In This Story
It’s pretty obvious by now that Elon Musk doesn’t really care about the environment. While he was once a warrior in the battle against climate change, or claimed to be, he has evolved into a climate denialist and seems intent on kneecapping whatever environmental and emissions gains Tesla may have made. So far this year SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 rockets 90 times, in addition to two launches for Starship and one for Falcon Heavy. The company has plans for at least 27 more by the end of the year. These 120 rockets will combine to produce an astonishing estimated 3.71 million metric tons of CO2.
One of Elon’s companies is emitting more carbon into American air than the other is saving, and it’s not close.
According to the EPA, the average American internal-combustion-powered car produces around 400 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, meaning the rocket emissions from SpaceX this year are equal to around 927,500,000 miles driven. Let’s do some math to give these numbers some context.
How Many Teslas Will Be Sold In The U.S. In 2024?
We already know the first half of the year’s Tesla sales, because Tesla has itself reported these figures. Sales are down pretty significantly from 2023 in the U.S. with an 8.5 percent dip in Q1 and a five-ish percent drop in Q2 to 386,810 and 422,405, respectively. Q3 isn’t over and Q4 hasn’t started, but based on last year’s numbers with a conservative five percent drop, we’ll see somewhere in the neighborhood of 413,300 deliveries in Q3 and 460,300 in Q4. Those numbers are related to global sales, and Tesla’s U.S. sales have been around 26 percent of that in recent years. Take 26 percent of the estimated 1,682,815 cars the company will sell this year, and that’ll tot up to around 437,500 cars making it to new owners this year in the U.S.
Annual Emissions Saved By 2024 Teslas Sold
The current U.S. electric grid emits around 475 grams per kilowatt hour of juice, and the average Tesla can do about 4 miles per kWh. For simplicity’s sake we won’t factor in weather or the transmission losses of the power grid. If the average Tesla drives 11,500 miles in a year, it’s using 2,875 kWh of electricity demand, which equates to 1.37 metric tons of emissions per car, or a bit under a third of what SpaceX rockets will emit this year.
Take that 437,500 cars and multiply it by 1.37 and you’ll get a stunning 599,375 metric tons of emissions, uh, emitted. The average gasoline car in the U.S. gets about 22.5 miles per gallon, emitting about 4.6 metric tons of carbon as a result. So the average person switching from an average gas car to a Tesla is reducing their carbon impact on the environment by around 3.23 metric tons annually. That same 437,500 cars is reducing carbon emissions by 1.4 million metric tons.
Keep in mind that the number of people ditching gas guzzlers for a Model 3 is probably pretty low, so these numbers will be skewed a bit high. If you went from a Prius to a Tesla, obviously your emissions reduction will be significantly lower than average.
Just How Much Is SpaceX Spewing?
Current estimates put a Falcon Heavy launch at about 79,000 metric tons of CO2, while a Starship launch is slightly less at 76,000 metric tons. The most common launch, the comparatively tiny Falcon 9, emits around 28,000 metric tons of carbon. And that’s before we even start talking about the soot, nitrogen oxides, alumina particles, methane, chlorine and hydrochloric acid emissions from each rocket. Not to mention the ozone depletion in the stratosphere.
The vast majority of SpaceX rockets are launched from Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Vandenberg in California, or Starbase in Texas. The company is looking into a second commercial launch location in addition to Starbase, and aims to continue increasing the number of rockets it sends up every year. SpaceX is its own biggest client, sending up the majority of its rockets to install Starlink low Earth orbit satellites to deliver internet to its customers. There are currently 6,350 Starlink satellites in orbit with plans to launch up to 28,000 more in the coming years.
Context
As Tesla’s production continues to decline and SpaceX is just getting started ramping up, these numbers will only serve to get worse in coming years.
SpaceX launches the vast majority of its rockets from U.S. soil. Elon Musk’s companies are adding more carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gasses to our local air than he has led on, and Tesla’s entire environmentally rational raison d’etre has become quite moot with this additional context. Musk has convinced millions of people that he cared about the air we breathe every day and the future of our planet, but he has turned around and betrayed that by spewing significantly more. He likes to act as though his companies are independent, but it’s quite clear that particularly SpaceX and Tesla are Elon Musk and Elon Musk is SpaceX and Tesla.
Tesla does sell cars in more countries than just the U.S., which helps a bit on a global scale. And most Teslas will still be on the road after their first year, which helps will also help reduce carbon emissions far into the future, but it’s clear that SpaceX is a large and growing issue when it comes to global greenhouse gas emissions. There are many reasons to curb Elon throwing his phalluses at the stars, not least of which is the rapidly increasing global emissions related to these launches.
