Calculator Sources
Sources of US Averages (Default Values)
Avg freight truck’s grams CO2 per ton-mile
Avg available seat-miles per gallon
Avg KWH per household per month
Avg therms of natural gas per household per month
Average pounds of trash, recycling, and compost per person per day
Conversion Factors
2000 pounds CO2 per US ton
1.102 US tons per metric ton
19.37 pounds of CO2 per gallon of motor gasoline
22.46 pounds of CO2 per gallon of diesel fuel
21.5 pounds of CO2 per gallon of jet fuel
.113 kg CO2 per passenger-mile of rail travel (converted to .000125 US tons)
53.06 kg of CO2 per mmBTU of natural gas (converted to .00585 US tons of CO2 per therm)
13 pounds of CO2 per US gallon of propane
24 pounds of CO2 per US gallon of heating oil
GHG Equivalencies Calculator (used to convert US tons CO2 to cars off the road and hectares of forest sequestering carbon for a year)
.341 US tons CO2 per ton of mixed solid waste landfilled (.00017 tons CO2 per pound)
-3.145 US tons CO2 per ton of mixed recyclables recycled (-.00157 tons CO2 per pound)
-.078 US tons CO2 per ton of mixed organics composted (-.000039 tons CO2 per pound)
Other Sources
Latest RGGI Proceeds Report (2022 data. Divided lifetime emissions reductions (7,507,128 tons) and lifetime energy bill savings ($1,808,879,901) from 2022 investments by total RGGI proceeds in 2022 ($1,193,619,000). Applied the ratios to each donation to find a quality estimation of the financial and environmental impact of that donation being reinvested by RGGI.)
Analysis of the Public Health Benefits of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: Found that RGGI resulted in ~$5.7 billion in health savings from 2009-2014. Applied the ratio of health savings ($5.7 billion) to RGGI proceeds 2009-2014 ($1.79 billion) to every donation to quantify the approximate health bill savings resulting from each donation.
Included in our RGGI reinvestment impact calculation is the amount of each donation that goes directly to RGGI. Since we do not know what the next auction will clear at, we use the clearing price of the latest auction in our calculations for a rough estimate.