Picture of the Amount of Exhaust a Car puts out in a Day

[DavidLee]

http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/images/wwf_blackcloud.jpg

[Artkansas]

The pic didn't come out. But just the suggestion gave me a cool mental image. Put a balloon on an exhaust pipe and run it for the time of an average commute. I bet it would be a frighteningly large balloon.

I looked at the thread again and this time the pic did come out. Very cool.

[Sir Lunch-a-lot]

Wow... that is quite the image... How long was that car running for?

[rodri9o]

i really cannot imagine the car iddling very long to inflate that balloon...maybe 2 hours?

[DavidLee]

i really cannot imagine the car iddling very long to inflate that balloon...maybe 2 hours?

The title is off, it should have read "amount of Carbon Monoxide". My bad :p

[Philatio]

The pic didn't come out. But just the suggestion gave me a cool mental image. Put a balloon on an exhaust pipe and run it for the time of an average commute. I bet it would be a frighteningly large balloon.

I looked at the thread again and this time the pic did come out. Very cool.
didn't work for me either. here's a link if this is happening to anyone else - http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/images/wwf_blackcloud.jpg

cool idea btw :)

[Dahon.Steve]

It shouldn't surprise you because I've seen plenty of buses leave a cloud of smog that size during the winter.

[Gurgus]

I'm kinda curious as to what was done with the bag after this demo was done. I mean, did they just release all of that into the air? Isn't that called hipocracy?

[Eco-warrior]

+1 That's a great idea, wish I would have thought of that before I sold my car.

[Cosmoline]

So that's just the Carbon monoxide, right? I wonder how many people that much monoxide could kill.

[goldener]

wait this is flawed. at what pressure. ideal gas law any one? pv=nrt?

[briank]

WOw! Cool picture. Scary!! Well I am 65-70% truck free'er than I was last week. I bought a bike and can't keep off it. I am commuting now too via bike.

[cerewa]

So that's just the Carbon monoxide, right? I wonder how many people that much monoxide could kill.

I don't know whether it's representative of carbon monoxide put out by a car in a day or what, but the actual contents of the balloon were almost certainly not carbon monoxide. Most of what comes out the tailpipe of a car will be nitrogen, since that's most of what goes in the air intake. The vast majority that remains is going to be carbon dioxide (which people sometimes confuse with carbon monoxide), a gas that contributes to global warming but is about as poisonous as water.

A round trip car commute might actually put out that much carbon monoxide, though-- i don't think that a car could be driven any reasonable distance before filling up a balloon that size with air.