Our blog features brief essays, expert commentary, op-eds, and Q&As that cover a wide variety of energy and environmental topics. Each entry is written by researchers from around Penn State, including faculty members and graduate students.
How many trees are needed to take up the carbon dioxide I release every day?
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Breathe in, and you consume oxygen. Breathe out, and you release carbon dioxide into the air. We know that burning fuels releases carbon dioxide, and our own “fuel,” or the food we eat, is no different. We capture the energy from the food we eat and then release the carbon from that food into the environment. On average, we eat about 2,000 calories a day and release about 2 pounds of carbon dioxide a day. Plants and trees use the energy in sunlight to take up carbon dioxide through their leaves and grow more biomass.
What’s the hype about 5.8%? I’m worried about the other 94.2%
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A recent analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that annual carbon emissions declined by 5.8% in 2020 because of the COVID-19 global pandemic. From a historical perspective, a 5.8% reduction is huge—nothing like it has occurred in our lifetimes. But from a COVID-19 perspective, how can it be so small?
How much energy we use in the US to produce electricity is a secret
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The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) publishes monthly and yearly listings on energy use to make electricity, and it is readily accessible on the internet. So why am I saying that the amount of energy used is a secret? It is the way that the EIA presents the numbers. The EIA says extra energy is used to make renewable electricity in the same proportion as electricity generation in a fossil fuel plant, but that is not correct. No extra fuels are consumed to produce renewable electricity.