this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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The UK Throws Away 1 Million Vapes Each Day, Causing ‘Environmental Nightmare’ (plantbasednews.org)
submitted 17 hours ago by Sunshine@lemmy.ca to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 25 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (4 children)

As far as I know despite being a single-use item, these vapes mostly contain rechargable battery cells of type 18650. Even though they are probably rather cheap and low quality cells, they still have around 2300 mAh at 3.6 V current. This gives us 8250 mWh per cell. One million of them would be 8250 kWh, enough for 100-200 electric cars. Every day. In a full year that's 3011250 kWh or around 3 gigawatt hours of storage capacity.

3 gigawatt hours is the capacity of the number 1 biggest battery-based energy storage system in the world: https://www.energy-storage.news/moss-landing-worlds-biggest-battery-storage-project-is-now-3gwh-capacity/

Tossed in the trash. Only from single use vapes. Every year. And only in the UK.

I hope there's no major flaw in my calculation but if it's not, that's really a crazy figure.

[–] felixwhynot@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

These batteries are free! You can just take them!

[–] dumbass@leminal.space 3 points 5 hours ago

I used to give my empty ones to my niece's bf, he rips them apart and makes shit with them.

[–] IzzyScissor@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

I had an ex who collected them, wired them together and now uses the bundle to power an electric bus. It's crazy that it just goes in the trash.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 points 11 hours ago

Most single use contain lithium polymer packs, not 18650s, but yes