How Much Is in a Can of Soda
Soda Sequestration
How much CO2 is contained in the globe's stock of bottled fizzy drinks? How much soda would be needed to bring atmospheric COtwo back to preindustrial levels?
Brandon Seah
For about of the history of civilization, there were about 270 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In the terminal hundred years, industrial activity has pushed that number upward to 400 parts per million.
One "role per million" of COtwo weighs about 7.8 billion tons. A can of soda contains in the neighborhood of 2.ii grams of CO2, so yous would demand about 450 quadrillion cans of soda. That'due south enough to comprehend the Earth's land with ten layers of cans.
There's clearly not enough room to practice this. Even if nosotros stacked the cans up to the edge of space, [one] I don't accept any difficult numbers, but my judge would exist that you could probably stack supermarket soda six-pack crates a few hundred meters high before the lesser layer ruptures. they'd withal take upwardly an area the size of Rhode Island. [2] We shouldn't actually endeavor information technology, given what happened last time.
We'd demand to add together fifty-fifty more cans to go along upward with ongoing emissions. Nosotros're currently increasing the atmosphere's CO2 concentration by an average of 2 parts per million each yr:
At that rate, we'd need to add together ane can of soda per person every xxx seconds, which is almost ten,000 times the current consumption rate. [three] The global average is one tin can per person every 5 days. In the The states, the average is 1 every xviii hours. That would add a new layer of cans to the ground every vi [iv] I originally had the wrong number here; thanks to Paulina for communicable it! years or and then.
This layer of cans would get pretty abrasive.
Are there any ways out of this predicament?
In some areas, you can turn in soda cans for recycling and receive a small corporeality of coin; in Massachusetts, where I live, it'southward five cents. If y'all nerveless one twelvemonth'south worth of soda cans—instead of layering them across the Earth's surface—and emptied them out, you could redeem them for $372 trillion.
With that much money, you could but buy the globe's current reserves [five] Source: xkcd.com/980, bottom correct. of coal, oil, and natural gas—the source of the whole problem.
Then, you put it all back in the basis and get out information technology there.
Problem solved.
Source: https://what-if.xkcd.com/88/
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