{"id":125,"date":"2018-04-30T14:27:15","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T21:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/?p=125"},"modified":"2018-04-30T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T21:57:09","slug":"go-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/?p=125","title":{"rendered":"Go Green?"},"content":{"rendered":"
We’ve been debating getting a second car. On the plus side there’s convenience. On the minus side is cost (cost of the car, insurance, maintenance, etc).<\/p>\n

But what about the environmental cost\/benefit? Is it a plus or a minus to have a second, presumably more efficient, car?<\/p>\n

Current situation: Chrysler Town & Country ramp van. Driven 11,900 miles\/year. It gets 19 miles\/gallon. So, 626 gallons a year. Burning a gallon of gas results in roughly 19 pounds of CO2. Current total per year: 5.95 tons of carbon.<\/p>\n

If we got a new car, let’s assume we’d still drive the T&C half the time (because of the wheelchair thing). Let’s also assume the second car is a Honda Fit. The math is:
\nT&C: 2.97 tons of carbon (half of what it currently uses)
\nFit: 5,950 miles (11,900 \/ 2) @ 34 MPG: uses 175 gallons, which equals 1.66 tons of CO2.
\nTotal for both cars: 2.97 + 1.66 = 4.63<\/p>\n

So we’re 1.32 tons better each year (current 5.95 vs. new 4.63). Yea!<\/p>\n

But, what about the cost of building the new car? That is not an easy question to answer. This <\/a>uses an estimate of\u00a0720kg CO2e per \u00a31000 spent on the car, which when converted to US measurements and based on an $18,000 Fit, comes to 10 tons of carbon. Oof.<\/p>\n

So we pay a big carbon cost up front, and then get back a little each year. After 7 1\/2 years we’re even, and after that we’ll be ahead of the game. Not particularly exciting.<\/p>\n

The math for the typical driver is usually more compelling. For example, if we were just replacing the existing car, the break-even happens must faster (less than four years), because we wouldn’t be driving the old car at all. But since we don’t drive much, and still have to use the T&C at least some of the time, there isn’t an overwhelming environmental reason to make this switch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been debating getting a second car. On the plus side there’s convenience. On the minus side is cost (cost of the car, insurance, maintenance, etc). But what about the environmental cost\/benefit? Is it a plus or a minus to have a second, presumably more efficient, car? Current situation: Chrysler Town & Country ramp van. … Continue reading Go Green?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123017812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jeff Eby","author_link":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/?author=123017812"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcRTZu-21","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123017812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numberthoughts.ebydurbin.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}