Thermodynamic Contributions of Internal Combustion Engines to Global Climate Change

February 2007

By Andrew Bell

ABSTRACT
Around the world concern over climate change has reached its highest level ever. Initiatives such as the Kyoto protocol and the recent Paris conference of climate scientists show that the world community is slowly accepting that coordinated global action is required to ensure that human effects on climate change are kept to a minimum. This paper aims to explore the thermodynamic contributions of car use to atmospheric temperature increases. The estimated temperature changes were determine by first estimating the amount of thermal energy released by car drivers in China, the European Union, and the United States, and then using this number to estimate the theoretic atmospheric temperature increase. The time frame for the associated temperature increases is 15 years assuming car owning people drive distances of 20,000 km per year (300,000 km over 15 years). For the sake of calculating a conservative estimate it was assumed that the drivers of all countries were driving small 2007 cars with average mileage values. The results of these calculations indicate that the associated temperature increases are in the order of 0.0152 C and 0.0475 C over a 15 year period. The paper concludes that the calculated temperature increases are significant enough to merit a similar study that includes a larger range of heat producing activities. Such an expanded study would include sectors such as manufacturing, transportation, household appliances, electricity generation and distribution, and power use by electronic devices. Additional work could be done to include oceans as heat sinks.

INTRODUCTION
This paper has been written in response to recent efforts of the environmental community along with observed trends in the direction of world wide public policy concerning the persistent observed trend of global temperature variation. This paper discusses an angle of global warming that has been absent from discussions on the subject and could have a significant influence on the public policy objectives that are currently being contemplated to reduce global warming. The premise of this paper is that changes in the sources of energy in both transportation and power generation may cut down on green house gasses but they may not cut down on the actual problem of global warming. This examination is based on the basic thermodynamic principal known as the second law of thermodynamics. This law states that all energy exchanges will suffer some amount of energy loss in the course of the exchange. In the situations discussed in this paper the energy transfers are from chemical to mechanical energy in combustion engines.

METHODOLOGY
Because this paper has been created with the purpose of drawing the attention of the international community on a limited budget, the goal was to make assumptions that were quite conservative and could then be further refined should significant interest be generated in the topic. Equation 1.0 The first equation to be used is a basic equation from the grade 10 science curriculum of years past. It is the equation used to describe energy transfer. It states simply that the energy needed to raise the temperature of a substance is equivalent to the mass of the substance times the specific heat of the substance times the change in temperature. The equation is stated as: E = m * c * t where: E = Energy (kJ) m = Mass (kg) c = specific heat (kJ / kg * K) (1.0)

 t = Change in temperature (K) Assumptions: Dry Mass of the atmosphere: 5.1355 x 10 ^ 18 Specific Heat of air: 1.005 Equation 2.0 The second equation that is used estimates the amount of energy that is released into the atmosphere by an internal combustion engine. The equation has been created so that scenario variation is quite simple. E = (D * N * CPE * n) / Mi where: E = Energy (kJ) D = Distance driven (km) N = Number of drivers CPE = Chemical Potential Energy of gasoline (kJ / L) n = Internal combustion engine efficiency (%) Mi = Mileage (km / L) Assumptions: Mileage: 60.69 km/L CPE: 34,600 kJ /L Distance: 300,000 km Number of drivers: 763,260,000 See Appendix A for a description of the sources for the stated assumptions. (2.0)

CALCULATIONS
Using a spread sheet to model the two equations allows multiple scenarios to be created and analyzed. A selection of these results can be found below. For the purposes of creating a representative set of results the calculations were performed with n = 20%, 30%, and 40% due to the uncertainty associated with the efficiency of combustion engines. An additional set of calculations was carried out where the number of drivers was changed to illustrate the resulting temperature variations if the three selected geographic regions all had the same number of drivers per capita as the US.

RESULTS
The following tables and graphs were obtained in the course of the analysis. TABLE 1 Atmospheric temperature changes due to internal combustion engine use
Distance Number of Cars # 763,260,000 763,260,000 763,260,000 Energy /L kJ / L 34600 34600 34600 Efficiency Losses n % 0.7 0.8 0.6 Expected Mileage = km / L 60.69 60.69 60.69 = = = Energy E kJ 9.14E+16 1.04E+17 7.83E+16 = = = = Mass m Kg 5.14E+18 5.14E+18 5.14E+18 Specific Heat of Air c kJ / (Kg * K) 1.005 1.005 1.005 Change in Temperature t K 1.77E-02 2.02E-02 1.52E-02

km 300,000 300,000 300,000

TABLE 2 Atmospheric temperature changes due to internal combustion engine use assuming
car use per capita in China and the European Union was the same as the United States

Distance

Number of Cars # 1,791,630,000 1,791,630,000 1,791,630,000

Energy /L kJ / L 34600 34600 34600

Efficiency Losses n % 0.7 0.8 0.6

Expected Mileage = km / L 60.69 60.69 60.69 = = =

Energy E kJ 2.14E+17 2.45E+17 1.84E+17 = = = =

Mass M Kg 5.14E+18 5.14E+18 5.14E+18

km 300,000 300,000 300,000

Specific Heat of Air c kJ / (Kg * K) 1.005 1.005 1.005

Change in Temperature t K 4.16E-02 4.75E-02 3.56E-02

As can be seen in the graphs above the expected increase in atmospheric temperature due to the energy released from internal combustion engines varies between 0.0475 C and 0.0152 C over the course of 15 years. The high value is calculated based on the scenario where engine efficiency is low (80% of the energy from combustion is wasted) and driving habits of both China and Europe match those in the US. The low value represents a scenario where engine efficiency is high (60% of the energy from combustion is wasted) and the driving habits of both China and Europe remain at their current per capita levels.

CONCLUSION
Initial calculations show that the operation of motor vehicles that use internal combustion engines is causing a significant amount of heat to be released into the atmosphere. This is despite the facts that the above calculations only include the driving populations of China, the European Union, and the United States and that the calculations are done using the conservative estimate that all drivers are operating 2007 small cars with average mileage values for their size category.

The results of temperature variations between 0.0152 C and 0.0475 C are even more significant as one realizes that they occur over a period of 15 years. By contrast the temperature raises deemed distressing at the recent Paris convention of climate scientists were 1.67 to 6.11 C over 100 years. This suggests that between 1.6% and 19% of the yearly temperature increases deemed distressing are a result of the thermodynamic efficiency losses associated with driving habits in the US, the EU, and China. These calculations represent only a starting point, nothing more then an indicator of where further study is needed. They point to the fact that in all likely hood human activity needs to be better scrutinized in terms of heat generation. Transportation networks, industrial processes, electricity generation and distribution, and household operations should be scrutinized in a similar manner to first understand where heat is being produced and then to act on those sources most easily altered.

APPENDIX A ASSUMPTIONS
All web sites were visited in December 2006.

Equation 1.0 - E = m * c * t
Mass of the atmosphere (m) The mass of the atmosphere, estimated at 5.1352 * 10^18 kg, was found on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere#Density_and_mass). Specific heat capacity of air (c) The specific heat capacity of air was taken from the web site (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-properties-d_156.html). The number used, 1.005 kJ / kg * K, was chosen because it represents the specific heat capacity for air between the temperatures of -50 dgeC and 40 dgeC.

Equation 2.0 - E = D * N * CPE * n * M

Distance Driven (D) The distance driven was chosen to be 300,000 as it was felt to represent the distance driven in a car over its life time. It was assumed this distance would be covered in about 5 years time by an average driver. Number of Drivers (N) The number of drivers was determine by using data compiled from two different sites. The first site (http://www.canadiandriver.com/news/060525-5.htm) gave the data for the number of cars per 1000 people for the United States, Europe, and China. The second site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Demographics_by_country) gave the populations for all three of these areas. These numbers were then used to estimate how many drivers each country has. The calculations in Table 2 were created by substituting the number of cars per 1000 people for Europe and China with the number of cars per 1000 people in the United States. This was done to illustrate the effect US driving habits would have on the world if other nations adopted similar driving cultures.

Table 3 Driver Data Europe II and China II are illustrative examples to demonstrate what amount of heat would be released if the European and Chinese populations drove the same amount as the American population.
cars/1000 people US Europe Europe II China China II 765 300 765 24 765 number of people 300,000,000 728,000,000 728,000,000 1,314,000,000 1,314,000,000 total cars 229,500,000 218,400,000 556,920,000 31,536,000 1,005,210,000

Chemical Potential Energy (CPE) The value used for the chemical potential energy of fuel, 34.6 MJ / L, was taken from the following site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content) Combustion Engine Efficiencies (n) The efficiencies of internal combustion engines are the most difficult of all data to find. For this reason a spectrum of possible efficiencies was used so that debates surrounding their value would be minimized. The information found on engine efficiency yields the following results. n = 40% (http://ffden2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_projects/Z.Yates/Zach's%20Web%20Projec t%20Folder/EICE%20-%20Main.htm) n = 20% (http://ecen.com/content/eee7/motoref.htm) n = 25% (http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/02/doe_cofunds_12_.html) Mileages (M) The mileages for 2007 small cars was calculated by taking the average found on the following page (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass.htm).