4 ms·

How much CO2 does launching a million satellites produce? Is is significant compared to other sources of CO2?

• verdverm 3mo ago
  Compare it to air planes, which are already at a much more significant scale. Accounting for fuel type and combustion efficiency seems relevant. I recall around SpaceX 100th landing, that a day of just transatlantic flights was more than everything SpaceX had done to that point
  • fc417fc802 3mo ago
    Exactly, they don't matter when compared to general aviation or even just consumer shipping. And in all cases, if you produce the fuel using renewables then the CO2 output is trivially brought near zero.
    • balfirevic 3mo ago
      "General aviation" does not include commercial air transport, so that's probably not what you meant.
    • stevage 3mo ago
      > And in all cases, if you produce the fuel using renewables then the CO2 output is trivially brought near zero. But...they don't.
      • fc417fc802 3mo ago
        But they could. Which generally means that objections of the form "we should cut back on [activity] because it produces too much CO2" are misplaced. The only activity we need to cut back on is the extraction of geological carbon.
        • stevage 3mo ago
          Oh, good, glad that's solved then.