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Comment by cpprototypes | Hacker News Reader

I wish some billionaire would start a chain of carbon neutral gas stations. I wouldn't mind paying more for gas if I knew it was carbon neutral. There are several ways the gas could be carbon neutral, either through production (solar/wind into fuel creation) or offsets (plant trees or carbon sequestration). Instead of slowly trying to change our transportation infrastructure to EV, which will take decades, this could have immediate impact now.

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Quick 'back of the envelope' (literally) calculations:

Toyota Camry [0] Dual VVT-i engine gets 7.9L/100km and 183gm/km emissions. That roughly works out as 2.3kg CO2 per 1L petrol.

Therefore, a tonne of CO2 is produced for every ~430L petrol. Petrol is around AUD $1.40/L, so about AUD $600 of petrol.

Carbon credits [1] are worth about $14 euros per tonne of CO2, which is say AUD $19.

Therefore 'carbon neutral' petrol adds about AUD$20 to AUD$600 worth of fuel, or about 3-4%.

Sound about right? I could stomach that, considering the fuels price goes up and down all the time anyway...

[0] http://www.toyota.com.au/camry/features/economy-and-environm...

[1] http://www.goldstandard.org/blog-item/carbon-pricing-what-ca...

EDIT: formatting...

This is a lot lower than I expected. I wish governments would just add this as a tax directly. But seems almost impossible in the current political climate.

Your comment sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. I was confused about how burning 1L of fuel, which weighs ~1kg, could possibly produce ~2.3kg of CO2.

(This page confirms Toyota's number: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=307&t=11 )

The answer, which took me far too long to realize, is that the oxygen pulled from the air makes up the bulk of the mass of the CO2. Oxygen has an atomic mass of ~16 to Carbon's ~12, which means that 1kg of pure carbon can be combined with oxygen to produce ~3.7kg of CO2.

So yes, your calculations sound about right. Contrary to my first impression they do not violate the law of conservation of mass.

Yeah, I did a double take when I saw the number as well, then realized there's an O2 in CO2..

This is what confuses me, if it only costs 10% more to fix the problem, why the hell is it still a problem?

Because politicians choose the spend the money elsewhere since, so far, it doesn't give enough votes.

Exactly! It's maddening.

You can start paying off your CO2 right now. This is a side project of mine: https://earthboost.org

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think that's how carbon credits work? Paying 10% more for gas doesn't magically reduce the CO2 emitted. I would expect that at some point, someone has to actually not emit CO2 for this to work.

The carbon credit _is_ the (market-based) mechanism by which someone else has to not emit, or sequester, the CO2. [0]

Of course, it relies on there actually being a cap on carbon in the first place...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit#How_buying_carbo...

I think even a startup could do this. Could work with existing stations to promote themselves as being completely eco-friendly. They would add a small cost to each gallon of fuel (as andrewwhartion mentioned it should only be ~3-4%) and that cost would go to offsetting the emissions. The startup could charge another 1% or a lump fee and put the work into making banners / promotional material to advertise their eco-friendliness, and also handle the PR. In an eco-conscious city just the local PR could bump business enough to make it worth it.

I think there's something in this...

The person behind the cash register could even ask, "Would you like to make your 'gas/petrol/fuel' today carbon-neutral for an extra $2.45?".

I can see that working with very little capital. It gets sold the same way as the Snickers bars next to the checkout.

A lot of gas stations here ask "Do you want a car wash for $x.xx" directly on the gas pump after you slide your card. If gas stations just added "Do you want carbon neutral for $x.xx" I think many would push yes in the right markets and a reasonable $x.xx value.

That gas station would be empty 95% of the time because it wouldn't succeed.

Most people don't want to spend any extra money on things that they won't directly benefit from.

I think organics food shows this isn't true. These gas stations would first target the affluent liberal markets. The marketing could be, don't feel bad about buying that luxury BMW gas guzzler, come to Neutral gas station. The station should feel high end, like the Apple store of gas stations.

This is how organic food started with Whole Foods. And the same strategy could work here.

Organic food is successful because a significant number of people believe it is healthier to eat than non-organic foods. The environmental impact is mostly not the reason. (Whether it is true that organic foods are healthier may be debatable, though for some foods the evidence is pretty good that it is.)

It won't work to use that angle for gas. Pure environmental plays are harder to find. There are people who pay more for renewable generated electricity, so that's a good parallel. I don't know what percentage, however, or if it'd be enough to support a chain of expensive gas stations.

This was true years ago, but I think times are different now. Theres a feeling of near panic among many as the effects of climate change become more obvious and the new Trump environmental policies. I think theres strong desire to do something and this could tap into that.

Also by being high end, theres opportunity to be very different. These stations shouldn't even look like traditional stations. They could provide services that appeal to affluent markets and provide good profit margin. This will be necessary at first because raising gas price alone won't be enough to cover costs.

I'm not sure that this is a fair comparison.

Everyone that I know that eats organic does it because they believe the food is better for their health.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea. I personally buy from companies like https://us.whogivesacrap.org/ and seek out and pay a premium for sustainably produced food. In a city such as SF or Seattle where many people are wealthy and eco-concious I could see this working. I'm unsure if it would scale though.

I suspect that the population of every country is too price sensitive for this to make a dent. Take for example ethically produced clothing, food, etc. While they are big industries they can barely hold a candle to their less-ethical counterparts.

From what I see, relying on good intentions doesn't quite seem get us to where we need to go.

The cool startup thing here is gas delivery a.k.a. "the Uber of gas stations". It seems like they could add this as a service, since they need something as a reason to exist.

(this is a submarine comment, I don't want Yoshi to go out of business or I'll have to inflate my own tires again)

Or, well, you could buy carbon credits…

Even if it would succeed and a significant people would be willing to pay more, without regulation you cannot know that it is really carbon neutral instead of the billionaire owner pocketing the difference. And once you get around to regulations, a carbon tax is a much more sensible proposal.

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