Champagne causes global warming !
August 23, 2007 – 11:28 amI was listening to the local radio this morning, a guy was talking about parkling wines and the different methods of creating the CO2 that makes them bubble. The radio was France Inter and the guy was Jean-Pierre Coffe, a well known food commentator who bravely defends the values of “La France” and its “ancestral” traditions. This guy is a real industry all by himself.
An idea popped up as I was hearing the word CO2 in nearly every sentence.
What about the CO2 contained in Champagne bottles ? Would all the CO2 produced to make sparkling wines, champagnes amount to something relevant or not ?
In other words, is Champagne a threat to the earth comparable to 4WD, coal energy or planes ?
After some googling, I was able to calculate that every year, in France alone, the total production of sparking wines, champagne included, amounts to 24 500 Tons of CO2 released into the athmosphere. (see below for the number crunching.)
So what is 24 500 Tons of CO2 like ? More googling … It amounts to driving 122 500 000 km (122.5 M km) or the equivalent of 10.000 cars for a year. Not bad !
And that’s just for France.
If you consider the US consumption of sparkling wines and champagne for 2005, you get 600 Tons of C02. Not bad either.
Imagine the total amount of C02 released in the athmosphere if you add up all sparking drinks : soda, beer, sparkling water and wine from all over the world. (Asti Spumante rocks !).
Just the amount of CO2 in Coca-cola cans and bottles must be enormous.
Conclusion :
a) I suspect that I have missed out on some fact that makes my whole computation totally wrong.
If someone reads that and can point out some irrelevancies, I’d be happy to know about it and correct this post accordingly.
b) I have wasted a couple of hours crunching data and numbers but it was fun.
c) Drink tea, tap water or non-sparkling wine, it’s best for the environment and yourself (if the wine is good that is).
Here are the figures and sources. All numbers are under the assumption of a temperature of 20°c and standard atmospheric pressure.
1) One bottle of champagne contains 4125 ml of C02 gas dissolved in the wine.
Not all the CO2 is released once the cork pops up. 750ml stays trapped in the wine.
So for each bottle of champagne that is opened, 3375 ml of CO2 is released.
[see : http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopam.htm]
2) Total production of sparkling wine in France for the year 2004 is 3.89 M of hectoliters
Which amounts to 2 860 M of 75cl bottles.
[see: https://www.panoramaiaa.agriculture.gouv.fr/[...]/champagnisation]
3) 715 liters of CO2 weights 1 kg
Let’s assume all produced bottles of sparkling wine have been opened.
The total weight of CO2 released in the athmosphere is therefore
Total Weight C02 = 3.375 Liters of CO2Â / (715 liters per kg) *Â 2,860,000,000 bottles
Total Weight C02 = 24.500 Tons
Other figures are :
Average number of kilometers per car in a year : 12 330 km /year
[see : www.securiteroutiere.equipement.gouv.fr/IMG/Synthese/EA_CIRCU.pdf]
Average per kilometer emission of CO2 : 200 g of CO2 / km
[see : http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk ] (I estimated the number after looking out exact car consumption of different models on this web site, but couldn’t find a official disclosed average)
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3 Responses to “Champagne causes global warming !”
Bear in mind that *all* yeast fermentation involves the transformation of sugar into the waste products of ethanol and carbon dioxide. Therefore to reduce CO2 production, you would need to forgo not only sparkling wines and brews like beer but also still wines and distilled spirits (not to mention leavened baked goods like bread and cake).
By Unbekannt on Sep 22, 2007
When I went to school, 1 gram molecular volume of an ideal gas occupied 22.414 litres, so since the Molecular Weight of CO2 is 44, the volume of 1 Kg of the gas is 509 litres, not 715 litres. Nevertheless, an interesting idea and one of consideration when we think about trapping CO2 instead of letting it loose in the atmosphere. One snag - how do we drink the sparkling wines without releasing the CO2 again - this could be a major waste of a lovely drink….!
By Trevor Crichton on Jan 23, 2008
As Unbekannt points out, the CO2 in Champagne stems from the yeast fermentation. In the production of all fermented beverages, CO2 is produced, whether it is trapped in the bottle (such as in Champagne or some beers) or released.
However, the calculation is not very useful with regards to climate change calculation because the CO2 released by fermentations of grapes was previously fixed from the air by the vines. Thus, the process is at least partially sustainable. Partially, since the production of Champagne has energy requirements, e.g. from harvest machines, bottling, heating, etc.
The release of CO2 from fossil fuels is not sustainable, unless we are talking in geological time frames (i.e. millions of years).
By Vino on Aug 4, 2008