Emitting 1 kg of CO2 whilst using 0.2 kg of fuel. Where does that 0.8 kg come from?

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Hi There I didn’t pay much attention in sciences classes I am afraid.
But some one should be able to help me out.
I try to live as consciously as possible and deal with the environment and CO2 emissions. But one thing always stays with me: The volume of CO2.
People always talk about kg CO2 per… For example: diving 5 km in a average car would emit 1kg of CO2. I drive a Toyota Aygo, so a little less then average, but lets say could drive around 20km on 1 litre of fuel. That would mean I’ll use around 0,25 litre for 5 km.
Typical E10 fuel weighs around 0,85kg per litre. That should mean I used around 212 grams of fuel to produce 1kg of CO2. That math doesn’t count up for me… Where does the other 788 grams come from?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The air.
Carbon has 12 AMU per atom, Oxygen has 16 AMU per atom.

Say you have a chunk of fuel that is mostly pure carbon. For simplicity sake.

When you burn that pure carbon, it combines with oxygen in the air to form CO2. So using the numbers in your example. You have 0.2 KG of carbon fuel, combining with 0.8 kg of oxygen in the air, to form 1.0 kg of CO2

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