Elon Musk is the globes biggest polluter - prove me wrong
Discussion
redchina said:
My contender for "Polluter of the Planet Award" is Musk.
Is there any single person alive that is responsible for more pollution?
Great PH name OP…..nothing suspicious there at all….Is there any single person alive that is responsible for more pollution?
Let’s assume we go with your well reasoned argument for a minute, is there any chance you could expand on the logic that gets to this conclusion.
And for a counter, I might offer Xi Jinping but let’s see your case first
[ my username is a hangover from joining this forum many years ago and showed where I was working at the time - nothing more sinister than that! ]
So, starting with Zip2, X.com and Paypal, Musk made a lot of cash and generated a lot of email traffic, nothing too unusual in that, but in itself, Paypal has its own carbon footprint which has not been offset or mitigated, even now. This Global company has enough money to offset its emissions going back to Day 1 and hasn't.
Minor maybe, but probably in the region of millions of tons of carbon used in electricity.
Space X emissions? who knows. Certainly tens of millions of tons, maybe 100's or more?
Space X, Space Junk. In 2018 Musk, deliberately, launches a Tesla car into space as a PR stunt. assuming it was a shell only, this is deliberately polluting space with 500kg of junk for fun, or kicks, or PR.
Talking of junk, 8Tons of rocket booster is heading for the moon. Lets employ a tame astrophysicist to claim its not a big deal though... it is.
The Boring company - theres not much reason to this company, but lets dig holes. 100's of thousands of liters of Diesel. Pointlessly used.
Tesla
assuming all batteries are made of freshly mined minerals, rather than recycled, then the carbon footprint of every-single-Tesla is inexcusably high.
Copper, lithium, lead, etc etc etc. pulled out of mines in China, Peru, Chile, Australia. Shipped to California. Shipped worldwide.
massive massive front end carbon use to claim a guilt free form of travel.
Gigafactories.
literally tons and tons of electrical equipment that will barely pay back or re-coup the use of the rare earth metals involved, until they are recycled.
theres more, like the hyperloop stuff, but I think i'll stop
Nothing wrong with making money, I am trying to do the same thing, but the question is, who is a bigger polluter than the above?
So, starting with Zip2, X.com and Paypal, Musk made a lot of cash and generated a lot of email traffic, nothing too unusual in that, but in itself, Paypal has its own carbon footprint which has not been offset or mitigated, even now. This Global company has enough money to offset its emissions going back to Day 1 and hasn't.
Minor maybe, but probably in the region of millions of tons of carbon used in electricity.
Space X emissions? who knows. Certainly tens of millions of tons, maybe 100's or more?
Space X, Space Junk. In 2018 Musk, deliberately, launches a Tesla car into space as a PR stunt. assuming it was a shell only, this is deliberately polluting space with 500kg of junk for fun, or kicks, or PR.
Talking of junk, 8Tons of rocket booster is heading for the moon. Lets employ a tame astrophysicist to claim its not a big deal though... it is.
The Boring company - theres not much reason to this company, but lets dig holes. 100's of thousands of liters of Diesel. Pointlessly used.
Tesla
assuming all batteries are made of freshly mined minerals, rather than recycled, then the carbon footprint of every-single-Tesla is inexcusably high.
Copper, lithium, lead, etc etc etc. pulled out of mines in China, Peru, Chile, Australia. Shipped to California. Shipped worldwide.
massive massive front end carbon use to claim a guilt free form of travel.
Gigafactories.
literally tons and tons of electrical equipment that will barely pay back or re-coup the use of the rare earth metals involved, until they are recycled.
theres more, like the hyperloop stuff, but I think i'll stop
Nothing wrong with making money, I am trying to do the same thing, but the question is, who is a bigger polluter than the above?
Pretty sure the bosses of Shell, BP, Saudi Aramco, Exxon, Rosneft, Gazprom, Sinopec etc are going to take some beating.
Then there's the global mining giants- Rio Tinto, Glencore. Steel producers, anyone that mines coal on an industrial scale, shipping/aviation giants, chemical companies, so on and so on.
Then there's the global mining giants- Rio Tinto, Glencore. Steel producers, anyone that mines coal on an industrial scale, shipping/aviation giants, chemical companies, so on and so on.
Edited by Fusion777 on Saturday 29th January 13:26
Tango13 said:
Who was it that thought adding lead to petrol would be a smart move? He was responsible for CFCs in aerosol cans too iirc?
Was going to post the same guy, he was an answer on QI for most polluting person iirchttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
I think he's also an inventor killed by his own invention as he suffocated on his own pulley system that he used to get out of bed.
redchina said:
Space Junk. In 2018 Musk, deliberately, launches a Tesla car into space as a PR stunt. assuming it was a shell only, this is deliberately polluting space with 500kg of junk for fun, or kicks, or PR.
Talking of junk, 8Tons of rocket booster is heading for the moon. Lets employ a tame astrophysicist to claim its not a big deal though... it is.
You really should have thought of a better name for your award than 'polluter of the PLANET' if this is your evidence Talking of junk, 8Tons of rocket booster is heading for the moon. Lets employ a tame astrophysicist to claim its not a big deal though... it is.
if anything he took some waste material and ejected it from the planet, you should salute him. redchina][ my username is a hangover from joining this forum many years ago and showed where I was working at the time - nothing more sinister than that! said:
So, starting with Zip2, X.com and Paypal, Musk made a lot of cash and generated a lot of email traffic, nothing too unusual in that, but in itself, Paypal has its own carbon footprint which has not been offset or mitigated, even now. This Global company has enough money to offset its emissions going back to Day 1 and hasn't.
Minor maybe, but probably in the region of millions of tons of carbon used in electricity.
Space X emissions? who knows. Certainly tens of millions of tons, maybe 100's or more?
Space X, Space Junk. In 2018 Musk, deliberately, launches a Tesla car into space as a PR stunt. assuming it was a shell only, this is deliberately polluting space with 500kg of junk for fun, or kicks, or PR.
Talking of junk, 8Tons of rocket booster is heading for the moon. Lets employ a tame astrophysicist to claim its not a big deal though... it is.
The Boring company - theres not much reason to this company, but lets dig holes. 100's of thousands of liters of Diesel. Pointlessly used.
Tesla
assuming all batteries are made of freshly mined minerals, rather than recycled, then the carbon footprint of every-single-Tesla is inexcusably high.
Copper, lithium, lead, etc etc etc. pulled out of mines in China, Peru, Chile, Australia. Shipped to California. Shipped worldwide.
massive massive front end carbon use to claim a guilt free form of travel.
Gigafactories.
literally tons and tons of electrical equipment that will barely pay back or re-coup the use of the rare earth metals involved, until they are recycled.
theres more, like the hyperloop stuff, but I think i'll stop
Nothing wrong with making money, I am trying to do the same thing, but the question is, who is a bigger polluter than the above?
So just a thread to bash Musk rather then ask a serious question?Minor maybe, but probably in the region of millions of tons of carbon used in electricity.
Space X emissions? who knows. Certainly tens of millions of tons, maybe 100's or more?
Space X, Space Junk. In 2018 Musk, deliberately, launches a Tesla car into space as a PR stunt. assuming it was a shell only, this is deliberately polluting space with 500kg of junk for fun, or kicks, or PR.
Talking of junk, 8Tons of rocket booster is heading for the moon. Lets employ a tame astrophysicist to claim its not a big deal though... it is.
The Boring company - theres not much reason to this company, but lets dig holes. 100's of thousands of liters of Diesel. Pointlessly used.
Tesla
assuming all batteries are made of freshly mined minerals, rather than recycled, then the carbon footprint of every-single-Tesla is inexcusably high.
Copper, lithium, lead, etc etc etc. pulled out of mines in China, Peru, Chile, Australia. Shipped to California. Shipped worldwide.
massive massive front end carbon use to claim a guilt free form of travel.
Gigafactories.
literally tons and tons of electrical equipment that will barely pay back or re-coup the use of the rare earth metals involved, until they are recycled.
theres more, like the hyperloop stuff, but I think i'll stop
Nothing wrong with making money, I am trying to do the same thing, but the question is, who is a bigger polluter than the above?
The car wasn't launched into space for fun. It was the first ever flight of a falcon heavy which would normally have a test weigh payload. There was a high probability of failure. IIRC he offered the payload space for free but nobody wanted to risk it on a test flight. Something had to go in the payload space, so why not make it interesting.
NASA's "new" SLS system which has been in development for over a decade uses expendible boosters, costs 2bn per launch, and hasn't flown a single mission yet.
Over the life of an EV it is significantly less polluting than an ICE. Battery cells can easily removed and repurposed from "dead" battery pack. This is already happening.
Rare earth minerals are not rare, or problematic. "Rare" is a geological term. They are used in ICE cars and an EV doesn't need to use any more (unless you choose to). If you want to go down that route then almost all major car manufacturers are more polluting than Musk/Tesla, because they make so many more cars.
Musk isn't doing anything significant with hyperloop apart from talk about it.
Edited by 98elise on Saturday 29th January 14:16
redchina said:
So, starting with Zip2, X.com and Paypal, Musk made a lot of cash and generated a lot of email traffic, nothing too unusual in that, but in itself, Paypal has its own carbon footprint which has not been offset or mitigated, even now. This Global company has enough money to offset its emissions going back to Day 1 and hasn't.
Minor maybe, but probably in the region of millions of tons of carbon used in electricity.
You know PayPal was sold to eBay nearly 20 years ago, and even then he only owned 11.7% of it. Minor maybe, but probably in the region of millions of tons of carbon used in electricity.
Another predictable, frankly embarrassing, rant from another dinowarrior.
Tesla produced less than a million cars last year.
EV cars currently produce more CO2 than an equivalent ICE during manufacture, there is little debate about that.
It's nowhere near double, but even if it was, it's the equivalent of less than 2 million ICEs.
The total number of cars produced last year is going to be something like 80 million.
As they say, do the maths.
Now do the same assessment when EV production reaches equivalent volume to ICE, guess what, they will produce less CO2 per car during the manufacturing phase.
EVs are far simpler and there is a high content of energy that can sourced from renewables. So crucially, what the OP is also ignorant to is that EVs are on a trajectory towards significantly lower footprint per car, which ICE can't hope to match.
And then factor in CO2 footprint during use and well, it's game over for ICEs several time over.
C'mon guys, many of us lament the demise of the ICE car, but let's call it a day on this kind of bulls
t now.
Tesla produced less than a million cars last year.
EV cars currently produce more CO2 than an equivalent ICE during manufacture, there is little debate about that.
It's nowhere near double, but even if it was, it's the equivalent of less than 2 million ICEs.
The total number of cars produced last year is going to be something like 80 million.
As they say, do the maths.
Now do the same assessment when EV production reaches equivalent volume to ICE, guess what, they will produce less CO2 per car during the manufacturing phase.
EVs are far simpler and there is a high content of energy that can sourced from renewables. So crucially, what the OP is also ignorant to is that EVs are on a trajectory towards significantly lower footprint per car, which ICE can't hope to match.
And then factor in CO2 footprint during use and well, it's game over for ICEs several time over.
C'mon guys, many of us lament the demise of the ICE car, but let's call it a day on this kind of bulls
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