I have an Oldsmobile that my father gave me when my Volkswagen TDI died at 220,000 miles. The Oldsmobile is a 2000 Intrigue with 144,000 or so miles. It doesn't have any major problems, but we needed a newer car that we could trust for trips. So, we bought a Camry Hybrid.
I was debating what to do with the Olds because it has a leak in the AC system so it needs to be recharged with 134 a refrigerant every year or so. To recharge is under $100 while to change the compressor is $720. The global warming potential of HFC-134a is 1300 times that of CO2. Thus, if you recharge with 1 pound of HFC-134a every year, you emit the equivalent of 1300 pounds or 0.65 tons of CO2. For those keeping score this would be 0.59 tonnes (metric) of CO2. In comparison, a Camry Hybrid saves 1.3 tonnes of CO2 every year versus a conventional Camry and emits a total of 5.4 tonnes of CO2 per year if you drive 15000 miles per year.
So, should I replace the compressor for $720 before I sell it? Let's say the car is driven for 5 more years and they put in 5 pounds of refrigerant over that time. From an economic standpoint, I should offset the CO2 only if a tonne of CO2 is worth $244 per tonne. I think I could buy 3 tonnes of CO2 on the voluntary market for ten dollars each.
I bought a $10 ton of carbon offsets from Carbon Eliminator as my first installment. That will compensate for the HFC-134a that I used last year. I like Carbon Eliminator because it is one of the only sites that will directly sell anyone offsets without any BS calculations that we don't need them to do for us. It's not from a big organization, but they will use my $10 to install solar panels in Nigeria or the Amazon. Is it "real?" Who knows. They emailed me back and seemed legit to me.
I was debating what to do with the Olds because it has a leak in the AC system so it needs to be recharged with 134 a refrigerant every year or so. To recharge is under $100 while to change the compressor is $720. The global warming potential of HFC-134a is 1300 times that of CO2. Thus, if you recharge with 1 pound of HFC-134a every year, you emit the equivalent of 1300 pounds or 0.65 tons of CO2. For those keeping score this would be 0.59 tonnes (metric) of CO2. In comparison, a Camry Hybrid saves 1.3 tonnes of CO2 every year versus a conventional Camry and emits a total of 5.4 tonnes of CO2 per year if you drive 15000 miles per year.
So, should I replace the compressor for $720 before I sell it? Let's say the car is driven for 5 more years and they put in 5 pounds of refrigerant over that time. From an economic standpoint, I should offset the CO2 only if a tonne of CO2 is worth $244 per tonne. I think I could buy 3 tonnes of CO2 on the voluntary market for ten dollars each.
I bought a $10 ton of carbon offsets from Carbon Eliminator as my first installment. That will compensate for the HFC-134a that I used last year. I like Carbon Eliminator because it is one of the only sites that will directly sell anyone offsets without any BS calculations that we don't need them to do for us. It's not from a big organization, but they will use my $10 to install solar panels in Nigeria or the Amazon. Is it "real?" Who knows. They emailed me back and seemed legit to me.
If we had a price on carbon, people could easily make such calculations. Maybe instead of buying a hybrid, I would have bought offsets and a conventional car since I might be able to do more good. Oh well, I like driving around with the engine off and imagining less money going to Exxon from our bank account.
ReplyDeleteI found an offset for $10. That seems to be about the low end of what legitimate companies can do to prevent a tonne of CO2 emissions.
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