Hi there! 👋🏼Looks like we tackled the difficult math, but missed the tiny onscreen percentage sign! As most of you pointed out, 27% would be converted to 0.27, not 0.27%. Thanks for always looking out for the details to make our content even greater, and happy 4 million subscribers!
I've been subscribed to them since they had less than 500 subscribers. The channel grew fast, the only true flaw Dnews has us their sources are flawed and their information is incorrect more so than I would like it to be.
Good good for thought... We should start crunching data on this now, which means the companies need to release this info. They shouldn't keep that sort of data hidden anyway. Putting it out there will keep them on their toes and pose a challenge for others to make improvements. Also, an episode like this about the emissions of ships, tankers, etc, how that industry is affecting the environment. I've heard that cruise ships consume great quantities of fuel, pollute, and damage ecosystems.... Btw, congratulations!!! 💛💚😎
I agree that more research is needed regarding the environmental impact of rocket launches; however, I feel that we have more than enough data on the environmental impact we create here on the ground, whether it's from fossil fuels, factories, automobiles, or the plastics that have littered our oceans. And I feel that more effort is needed to reduce "space junk" before collisions occur and scatter small debris at incredible speeds among the satellites. Also, I'm really impressed with Seeker's research and presentation - Great work as always! :-D
It might have been worth mentioning other rocket fuels, for example hydrolox based rocket engines only output water as the exhaust. Also seeing as the Superheavy/Starship combo will likely be the most used launch vehicle in the future, and will be absolutely massive, the effects of metholox could have been mentioned as well. Especially seeing as other rocket companies like Blue Origin are heavily relying on it as well. Otherwise, good video, and I mainly agree that more research never hurts, but compared to other industries on the planet the launch industry emits relatively few greenhouse gasses.
You guys are seriously the best channel on UA-cam. The amount of information and time spent on making consistent quality videos does not even compare to similar channels
Unfortunately they left out that the next generation of heavy lift rockets (that is currently tested and will replace Falcon Heavy entirely in the next couple of years according to plan) will run on methane, which burns much cleaner than RP1 and can be produced CO2 neutral by using renewable energy sources.
@@michielwesselingh661 Thats true for the most cases today. But with the evolution of more an more renewable technologies and a overproduction of energy the H2 production will be emissionfree. Moreover there are a lot of industrial processes where H2 is a byproduct in synthesis. This could be used as a moreless neutral source.
1. There totally aren't enough launches that should bother us. 2. Hydrogen Fuel for the win. Creates water and no CO2. So flying a payload into space with such a rocket is probaply as environmentally friendly as flying with an airplane...
@@frostpyrogaming5250 A good point. Water vapour is one of the more impactful greenhouse gasses and the cause of one of the feedback loops (the more heat in the system the more water vapour in the atmosphere).
Yes let’s only talk about the rocket fuels with carbon in them, and if I’m not mistaken liquid hydrogen+liquid oxygen rocket fuel literally makes water.
Mars trips will be done with Starship and it's propelling Super heavy booster. Their new Raptor engines use LOX and Methane as propellant. Theoretically Methane can be produced CO2 neutral. That's the plan anyway when they are going to manufacture it on the surface of Mars for return trips.
"Shuttle main engines was powered by liquid hydrogen and RP1 and only has Water as exhaust" YEAAAY "The most dangerous propellant to the ozone layer is shuttle SRBs" OOWHHHH
Water vapor can be harmful as well. Its actually an incredibly powerful greenhouse gas. But the bigger issue is that those engines aren't powerful enough to be used on a first stage alone without help from solid rocket boosters.
@@SciFiFactory Indeed, by "those engines" I meant specifically the RS-25 engines where as the Delta IV heavy uses RS-68. While the RS-25 boasts a more efficient cycle and a better thrust to weight ratio, the RS-68 has a higher net thrust and is better optimized to work at sea level than the RS-25, which is why even the SLS will need solid rocket boosters despite using 4 RS-25 engines while the Delta IV heavy can get away with using three RS-68 engines (2 of which fall away with the side boosters mid flight), ignoring the Delta IV upper stage of course which is a whole different can of worms.
Rockets only do a fraction of the damage cars do and cars only do a fraction of the damage planes do. So you made a video on the least of our problems?
Andrea Mazzi no it doesn’t. It the exhaust from an RS-68 engine( the engine that powers a delta 4 heavy) is 100 percent steam. So literally what the rocket does is make clouds.
False. Germany's natural resources don't include a lot of oil but they do have some of the largest coal reserves in the world. That's why synthetic fuels through coal liquefaction have always been so important to them. Their ethanol was produced in this way and not through fermentation.
@@GreenGoblinCoryintheHouse 7.8 billion humans on this planet as of today and you think grazing animals causes more pollution than human beings. I thin maybe reduce the population so we are not consuming 2.8x the resources the planet can recover then we can talk about eating meat. Maybe wasting less food will help too
Remember folks, a large number of rockets use Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen, which only produces water when it burns. Then there is Liquid Methane + Liquid Oxygen, which still produces CO2, but it produces only CO2 and water vapor, no ozone-depleting materials.... Those rockets will be far better than RP1-based ones. The SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy, uses Methan + Oxygen
That being said, the amount of CO2 a RP-1 based rocket produces is ridiculous compared to the global production. Even an unrealistic frequency of a launch every 5 minutes would barely make it significant relatively.
The base environmental effect is easy to calculate, a 500 tonne fuel using rocket will be just as bad as burning that 500 tone fuel anywhere else. An average car has around 50 kilogram of fuel in its tank, so 10'000 full tank of fuel per large rocket. Not that bad, considering how useful a satellite launched with this compared to 10'000 trip to anywhere in cars. But the bad side came from efficiency and propellant mass ratios. A car or ship or train has around 3%-5% of its mass in propellant, and even to the cargo (useful mass) it is 10%-50% (later for a single person in a car), versus the rockets, where a 5-10 tonne cargo needs 100-500 tonne fuel, so the fuel ratios is 1'000%-10'000% way worse than pretty much any other way of transportation.
The estimated CO2 release is just from the actual launch. A significant contribution also is made from the production of the rocket fuel (like with fuels in general based on fossil sources).
Liquid hydrogen and oxygen makes the cleanest exhaust, just turning into steam. Unfortunately hydrogen also needs to be super-chilled to -250 C to stop it leaking out of fuel tanks, and fuel tanks also need to be more voluminous since hydrogen is less dense.
Alexandre Fyne Except hydrogen is usually extracted from petroleum despite there being other alternatives (read: water electrolysis) because it’s cheaper.
@@leonardoariewibowo1325 No... Methane is made of one carbon and four hydrogen. Burning it will produce one CO2 and four H2O (per methane molecule). So of course CO2 is a byproduct. However, it's easier to produce methane from CO2 already in the atmosphere, compared to making kerosene that way, so methane as a fuel could be made CO2 neutral, if desired. Some of the methane will be exiting unburnt, yes, making it a bit worse compared to a RP-1 engine in that regard.
@@leonardoariewibowo1325 I know about the gas itself being more harmful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. I looked up the products from burning methane and when burned with oxygen. It releases CO2 and H2O so that is not inherently bad.
This might be super dumb, but oxygen has an atomic weight of 16 and carbon one of 14. So 16*2 + 14= 46 = 1 molecule of CO2. 14/46=0,3043=30,43%... meaning carbon is 30% of the weight of CO2... how did they calculate what percentage of mass carbon has in CO2?
I feel like this kind of issue is definitely vulnerable to availability heuristics, it seems like a big issue since all those plumes are so dang eye catching but in reality a neighborhood driving cars for a year is as bad. it’s like how people perceive flying in an airplane as more dangerous than driving a car since airplane crashes are so awful, even though more people die in car accidents.
They’re going to use methalox engines which still produces CO2. But on the flip side it’s much more efficient than RP-1 so less black carbon will be produced. Hydralox engines don’t produce any CO2 but are much more expensive to run.
@@456MrPeople for now the production of Hydrogen still produces CO2. And water vapor in high altitudes is a strong greenhouse gas that is less well researched than CO2. So I am really not sure which one is actually more environmentally friendly. Methalox locks more efficient to me as it makes your rockets smaller and has also the potential to be produced environmentally friendly.
It's just a suggestion, but I feel like often, the conclusion of your videos is that we don't know. Maybe some less click-baity themes would allow you guys to completely tackle the subject ? 😅
Congrats on 4mil! I love how y’all upload at 7am EST so I get to watch a video every day before I leave for work! (When I’m not running late like today)
Pretty sure the benefits outweigh the cost. Sattelites are extremely valuable, and gps alone likely helps people find better routes and make less mistakes driving, which in and of itself reduces carbon emissions. Without rockets were s.o.l. on satellites
my guy, you didnt include the H2O as a greenhouse gass, in most combustion reactions you normally have a hydrocarbon and oxygen as reactants and H2O (as steam) and CO2 as products, they are both greenhouse gasses so almost 100% (excluding unburned fuel from non-stoichiometric combustion) of the products of the reaction would be greenhouse gasses. because of conservation of mass, this means that the total mass of fuel burned will be the same as the mass of the greenhouse gasses produced including the oxidizer, i know that greenhouse gas emissions specifically wasn't the issue you were taking with the situation but still, just for consistencies sake and cause you don't want someone to watch this and tell other people about it if some of the numbers are wrong (i aint an expert so dont take my word for it either btw, i could be wrong too)
Actually, SpaceX's next gen. rocket engine, the Raptor, uses methane, which burns into CO2 and water. It also burns it's fuel more completely. The engine is now being prepared for actual flight test, and if everything goes well, it can go to orbit by the end of the year.
Seeker now has 4 MILLION subscribers and the Adorkable ginger, Julian, gets to announce it. Congratulations to all the staff there for the OUTSTANDING accomplishment.
@@doppelkeksdude You are right, aside from the resources that go into making the rocket initially, hydrolox rockets are pretty much carbon neutral. Especially if someone bothered to make a reusable one.
@@CockatooDude Hydrogen is currently produced by processing natural gas. Wouldn't call that carbon neutral right now. But at least the potential is there. Also water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Mining the fuel in space would be good, only building rockets that can only bring you to low earth orbit.
@@SciFiFactory Yeah that's fair enough on the producing hydrogen part, I forgot about that. As far as water vapor goes, that should become part of the water cycle shouldn't it? Usually since the water vapor is so condensed, it forms a cloud and rains down pretty quickly, so it shouldn't have too much of a greenhouse effect.
Elon has said that, while electric cars are inevitable, and it may be possible someday to make electric airplanes, the physics simply don’t permit any other way of getting to space. The energy density of chemical fuels is just too high compared with other alternatives. Maybe if we get fusion rockets to work...
There is an alternative called a mass driver. Essentially a high-speed maglev train that helps get stuff up to speed. It will not get things all the way to space, but it does not need to. The first half of rocket fuel in a rocket is just to get the rocket the first 25% the way there, so if a mass driver can get a payload 25% up to escape velocity, then we can have significantly smaller rockets. Also, different rocket nozzels are more efficient at different altitudes. If we can get the payload through the thickest part of the atmosphere, then we can use more efficient rockets to take it the rest of the way.
@@AcBEntertainment we're getting close to having fusion energy right now. Once we have that we can make fusion rockets as well. I'd say within 20-30 years. Considering the age of mankind that's not long at all
If we have fusion reactors we can make all the synthetic fuel we want. Hydrogen would be the easiest obviously. Even if we have cracked fusion power, miniaturizing a reactor will be a whole other beast for reasons of fundamental physics behind it.
Derpster you can start with how much carbons are released in the air from volcanic eruptions. And then see how many volcanic eruption's occur each decade.
Interesting topic. How does RP-1 compare to Methane, as used by SpaceX's Raptor engine for the upcoming Starship? I figure that will be a major player in a couple of years.
One other thing to mention is other liquid fuel types which have a drastically different impacts on the environment like Methane/Oxygen and Hydrogen/Oxygen. Those would be drastically cleaner than RP-1 and they happen to be more efficient fuels too. That’s not to say they’re better fuels though but if mass launches become a thing, I would hope cleaner fuels would be preferred over RP-1 and solid counterparts when considered at a more massive scale.
That would be water, not CFCs. CFCs are only practical in closed loop cooling systems. I know in some of the systems they use the cryofuel as a coolant before burning it in a fuel cell for power.
The industry is also shifting into the use of methan (a transition headed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, both of whom made some amazing leeps in the field), which is a much cleaner fuel.
which guarantees RESULTS and technology advancements which will CHANGE THE WORLD. You can find the list on wikipedia and from the looks of it NASA has done more for this planet and it's inhabitants when talking about new technologies and new day to day items that you use all the time than any other company in existence. So yeah, i'd rather give the money to these guys which have the credentials to backup their claims then to some shady organization which promises but never delivers anything. Apparently you also need to do more research before talking bullshit, NASA is AWESOME and has helped more people than you'll ever will.
Oh and i forgot SATELLITES and satellite launches for other companies which is that little equipment that you use for your GPS and for MAAAANY other functions that involve telecommunication. You're welcome asshole.
There isn't any other capable to lift heavy mass cargo out to orbit or deep space. Chemical propulsion is a must for today's standards and will never change. Rockets are just controlled explosions.
As you correctly pointed out, at the current rate of launches, rocket pollution is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to terrestrial transportation. Launch frequencies are going to have to go up by a favor of hundreds to thousands before it becomes significant. It’s had to imagine any realistic context in which that many launches will be needed.
All the rocket launches combined since the rocket age and all the cars in the world since the industrial age are minute in comparison to the carbon releases of one volcanic eruption similar to the one of Mount Saint Helens
One Autumn Leaf this UA-cam show didn't have to prove anything why should I Jesus Christ if you really want to know take your ass down to the library or Google it yourself it's not that hard to find it's common knowledge
Could you make a follow-up with the projected alternatives? For instance, we hear a lot about how the water on the moon can be made into rocket fuel for missions to Mars, but if we need a bunch of *highly-refined* kerosene as well, that makes it a lot more complex to built a rocket-fuel plant up there.
RP-1 and kerosene are basically diesel which isn't that different from gasoline. Wouldn't the incompletely burned byproducts of rockets also be produced in a similar amount by all those cars currently on the road?
Does the thickness of the atmosphere make any difference to the amount of co2 that is put into the atmosphere? Watching the launches, it looks like they may be a good distance up before the first stage is dropped.
Exploration through Physical Vehicle is Unfruitful. Even If We Spend Billion Years in Space Exploration through Near Light Speed Vehicles, We will not be Able to Grasp the Vastness of Universe because Universe is Expanding and Only Some part of Humanity will have the Experience of Space Exploration. So to Explore this Cosmos, A Non Physical Vehicle is Needed and Luckily We All Have that.
Except we dont explore space with the only goal being to colonize the entire observable universe? Space exploration is defiantly one of the most 'fruitful' ways we can spend money
@@parha123 Yep we only have one earth right now but if we keep working on space development we'll either get another planet to colonize, or a much more advanced earth to live on
Adding 1,000 more cars per day during launch PLUS nobody is discussing the big freaking hole that gets made in the Ozone layer each time a rocket goes up through that layer!
Hi there! 👋🏼Looks like we tackled the difficult math, but missed the tiny onscreen percentage sign! As most of you pointed out, 27% would be converted to 0.27, not 0.27%. Thanks for always looking out for the details to make our content even greater, and happy 4 million subscribers!
Please Add Some Spiritual Vibes to Your Show because This is the Only Thing It is Lacking.
What about cruise ships they are the #1 thing polluting the world?
TLDNW Yes.
@@xdarkknightx09 Yaaaaaasssssss.............
@Seeker thank you for this video I actually have been wondering about this for some time! Thank you
I think the engineers at SpaceX would take offence at "the Falcon Heavy is just 3 Falcon 9's ductaped together".
More like:
"The Falcon Heavy is just 3 Falcon 9's FLEXTAPED together".
you think?
Thats iq thats profit
They use the term "strapped together", but otherwise that's exactly what SpaceX says in their streams.
"...math! No don't leave I promise it'll be simple"
Me: why have you called me out like this
Loc Nguyen when he’s maths is wrong anyway lol. @2:53
True
This video is an American or English accent.
?? Tank you
@@abdu1989 most likely he did not calculate this and read of a script. and it is "his math" by the way :)
*watches rocket lounge*
Back of my mind: "more research is needed..."
lol
*It's not that bad*
Team Rocket has been blasting off for quite some time now
And Ash Ketchum always defeats them.
@@Xeno_Bardock apart from that one time he didn't
😆😆👍
This video is an American or English accent.
I guess how much co2 that emits...
*Congratulations for reaching 4 million subscribers!*
I've been subscribed to them since they had less than 500 subscribers. The channel grew fast, the only true flaw Dnews has us their sources are flawed and their information is incorrect more so than I would like it to be.
Congratulations on the milestone. And thanks a lot for always uploading high quality content.
Good good for thought... We should start crunching data on this now, which means the companies need to release this info. They shouldn't keep that sort of data hidden anyway. Putting it out there will keep them on their toes and pose a challenge for others to make improvements.
Also, an episode like this about the emissions of ships, tankers, etc, how that industry is affecting the environment. I've heard that cruise ships consume great quantities of fuel, pollute, and damage ecosystems....
Btw, congratulations!!! 💛💚😎
I agree that more research is needed regarding the environmental impact of rocket launches; however, I feel that we have more than enough data on the environmental impact we create here on the ground, whether it's from fossil fuels, factories, automobiles, or the plastics that have littered our oceans. And I feel that more effort is needed to reduce "space junk" before collisions occur and scatter small debris at incredible speeds among the satellites. Also, I'm really impressed with Seeker's research and presentation - Great work as always! :-D
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
It might have been worth mentioning other rocket fuels, for example hydrolox based rocket engines only output water as the exhaust. Also seeing as the Superheavy/Starship combo will likely be the most used launch vehicle in the future, and will be absolutely massive, the effects of metholox could have been mentioned as well. Especially seeing as other rocket companies like Blue Origin are heavily relying on it as well. Otherwise, good video, and I mainly agree that more research never hurts, but compared to other industries on the planet the launch industry emits relatively few greenhouse gasses.
It is also worth mentioning where all the energy comes from to produce and/or chill the various types of rocket fuels.
@@Brashnir Definitely, that might just be the biggest factor over all.
You guys are seriously the best channel on UA-cam. The amount of information and time spent on making consistent quality videos does not even compare to similar channels
Unfortunately they left out that the next generation of heavy lift rockets (that is currently tested and will replace Falcon Heavy entirely in the next couple of years according to plan) will run on methane, which burns much cleaner than RP1 and can be produced CO2 neutral by using renewable energy sources.
Would be cool if you talked about Blue Origin with its H2 O2 propellant which doesnt release any CO2 :)
The production of hydrogen does produce CO2
95% of H2 produced today is made with natural gas (Methane (CH4))
@@michielwesselingh661 Thats true for the most cases today. But with the evolution of more an more renewable technologies and a overproduction of energy the H2 production will be emissionfree.
Moreover there are a lot of industrial processes where H2 is a byproduct in synthesis. This could be used as a moreless neutral source.
@@FailXTech in theory your shit doesn't stink outside a space suit. You wanna test that theory?
it produces water high up in the atmosphere, which is more of a problem that you think
1. There totally aren't enough launches that should bother us.
2. Hydrogen Fuel for the win. Creates water and no CO2. So flying a payload into space with such a rocket is probaply as environmentally friendly as flying with an airplane...
injecting water into the upper
atmosphere is a great way to increase global warming ;).
@@Yetifile not water, water vapour. water would fall.
@@frostpyrogaming5250 A good point. Water vapour is one of the more impactful greenhouse gasses and the cause of one of the feedback loops (the more heat in the system the more water vapour in the atmosphere).
Also.. can we have background sounds/music that doesn't sound like a phone is ringing somewhere far away? It's very distracting
What music should we go with?
Do you have 3 cell phone ring tones faintly going off in the background?
We got you fam.
nice video but would probably have been worth going over our transition to methane based rockets with the blue origin and spacex ships.
Yes let’s only talk about the rocket fuels with carbon in them, and if I’m not mistaken liquid hydrogen+liquid oxygen rocket fuel literally makes water.
Mars trips will be done with Starship and it's propelling Super heavy booster. Their new Raptor engines use LOX and Methane as propellant. Theoretically Methane can be produced CO2 neutral. That's the plan anyway when they are going to manufacture it on the surface of Mars for return trips.
"Shuttle main engines was powered by liquid hydrogen and RP1 and only has Water as exhaust"
YEAAAY
"The most dangerous propellant to the ozone layer is shuttle SRBs"
OOWHHHH
It depends. The RS-25 just burns hydrogen and oxygen so it literally only creates water, but RP-1 engines put out some carbon and soot.
Water vapor can be harmful as well. Its actually an incredibly powerful greenhouse gas. But the bigger issue is that those engines aren't powerful enough to be used on a first stage alone without help from solid rocket boosters.
@@maxk4324 You are ignoring Delta IV Heavy. One of the heavy lift rockets and it runs only on Hydrogen.
@@SciFiFactory Indeed, by "those engines" I meant specifically the RS-25 engines where as the Delta IV heavy uses RS-68. While the RS-25 boasts a more efficient cycle and a better thrust to weight ratio, the RS-68 has a higher net thrust and is better optimized to work at sea level than the RS-25, which is why even the SLS will need solid rocket boosters despite using 4 RS-25 engines while the Delta IV heavy can get away with using three RS-68 engines (2 of which fall away with the side boosters mid flight), ignoring the Delta IV upper stage of course which is a whole different can of worms.
@@maxk4324 Oh, right, I didn't read that correctly.
Rockets only do a fraction of the damage cars do and cars only do a fraction of the damage planes do.
So you made a video on the least of our problems?
C. Reason Not to mention rockets are our escape from Earth in case of emergency, and less people on Earth means less contamination.
Hydrogen/Oxygen fueled rockets, that only produce water vapor as exhaust and nothing else, were not mentioned...
Delta IV for example.
decay or starship
I know right, didn't the Everyday Astronaut make a video about this last month?
@@Wilge_Zomer Starship uses Methane, but yes, the products of burning methane are the same. :)
Hydrogen and oxygen production produces a lot of CO2
Andrea Mazzi no it doesn’t. It the exhaust from an RS-68 engine( the engine that powers a delta 4 heavy) is 100 percent steam. So literally what the rocket does is make clouds.
FanTASTIC with the car comparison. Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
You have more subscribers than there are people in my country. Cheers from Uruguay
So what your saying we really need is a rocket sized rail gun launch system? Minions... Make it so! 🤣
Everyone just needs to buy a Tesla and we fix the fuel pollution problem
An improvement, but not a fix.
Even the Nazis are better environmentalists than us, using their ethanol rockets.
underated
False. Germany's natural resources don't include a lot of oil but they do have some of the largest coal reserves in the world. That's why synthetic fuels through coal liquefaction have always been so important to them. Their ethanol was produced in this way and not through fermentation.
Ethanol is actually worse for the environment than gas
The meat industry is the most responsible for greenhouse effect. Fix meat industry or meat eating habits for a better environment.
@@GreenGoblinCoryintheHouse 7.8 billion humans on this planet as of today and you think grazing animals causes more pollution than human beings. I thin maybe reduce the population so we are not consuming 2.8x the resources the planet can recover then we can talk about eating meat. Maybe wasting less food will help too
Whooooooo congrats on the 4 million I've always wondered this thanks for making the video
Remember folks, a large number of rockets use Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen, which only produces water when it burns.
Then there is Liquid Methane + Liquid Oxygen, which still produces CO2, but it produces only CO2 and water vapor, no ozone-depleting materials....
Those rockets will be far better than RP1-based ones. The SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy, uses Methan + Oxygen
That being said, the amount of CO2 a RP-1 based rocket produces is ridiculous compared to the global production. Even an unrealistic frequency of a launch every 5 minutes would barely make it significant relatively.
The base environmental effect is easy to calculate, a 500 tonne fuel using rocket will be just as bad as burning that 500 tone fuel anywhere else. An average car has around 50 kilogram of fuel in its tank, so 10'000 full tank of fuel per large rocket. Not that bad, considering how useful a satellite launched with this compared to 10'000 trip to anywhere in cars. But the bad side came from efficiency and propellant mass ratios. A car or ship or train has around 3%-5% of its mass in propellant, and even to the cargo (useful mass) it is 10%-50% (later for a single person in a car), versus the rockets, where a 5-10 tonne cargo needs 100-500 tonne fuel, so the fuel ratios is 1'000%-10'000% way worse than pretty much any other way of transportation.
There we go! Humans eat carbon, shit methane, and exhale CO2 ... how do you fix that again?
Ever heard of a “drop in the ocean” ???? Please lets move on to the real problems humanity faces !
Nice to see how well this channel did over the last year, but i liked the 15 min talk rounds about a certain theme.
Yes
Congrats on four million! This channel kept fueling my scientific curiosity for years and continues
4:35 sums up entire video you're welcome
Lol
The estimated CO2 release is just from the actual launch. A significant contribution also is made from the production of the rocket fuel (like with fuels in general based on fossil sources).
Not overnight. But there are many companies and many countries planning to do launches...multiple a day...
Liquid hydrogen and oxygen makes the cleanest exhaust, just turning into steam.
Unfortunately hydrogen also needs to be super-chilled to -250 C to stop it leaking out of fuel tanks, and fuel tanks also need to be more voluminous since hydrogen is less dense.
Alexandre Fyne Except hydrogen is usually extracted from petroleum despite there being other alternatives (read: water electrolysis) because it’s cheaper.
GRBTutorials Good point.
Kinda sucks we can't make electric rockets huh
@@innsj6369 because electricity came from thin air?
Strange not to mention the perfectly clean-burning hydrogen-oxygen engines of Blue Origin and others.
What about the methane fuel the BFR or Starship will use?
From what i remember, burning methane does not releases co2, so basically good for the environment. But the methane itself is 25X worse than co2.
@@leonardoariewibowo1325 No...
Methane is made of one carbon and four hydrogen. Burning it will produce one CO2 and four H2O (per methane molecule). So of course CO2 is a byproduct. However, it's easier to produce methane from CO2 already in the atmosphere, compared to making kerosene that way, so methane as a fuel could be made CO2 neutral, if desired. Some of the methane will be exiting unburnt, yes, making it a bit worse compared to a RP-1 engine in that regard.
@@mytube001 thank u for the info m8
@@leonardoariewibowo1325 I know about the gas itself being more harmful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. I looked up the products from burning methane and when burned with oxygen. It releases CO2 and H2O so that is not inherently bad.
Error at 2:10. Says 27% but shows 0.27%
This might be super dumb, but oxygen has an atomic weight of 16 and carbon one of 14. So 16*2 + 14= 46 = 1 molecule of CO2.
14/46=0,3043=30,43%... meaning carbon is 30% of the weight of CO2... how did they calculate what percentage of mass carbon has in CO2?
Maybe it's to do with different isotopes?
I feel like this kind of issue is definitely vulnerable to availability heuristics, it seems like a big issue since all those plumes are so dang eye catching but in reality a neighborhood driving cars for a year is as bad. it’s like how people perceive flying in an airplane as more dangerous than driving a car since airplane crashes are so awful, even though more people die in car accidents.
Other environmental problems. Rocket launches are necessary.
Congrats on the 4 million!!! 5 million is right around the corner!
Congrats on 4 million! Here's for another million!!!
That's one of the reasons why the next SpaceX rocket (BFR, Starship) won't be using RP1.
They’re going to use methalox engines which still produces CO2. But on the flip side it’s much more efficient than RP-1 so less black carbon will be produced. Hydralox engines don’t produce any CO2 but are much more expensive to run.
@@456MrPeople for now the production of Hydrogen still produces CO2.
And water vapor in high altitudes is a strong greenhouse gas that is less well researched than CO2.
So I am really not sure which one is actually more environmentally friendly.
Methalox locks more efficient to me as it makes your rockets smaller and has also the potential to be produced environmentally friendly.
It's just a suggestion, but I feel like often, the conclusion of your videos is that we don't know. Maybe some less click-baity themes would allow you guys to completely tackle the subject ? 😅
How powerful was the old channel ?
Congrats on 4mil! I love how y’all upload at 7am EST so I get to watch a video every day before I leave for work! (When I’m not running late like today)
Pretty sure the benefits outweigh the cost. Sattelites are extremely valuable, and gps alone likely helps people find better routes and make less mistakes driving, which in and of itself reduces carbon emissions. Without rockets were s.o.l. on satellites
And not to forget the newest generation of methane powered rocket engines are carbon neutral
Proton rocket has left the chat
Congrats on 4mil🌟
Definitely better than rocket launchers
Who remembers when they were called discovery news
my guy, you didnt include the H2O as a greenhouse gass, in most combustion reactions you normally have a hydrocarbon and oxygen as reactants and H2O (as steam) and CO2 as products, they are both greenhouse gasses so almost 100% (excluding unburned fuel from non-stoichiometric combustion) of the products of the reaction would be greenhouse gasses. because of conservation of mass, this means that the total mass of fuel burned will be the same as the mass of the greenhouse gasses produced including the oxidizer, i know that greenhouse gas emissions specifically wasn't the issue you were taking with the situation but still, just for consistencies sake and cause you don't want someone to watch this and tell other people about it if some of the numbers are wrong (i aint an expert so dont take my word for it either btw, i could be wrong too)
Actually, SpaceX's next gen. rocket engine, the Raptor, uses methane, which burns into CO2 and water. It also burns it's fuel more completely. The engine is now being prepared for actual flight test, and if everything goes well, it can go to orbit by the end of the year.
Seeker now has 4 MILLION subscribers and the Adorkable ginger, Julian, gets to announce it. Congratulations to all the staff there for the OUTSTANDING accomplishment.
How about liquid hydrogen and oxygen ?
Generally you just get water as the exhaust output once the reactants cool down.
@@CockatooDude seems most environmental friendly to me
@@doppelkeksdude You are right, aside from the resources that go into making the rocket initially, hydrolox rockets are pretty much carbon neutral. Especially if someone bothered to make a reusable one.
@@CockatooDude Hydrogen is currently produced by processing natural gas. Wouldn't call that carbon neutral right now. But at least the potential is there.
Also water vapor is a greenhouse gas.
Mining the fuel in space would be good, only building rockets that can only bring you to low earth orbit.
@@SciFiFactory Yeah that's fair enough on the producing hydrogen part, I forgot about that. As far as water vapor goes, that should become part of the water cycle shouldn't it? Usually since the water vapor is so condensed, it forms a cloud and rains down pretty quickly, so it shouldn't have too much of a greenhouse effect.
Julian, you rock! Let us see more of you!
Dealing with all the plastics is the most important thing right now
Don’t even get me started with the cars honestly I’m OK with rackets and there’s some rockets that only use liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen
Congrats here before you guys are having less than 500k
this really helped with my homework, thanks dude.
The fact is that rocket launches are vital to our modern way of life. But reusable rockets absolutely reduce marine pollution.
What about the new fuel that's going to be used with the raptor engine for star ship? I know it's not Rp1
Methane.
Elon has said that, while electric cars are inevitable, and it may be possible someday to make electric airplanes, the physics simply don’t permit any other way of getting to space. The energy density of chemical fuels is just too high compared with other alternatives.
Maybe if we get fusion rockets to work...
Muh environmental regards
There is an alternative called a mass driver. Essentially a high-speed maglev train that helps get stuff up to speed. It will not get things all the way to space, but it does not need to. The first half of rocket fuel in a rocket is just to get the rocket the first 25% the way there, so if a mass driver can get a payload 25% up to escape velocity, then we can have significantly smaller rockets. Also, different rocket nozzels are more efficient at different altitudes. If we can get the payload through the thickest part of the atmosphere, then we can use more efficient rockets to take it the rest of the way.
Fusion rockets will become reality in the near future
@@AcBEntertainment we're getting close to having fusion energy right now. Once we have that we can make fusion rockets as well. I'd say within 20-30 years. Considering the age of mankind that's not long at all
If we have fusion reactors we can make all the synthetic fuel we want. Hydrogen would be the easiest obviously.
Even if we have cracked fusion power, miniaturizing a reactor will be a whole other beast for reasons of fundamental physics behind it.
Where can I conduct this research?
Derpster you can start with how much carbons are released in the air from volcanic eruptions. And then see how many volcanic eruption's occur each decade.
Interesting topic. How does RP-1 compare to Methane, as used by SpaceX's Raptor engine for the upcoming Starship? I figure that will be a major player in a couple of years.
1:42
Hold up... now I'm curious. Would three rockets duct taped together actually work?
Not at all
One other thing to mention is other liquid fuel types which have a drastically different impacts on the environment like Methane/Oxygen and Hydrogen/Oxygen. Those would be drastically cleaner than RP-1 and they happen to be more efficient fuels too. That’s not to say they’re better fuels though but if mass launches become a thing, I would hope cleaner fuels would be preferred over RP-1 and solid counterparts when considered at a more massive scale.
What about all the CFCs being released by the coolant systems that rockets use to prevent overheating?
That would be water, not CFCs. CFCs are only practical in closed loop cooling systems. I know in some of the systems they use the cryofuel as a coolant before burning it in a fuel cell for power.
My dad drains his hot tub right into the ground and people say that's safe.
The industry is also shifting into the use of methan (a transition headed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, both of whom made some amazing leeps in the field), which is a much cleaner fuel.
kermit the frog sad hello at 3.05 haha! long awaited video! thnx for this one!
When will you guys provide 4k uploads?
Your channel deserve 25-30 M subscriber.
Sourabh Kale no it doesn’t, there are plenty of better channels and this one gets the math wrong
You guys have come a long way in the past year! Been watching for a long time
One thing that you can always count on with science is that MORE RESEARCH (and the money to fund it) IS NEEDED!!!
which guarantees RESULTS and technology advancements which will CHANGE THE WORLD. You can find the list on wikipedia and from the looks of it NASA has done more for this planet and it's inhabitants when talking about new technologies and new day to day items that you use all the time than any other company in existence. So yeah, i'd rather give the money to these guys which have the credentials to backup their claims then to some shady organization which promises but never delivers anything. Apparently you also need to do more research before talking bullshit, NASA is AWESOME and has helped more people than you'll ever will.
Oh and i forgot SATELLITES and satellite launches for other companies which is that little equipment that you use for your GPS and for MAAAANY other functions that involve telecommunication. You're welcome asshole.
2:09
Umm 0.27 or 0.27%.....
i think this is a good time to research for new propulsion technology
There isn't any other capable to lift heavy mass cargo out to orbit or deep space. Chemical propulsion is a must for today's standards and will never change. Rockets are just controlled explosions.
Introduction: How bad are rockets for the environment?.. Conclusion: More research needed
Congratulations for 4 Million Subscribers!
This is why we should build a Launch Loop.
Can you guys do a video on rotational dynamics
give me an rtx 2080ti. a sht wrong channel.
As you correctly pointed out, at the current rate of launches, rocket pollution is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to terrestrial transportation. Launch frequencies are going to have to go up by a favor of hundreds to thousands before it becomes significant. It’s had to imagine any realistic context in which that many launches will be needed.
All the rocket launches combined since the rocket age and all the cars in the world since the industrial age are minute in comparison to the carbon releases of one volcanic eruption similar to the one of Mount Saint Helens
If google is not good enough you can go to the library.
One Autumn Leaf this UA-cam show didn't have to prove anything why should I Jesus Christ if you really want to know take your ass down to the library or Google it yourself it's not that hard to find it's common knowledge
Could you make a follow-up with the projected alternatives? For instance, we hear a lot about how the water on the moon can be made into rocket fuel for missions to Mars, but if we need a bunch of *highly-refined* kerosene as well, that makes it a lot more complex to built a rocket-fuel plant up there.
Do one about fireworks
But you need to stop those 10000 cars to belance things.
*As everything should be*
Replace them with BEVs. Elon is doing that too.
RP-1 and kerosene are basically diesel which isn't that different from gasoline. Wouldn't the incompletely burned byproducts of rockets also be produced in a similar amount by all those cars currently on the road?
We should work more eco friendly fuels and the world must work together so that we need to launch less rocket
What about methane?
See... I always thought most newer rockets used liquid hydrogen + oxygen as fuel, i don't imagine water vapour as very damaging to the environment
Even better, the most advanced rockets use methane, making them carbon neutral.
How about the ten thousand airplanes that fly everyday?
Does the thickness of the atmosphere make any difference to the amount of co2 that is put into the atmosphere?
Watching the launches, it looks like they may be a good distance up before the first stage is dropped.
Every since the first one I saw I became fearful of these issues..
That doesn't count all the materials and energy needed to build rockets.
Didnt account for that with cars either, its a fair comparison
Exploration through Physical Vehicle is Unfruitful. Even If We Spend Billion Years in Space Exploration through Near Light Speed Vehicles, We will not be Able to Grasp the Vastness of Universe because Universe is Expanding and Only Some part of Humanity will have the Experience of Space Exploration.
So to Explore this Cosmos, A Non Physical Vehicle is Needed and Luckily We All Have that.
You said all i think but don't say cause it's dooming and scary.
@@orangejuice393 Fear of Unknown is the Boundary We Humans have to Cross and It can only be Crossed by Becoming More Concious.
Except we dont explore space with the only goal being to colonize the entire observable universe? Space exploration is defiantly one of the most 'fruitful' ways we can spend money
@@WILLS98 You will Find Out Soon that the Only Colony We can have, is This Mother Earth.
Then We will See Where Does Intellectual Runs.
@@parha123 Yep we only have one earth right now but if we keep working on space development we'll either get another planet to colonize, or a much more advanced earth to live on
Both the RS-25 and the Raptor engines solve this in their own way. Both are carbon neutral if done right.
Congrats on 4 mil :)
Heres on 5
We know the ozone layer is in trouble, what we don't know is what exactly we should be doing about it. Thanks Seeker
Adding 1,000 more cars per day during launch PLUS nobody is discussing the big freaking hole that gets made in the Ozone layer each time a rocket goes up through that layer!