml * 5% = 25ml --> 1.977 g/L * 25ml = 49.4mg (when filled with exhaled air); I guess this is not 100% correct, as a toy balloon does compress the air on the inside (?)
• 1 kWh in Germany: 494 gCO2e/kWh
• CO2 - 1562 kg/m3 (solid at 1 atm (100 kPa) and −78.5 °C (−109.3 °F)) (also called "dry ice")
  • 16mm dice standard format = 4.1cm^3 => 4.1cm^3 * 1.562 g/cm^3 = 6.4g (weight of 1 dice of dry ice)
• Tidal volume of the lung in healthy adults on average men and woman 0.5L * 5% CO2 content = 1.977 g/L * 25ml = 49.4mg (tidal volume = quiet, normal breathing)
  • 15-18 breaths per minute per Adult * 49.4mg = 741 - 889.2 mg/Minute
  • 889.2 mg/Minute * 60m = 53.352 g/h
• 0.5g for a web page visit
• 36g watching 1h of Netflix

1kg CO2 eq

• 2.37kg/L Gasoline
• 10kg drive a car 100km
• Cows: 6 kg/day for 1 cow
  • 1g Methane = 25g CO2eq
  • 1 cow = Methane 220 pounds/year ; Methane 100kg/year
  • => 100kg/year * 25 CO2eq => 2.500kg/year CO2eq
    • 2.500kg/year CO2eq = 6 kg/day
• Tidal breathing / quiet breathing of 1 adult = 1.28kg/d (see 1g)
• Producing one Laptop: 331kg CO2eq
• Capture in a Tree: 13kg/year
• 90kg/1h of flying Source

1t CO2eq

• Producing one server: 11.3% * 11600 kgCO2e = 1.3108 t CO2eq

1kt CO2eq

• tbd

1 Mt CO2eq

• Human population (2020), tidal breathing / quiet breathing 9.978 Mt CO2/day
• Yearly server production: 4 Million Units/quarter * 4 = 16 Million Units/year
  • 16 Million Units/year * 1.3108 t CO2eq ( 1 server ) = 20.973 Mt CO2eq
• Trees in Germany capture this amount every year: 1.23 Mt CO2
  • https://bundeswaldinventur.de/fileadmin/SITE_MASTER/content/Downloads/CI2017/2019-04_FlyerKohlenstoffinventur2017_final.pdf - Bundeswaldinventur 2017
• 18 000 000 000 kWh 2022 for all data centers in germany. Average CO2 is 494g/CO2eq
  • 8.892 * 10^6 t = 8.9 Mt CO2eq

1 Gt CO2eq

• Total world output 49.8 Gt CO2eq in 2019
• 1ppm(v) of CO2 = 4.99 Gt CO2 (see 2.101 Tt for sources)
• 10.3 Gt CO2eq per year for all humans (only!)
  • Human metabolic emissions of carbon dioxide and methane and their implications for carbon emissions
    • "2.00 Gt/year for CO2 and 332 Gg/year (=332 kt) for CH4" - needs to be converted to CO2eq
      • 332 kt CO4 * 25 (GWP factor) = 8.3 Gt CO2eq
      • Open Do humans exhale CH4 or is it a "lower body emission, only"?
      • ==> 10.3 Gt CO2eq per year for all humans (only!)
• 3 Gt stored by the ocean each year (2bn tonnes)
• 16 Gt stored by forests each year (16 billion metric tonnes)

1 Tt CO2eq

• 1.832 Tt CO2 stored in permafrost in the northern hemisphere

• 2.101 Tt CO2 in the atmosphere = ~2 Tt CO2 in 2022 (421ppm = 0.0421%)

  • 4990 Tt Air in the atmosphere Note that the source talks about tons, but its unclear to me if this are short or long tons .
    • 4990 Tt Air * 0,0421% = 2.101 Tt CO2
    • 1ppm(v) = 4.99 Gt CO2
    • 280ppm(v) before 1750 = 4990 Tt * 0.0280% = 1.397 Tt CO2
      • we've output 2.101Tt - 1.397 Tt CO2 (only!) = 0.704 Tt = 704 Gt since 1750 / industrial age

• Not used

  • Fridge: R6000a isobutane; GWP 3.3

• Trees; Using 13kg/year == 1 Tree

  • 1t = 50 trees
  • https://www.lwf.bayern.de/mam/cms04/service/dateien/mb-27-kohlenstoffspeicherung-2.pdf
    • Vfm/ha = https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuwachs_(Forstwirtschaft)
  • https://www.co2online.de/service/klima-orakel/beitrag/wie-viele-baeume-braucht-es-um-eine-tonne-co2-zu-binden-10658/
    • 12.5kg / year (for 80 years "Buche")
  • Fun fact: 3.04 Trillion Trees on earth

Working area

Ideas for numbers to put CO2eq into perspective

• Relation to other gases (the eq part of CO2eq, like Methane, ...)
• More car numbers
• More food numbers:
  • Burger production
• More agriculture numbers
  • Cow output, other lifestock output
• More PC numbers
  • Hyperscaler CO2eq output (compensated - uncompensated)
• Power Plants / Production Methods
• Carbon Capture technologies
• eFuels
• Comparison PPM with PBM? (FCKW; Ozone Layer)?
• Open Questions:
  • The XKCD money chart is highly USA focused, how do we make the CO2eq chart more accessible? Maybe one per Region? (USA, EU, "Africa", "East", ...)?
  • Tons is not tons in all parts of the world. Everything in this graph uses metric tons.