Jennifer Marohasy

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How Much Warming from Fireworks? A Question from Trevor Devine

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Dear Jennifer,

I have been wondering what thoughts you may have on the NSW state governments stance on global warming and their seemingly contradictory actions of tying 2 or 3 million dollars of fireworks to the Sydney Harbour Bridge each New Year and Australia Day and letting it rip oblivious on at least these two days of their claimed effects on global warming.

Kind Regards,
Trevor Devine
Councillor
Hawkesbury City Council.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Luke says

    A quick relative number might be to simply to work out how many tons are involved and assume it was all gunpowder and was all converted to CO2. So not accurate but OK enough to ballpark the number. Does it add up to one Jumbo jet load of fuel?

  2. Robert says

    This is a storm in a tea cup. The contradictory nature of the state government is better illustrated over their concern about reducing GHG emissions, while building more coal fired power stations and opening more mines. On top of that they force us to pay for the desal plant so we can provide water for the hordes of migrants that keep sucking up our resources. If Sydney had a stable population of 2.5million instead of 4million and growing, there would never have been a water shortage.

  3. Hasbeen says

    I don’t know about the effect on global warming, if any, but I have always had another worry with all these fireworks.

    Most of those lovely colours are produced by metals. Just one of these displays put as much carcinogens in the air as all the smokers in Sydney, puffing away for a month or more. What’s more, they do it over a huge crowd, gathered together just for the purpose.

    That any government can get away with supporting these “displays”, while fining any poor smoker who exhales a puff of used smoke within some distance of a door, beggars belief. It shows what a weak mob of sheep we have become.

    It would almost be worth taking up smoking, just to have a fight with our masters.

  4. Luke says

    OK – check my dubious maths:

    From http://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au/gvgpublicui/StaticContent/climate_change.aspx

    http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/63AF63FDCC1078F4CA2571E1001F0FF6?opendocument

    A Holden Commodore does 270 gms CO2 per km.

    So for 15,000 km per year – 270*15000= 4050000

    or 4 tonnes of CO2.

    So for a gunpowder number http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/bang.htm

    The composition of ordinary black powder is 65-75 KNO3, 15-20 C, 10-15 S, which is close to the “stoichiometric” ratio of 84:8:8 that gives the ideal reaction 10KNO3 + 8C + 3S → 2K2CO3 + 3K2SO4 + 6CO2 + 5N2

    Assume all the C ends up in CO2 eventually – so 30% CO2 from one kg of gundpowder.

    So for 20 tonnes for the “Eternity display” (a Google on “tons of fireworks”)

    =20*0.3 ~ 6 tonnes.

    So it’s about 1.5 equivalents of driving a Commodore for a year.

    Sydney to LA – a Jumbo jet holds 150 – 170 tonnes of fuel.

    2.6 tonnes CO2 per person on a Sydney to LA return trip.

    http://www.clevel.co.uk/eyenetwork/

    Probably produced more CO2 from people driving to watch the fireworks than the fireworks themselves?

    So fireworks are small beer?

    The real issue is the growing concern over perchlorate contamination from the pyrotechnics.

    Perchlorates are coming up the enviro charts.

  6. Luke says

    OK wasn’t happy with aeroplane calculations.

    http://www.carbonplanet.com/home/shop_flight_emissions_calculator.php

    7.6 tonnes Sydney to LA economy return. So one flight to US for one person matches fireworks?

    So what about other cities:

    Also for the first time in 2006, Riverfestival partnered with Greening Australia Queensland to
    calculate the global warming impact of Riverfire’s 6 tonnes of fireworks and the F111 dump and
    burn. To neutralise the effects of the 68 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions created by these
    aspects of the event, 300 trees were planted at a community tree planting day in conjunction with
    SEQ Catchments and e-trees at Wivenhoe Dam and Stanley River Environmental Education Centre
    during the festival.

    http://www.riverfestival.com.au/index.php?element=StudentKit2006

  7. rog says

    Well thats easy, you just arrange for one less person to to fly to LA to offset all those nasty noisy smelly firecrackers.

    And then you have all those chinese to contend with; Gong hay fat choy

  8. rog says

    And then there is the real issue of the State Govt resuming the local councils role as development certifiers.