Carbon offsets for rocket motors?

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Yeah, that's an oddball question, I know.

I recently posted on FB about my latest kit purchase. Biggest I've done so far as it's for my L1 certification. (More on that in a separate post.) Anyway, old buddy of mine likes to give me a hard time about being kind of a "crunchy, granola, hippie, environmentalist" type even though we are both old rednecks from East Texas. He commented on my post asking "What kind of greenhouse gases is this putting out?"

He meant it as a joke but now I'm curious. To do a little dig back at him, if I can calculate the impact I'll purchase some personal carbon offsets for my launch and send him the bill.

I gotta think someone here has already looked into this but I couldn't find it.
 
Google is your friend, a link and cut and paste of the environment below. Using "ammonium perchlorate exhaust gas chemicals" as a search you will get many interesting hits, including the CDC. If you expand the scope using "ammonium perchlorate environmental impact" you will also get hits on its impact on thyroid function.

The question of environmental impact has been brought up on TRF in the past and the most common response to this has been from WiKi below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_perchlorate_composite_propellant

"Environmental and other concerns
The exhaust from APCP solid rocket motors contains mostly water, carbon dioxide, hydrogen chloride, and a metal oxide (typically aluminium oxide). The hydrogen chloride can easily dissolve in water and create corrosive hydrochloric acid. The environmental fate of the hydrogen chloride is not well documented. The hydrochloric acid component of APCP exhaust leads to the condensation of atmospheric moisture in the plume and this enhances the visible signature of the contrail. This visible signature, among other reasons, led to research in cleaner burning propellants with no visible signatures. Minimum signature propellants contain primarily nitrogen-rich organic molecules (e.g., ammonium dinitramide) and depending on their oxidizer source can be hotter burning than APCP composite propellants."
 
Yeah, that's an oddball question, I know.

I recently posted on FB about my latest kit purchase. Biggest I've done so far as it's for my L1 certification. (More on that in a separate post.) Anyway, old buddy of mine likes to give me a hard time about being kind of a "crunchy, granola, hippie, environmentalist" type even though we are both old rednecks from East Texas. He commented on my post asking "What kind of greenhouse gases is this putting out?"

He meant it as a joke but now I'm curious. To do a little dig back at him, if I can calculate the impact I'll purchase some personal carbon offsets for my launch and send him the bill.

I gotta think someone here has already looked into this but I couldn't find it.

Some of the bigger motors might have a very small impact, but I bet I spew more carbon from my tailpipe driving to and from the launch than I create with stuff I launch. The impact of model rocketry as a whole is almost non-existent compared to all the vehicles in the USA as well as the power plants generating electricity to power the country.
 
Also, if one were to look at low power black powder flights, we would need to consider that sulfur compounds generally lead to cooling in the atmosphere, which would partially offset the co2 released.

Agree the car used puts out dramatically co2 more than the flight. Also consider the manufacturer and finishing of the rocket.
 
A fellow rocketeer is looking for a new HPR field. I made a suggestion for a local military (training) base. He had contacted them, but their reply was 'No'. Because, of all the years of 'mortar training', the APCL used has been leeching into the ground & ground water.

Whether true or not, wasn't going to push it..
 
If you're worried about carbon offsets, just plant a tree to shade your porch and call it a day. You'll offset all of your carbon* and get nice shade on your porch. Some of the propellant effects are kinda nasty. I think the green propellants have barium which can be unpleasant. I don't know about other colors.

* Unless you're flying dozens of large motors each year. In which case, plant two trees. :)
 
Yeah, that's an oddball question, I know.

I recently posted on FB about my latest kit purchase. Biggest I've done so far as it's for my L1 certification. (More on that in a separate post.) Anyway, old buddy of mine likes to give me a hard time about being kind of a "crunchy, granola, hippie, environmentalist" type even though we are both old rednecks from East Texas. He commented on my post asking "What kind of greenhouse gases is this putting out?"

He meant it as a joke but now I'm curious. To do a little dig back at him, if I can calculate the impact I'll purchase some personal carbon offsets for my launch and send him the bill.

I gotta think someone here has already looked into this but I couldn't find it.

Well, it's not that hard to calculate...

I remember hearing somewhere that APCP is about 15% binder. That binder is typically some plastic, which I'm going to guess is HTPB (hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene). Now if you Wikipedia that it's almost exactly 50/50 carbon vs. hydrogen atom by atom. Well, hydrogen is 1/12 as heavy per atom as carbon, so HTPB is about 12/13 or 92% carbon.

So APCP is 15*0.92 = 13.8% carbon. Now a popular L1 motor is the AeroTech H128W. Thrustcurve.org tells me that it contains 94 grams of propellant, or about 13g of carbon.

But CO2 isn't all carbon- in fact it's about 3/11. So 13g * 11/3 = 48 grams CO2.

Now 1 ton of CO2 offsets costs, on average, $18. But we only made 48 grams, or 0.000048 tons. So we need to pay 0.0864 cents for our H128 offset.

Yeah, model rockets produce barely any carbon.
 
I wouldn't worry about it. The amount of impact is likely less than your buddies automobile (unless it is pure electric) and a heck of a lot less than the planes environmentalists ride to their conferences. I am not criticizing just making a point.
 
Yeah, model rockets produce barely any carbon.

So $18 for a clear green conscience? Or plant a tree and assume it comes out in the (green tinted) wash?

(unless it is pure electric)

For brevity I'm sure we won't analyze the carbon footprint that produced that electric vehicle :D
 
but it is kind of amazing how blackyour hands get when yo go to 'clean out' a spent motor.. Assuming that black is the standard 'carbon black'..
 
HaHaHa! Great answers, all of them.

Hopefully you all understood that I'm not seriously worried about the carbon impact. My friend was making a joke and I'm making one back to him. Neither of us actually thinks the carbon impact of rocket launches adds up to anything we need to be concerned about.

Thanks to LithosphereRocketry's calculations, I can tell my friend I'm buying one ton of carbon offsets which should cover me for the next 5 years or so. He's a big time hunter so he'll probably need to double that in return. I win!!! (Unless maybe I accelerate my timeline and go beyond my planned L1 cert early next year and go for L2 soon after that. Maybe I should buy two tons?)

Thanks, all of you, for great responses.
 
I planted 460 trees over the last two weekends, which should make up for quite a few flights.


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Put a seed in the tip of each nosecone. The ones mother nature wants bad enough, she'll keep [emoji23]
 
[...]even though we are both old rednecks from East Texas. He commented on my post asking "What kind of greenhouse gases is this putting out?"

He meant it as a joke but now I'm curious. To do a little dig back at him, if I can calculate the impact I'll purchase some personal carbon offsets for my launch and send him the bill.

Yo'all from East Texas?

Then just buy a few packs of GasX, and send him the bill!

a
 
As we globally convert over to electric cars and electric everything, the next big environmental issue will be Ozone Offsets. This is to account for and trade the ozone all these electric motors are going to produce.

And if it isn't ozone, they'll find some other chemical component to blame on the developed world.
 
Switch to sugar motors - non-toxic, and a moderate dose of plant fertilizer.

Another factor is how much carbon you "sequestered" in the airframe that will never get released into the atmosphere as CO2 - unless your rocket burns up.
 
I planted 460 trees over the last two weekends, which should make up for quite a few flights.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

You intentionally planted rocket eaters ? what was the field not challenging enough :facepalm:
 
Don't forget that planting trees does not remove carbon from our environment. They concentrate it :wink:

When the trees die the carbon goes back to the environment, one way or another. In the whole scheme of things I think the trees argument for carbon is insignificant.
 
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