Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by amelius 2008 days ago
How would these numbers change if we had a proper carbon tax?
3 comments

Probably not much. Rocket output is practically nothing compared to that of commercial airlines and ocean freight.

Furthermore, SpaceX’s upcoming rocket can be carbon-neutral since it burns methane, which can be extracted from the earth’s atmosphere.

TL;DR - it's a rounding error.

A falcon 9 launch burns roughly 260 metric tons of liquid oxygen [1]. CO2 is 1.375 times the weight of O2, so assuming complete all that oxygen turns into CO2 we're looking at 357 metric tons of CO2 (which is an exaggeration, because a good portion of it turns into H2O instead... but the H2O is actually slightly concerning because it's in the upper atmosphere... so whatever).

Canada wants it's Carbon tax to reach $170 CAD per ton by 2030, which seems to be considered a pretty agressive carbon tax [2]. At this rate the fuel burnt in flight would cost a whopping 61 thousand dollars CAD... or 48K USD. On a multi million dollar launch.

[1] https://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/falcon-9-ft/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada#2020:...

Ok. How much kg of CO₂ is that per kg of payload?
Seriously? Just google the payload size and divide... Also... Do you have a point?
Fuel costs for a Falcon 9 launch are around $150,000, or about 1/3 of 1% of what SpaceX charges for a reusable launch.