The New South Wales government in Australia has run an excellent black balloons campaign about greenhouse gas emissions that helps people to visualize carbon dioxide emissions from electricity use. You can see the video here.
If a balloon is about 38 cm in diameter then each one contains around 50 grammes of carbon dioxide. A tonne of carbon dioxide (each tonne saved is equivalent to one Community Carbon Credit) would fill 20, 000 balloons. We can calculate the number of black balloons of carbon dioxide that familiar devices generate each hour. The table below shows the results:
|
device |
Power /Watts |
g of CO2 emissions per hour |
# black balloons |
| T8 | 46 | 38 | 0.75 |
| T5 | 28 | 23 | 0.46 |
| air con | 1000 | 0.82 | 16 |
| laptop | 25 | 21 | 0.41 |
| desktop | 140 | 115 | 2.3 |
Black balloons are a great way of visualizing the emissions we make. Students can calculate the emissions from a lesson by counting the different types of electrical devices that are in use and working out the total.
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