Carbon Footpring Project

2008-06-05 17:06:55.000 – Natalie Martin,  Summit Intern

Spring Commute

Lisa and I have been working on calculating the observatory’s carbon footprint and hope to complete our project this summer. I have been figuring out the transportation side of the equation with help from the auto road. We can now calculate how many gallons of gas and diesel we use each year, our miles per gallon for our vehicles, and a conversion factor to find out how many pounds of CO2 the vehicles produce each year.

With preliminary numbers in place it is looking like we are doing very well as far as vehicle emissions go. Here’s to carpooling! The auto road is also looking into alternative fuels for our vehicles in the future. Part of my project will be to predict the efficiency of such fuels for our purposes. Be sure to check back often to see what is happening on the summit and for a full report on our project.

Natalie Martin,  Summit Intern